Looking for feedback on Dash Cams. With the price of our trucks approaching the cost of a small house I'm wondering what y'all might be thinking about or doing concerning installing a Dash Cam in your truck. I've been looking at 2 channel devices that are equipped with a parking mode feature. There are several out there. Looking for ideas on who's using what, how did the installation go (permanent or removable) and how do they look from the inside and outside.
I am using the Viofo A129 Dual HD dashcam. It's full HD with a front and rear camera. The front cam is wedge shaped and sits high on the windshield near the headliner....out of the way. The rear cam is up high and dead center of my back glass and I bent a 1" wide aluminum strip to make a bracket that slips behind the headliner to hold the rear cam so it isn't touching the glass which would interfere with opening the back window. It is at the extreme edge of the glass up high, just low enough to have a full rear view.
The dashcam records full HD front and rear 24/7 since it has a parking mode which uses time elapse or reduced bitrate while the ignition is off for more than a selectable time. I hardwired everything. All wires are totally hidden. The 3 wire hardwire kit is 20 bucks and has an inline device to turn off the cam if battery power falls below a user selected value. I selected 12.2v. That allows it to run at least 24 hours parked without deep cycling the battery. Any longer and it shuts off. You can go as low as 11.8v for longer park mode time. It prevents draining the battery so the truck won't start.
The A129 is top rated by users who have also used more expensive brands. $170 for the A129 and $20 for the 3 wire hardwire kit. Another $15 for a Center Polerized Lens filter to eliminate front windshield glare and dash reflection in the image. $15 for the Bluetooth remote mount button used to trigger an HD photo on demand (optional).
The dashcam has 5ghz wifi interface and smartphone app to view recordings or live images anytime. Also great for aiming the cams during install.
Uses up to a 256GB micro SD card (not included). Get one rated at 100MB per second. You'll have to format it using the dashcam. Microsoft doesn't format Fat32 over 32GB.
The A129 has NO BATTERY. It uses a super capacitor which won't fail in high temps. Dashcams are notorious for dying due to heat if you live where the summer sun gets hot. The cam sits baking in the sun behind glass. No matter what you get, consider models that use a "super cap" instead of a battery.