CHOICE have and continue to review Dashcams, the latest being dated Feb 2020. I have moved your post into the topic that covers this.
The Community members will certainly provide you with some choices and their experiences with dashcams.
We went with the Uniden iGO 85R which comes with a rear camera. The front facing camera is a bit fiddly to take out or put back in but that shouldn’t need to happen often, or hopefully at all. It has a pretty good angle of view at I think 160 degrees but might be 150. It has reasonable (but not great) poor light pickup but I’m sure there are better.
We’ve updated our dashcam review for 2021, plus see our buying guide for general tips.
Plus, here’s a question we received; has anyone experienced damage to their dashcams due to high temperatures (for example, when a car is left out in the sun on a hot day?).
Not so much our dashcam as the microSD card was damaged. The high heat caused the card to warp slightly and couldn’t be removed in-situ, I had to remove the dashcam and eventually broke the microSD to extract it. I now use a much more expensive brand of microSD in hopes it was just a poor quality make of microSD. I wish the dashcams did not come in black, their temp gets too hot to handle particularly as they are at the top of the windscreen and so close to the glass with little or no space to ventilate them. Part of our issue may have been that the camera was between the sunshade and the glass which added to the heat load.
White or some less “sun hot” colour would be my preference. If someone has had their dashcam damaged it wouldn’t surprise me after our microSD card issue. The Lithium standby batteries certainly don’t like the very high temps that are possible in a car, they tell you not to leave your phones or personal cameras exposed to the Sun in cars, what would make the dashcams so different to these extreme temps. The LinkT dongles come in white which makes me think they looked at the colour as being less likely to overheat the device.
The high temperature will not only decrease the life of the lithium-ion battery but also bloating battery. The maximum temperature of the summer will bearable at 50 degrees Celsius because after it the battery will stop charging or also blast at some point. At high temperatures, the lithium-ion battery is at risk.
Although some of the lithium-ion batteries are made with a protected shield that gives it protection in severe weather. It will not only save it from any bad incident but also save the life of the battery. Lithium-ion batteries need care in severe weather especially in hot weather where there are more chances of swelling batteries and battery blast."
Most cameras operate from the car battery, but for a camera with internal power source it is probably safer to use one with a super capacitor rather than a Li battery.
I’m looking for a new camera for my bicycle, after the rather expensive Cycliq (for what it does) failed rather sooner than hoped for. I suspect vibration from terribly rough roads killed the on switch, but have had issues with files being unplayable and water ingress, not to mention the flimsy plastic mounting system.
Currently looking at motorbike cameras, there are some lightweight and very compact models available, which could be used on a car.
Most batteries have operating temps up to 55°C. Inside a car can easily exceed this parked in the sun almost any time of year. This reasons that there is potential for (premature) battery failure.
Likewise with electronics, these devices work best at ambient air temps or higher temps if there is cooling. Dashcams don’t have cooling, so there is a high risk of overheating in a hot car. Being black in colour, only makes the problem potentially worse.
It does support the argument to remove dashcams when a car is parked…usual reason is to prevent theft, maybe the real reason is because of potential overheating damaging the dashcam.
What use then the parking mode setting where it keeps activated to ensure when your car gets bumped while parked there is some evidence of who dunnit., taking the dashcam out makes this mode useless. I actually think you may be right about the real reason.
An article from Shell regarding dashcams and other useful vehicle accessories.
I will buy an escape tool but I hope any idiots who still use their mobiles whilst driving will not think that
the car desk/tables can circumvent the new phone detection cameras.
Perhaps they can simply place their scalding hot coffee on the tables next to their mobiles.
I actually think you may be right about the real reason.