I have Viofo 129 Pros. Looks like they now have a 229 Pro in various bundles.
At the time, I looked into various brands and models and was consistently finding so many models were the same device with a different brand on them. That was a huge turn off because it means no firmware updates, support, or a real company behind the product.
Here’s what I was looking for and think is good to be mindful of:
No large display screen
I didn’t want something with a huge display screen, because I don’t want my view to be obstructed by stuff on the windscreen.
No built in secondary camera
A secondary, driver facing camera built in. To achieve a second camera, in my opinion, the main exterior facing camera quality must be compromised to maintain overall price parity with single camera competitors.
Also, on the topic of insurance, there’s absolutely nothing an insurance company would see on the driver facing video that would be to your benefit. They’ll claim you didn’t look down at the speedometer once the entire drive before your accident and therefore they believe you to have been speeding. This also applies to law enforcement in my opinion. Everything you say / provide can and will be used against you.
Additive secondary camera
A number of models, Viofo included, have a input port on them to allow a second camera to be used to combine footage. Think of any video you’ve seen where the front facing footage has a smaller rear facing video in the corner. These aren’t bad, but I noticed that most of the rear facing cameras are lower resolution than the main camera. To me, this doesn’t make a lot of sense as there’s the same likelihood of an incident behind me as in front of me. This might not be an issue anymore, given its been five or so years since I bought mine, the new models might be 4k 60fps all the way around.
A minor detail is also that with additive cameras, a portion of the front view is obstructed in the recording by the rear view. Maybe this is circumventable, and they save as multiple files independently, I don’t know. The resolution thing bothered me more.
Personally, I don’t have rear specific cameras. All of mine are the 129 Pro model, each set to the same video settings. I’m kind of particular and wanted full 360° coverage, so each of our vehicles have four cameras, front, rear, and both sides. Obviously not exactly economical to start out, but one of the side cameras already paid for the entire camera set up in a sense as it captured someone breaking into a neighbour’s house and lead to arrests and prosecution. I call that a win.
Tactile buttons only
Capacitive buttons are garbage and should be outlawed in vehicles as you can’t feel for them. More specifically though, a dedicated toggle button for microphone recording. I like to have mine on in the event I need to read a license plate, or I am in an accident significant enough where recording a final message to family would be important.
That said, I do regularly turn the mic off when there are private conversations taking place, and this is important enough to me I feel it’s worth mentioning.
Night performance
The hard truth is that night vision is these cameras is never going to be great as the sensors are pretty small and they tend to adjust to your headlights anyway, but the Viofo cameras I’ve had have all been able to read a plate when illuminated. I wouldn’t count on it though, also read aloud the plate so the mic picks it up.
Parking modes
Most cameras have some for of parking mode, where they activate when it senses the vehicle get bumped. They do this with a g force sensor.
Not all, but some cameras, including Viofo, also have motion sensing abilities, so they will record a set length (5 or 10 minutes) after they see something move. These tend to have sensitivity options which is great if you live in a windy area with trees, because then it’ll basically be on all night.
There’s also just a time lapse option for when the vehicle is off, and the camera will just take a low frame rate video - as in 10 frames per minute - and kick up the frame rate if it sees something or experiences movement. In my mind this is the best of both worlds, so this is what mine are set to.
GPS
Some reviews I came across way back when were finding some cameras had GPS data displayed on the video with no option to turn it off. This data included the current speed of the vehicle. This circles back to giving the insurer or authority data that can incriminate you. You were going 55 in a 50 and so it’s your fault an inebriated driver went through a red light and slammed into you. No thanks.
That said, I do have the GPS coordinates displayed on mine. In the event the vehicle is stolen and found ditched somewhere, there’s a slim possibility the coordinates could come in handy. Unlike the speed display, the insurer would have to calculate travel speed based off changing coordinates which would be changing at a non standard rate. I find this an acceptable hurdle that an insurer would not traverse.
Capacitor, no battery
No nuance here, batteries tend to swell in the heat experienced by vehicles in the summer sun. Instead, having a capacitor solves this issue.
Memory card
Get the fastest and highest capacity SD card the camera you get will accept. No sense spending money on a good camera if the card fails you. This is a guide to understanding various SD card related terms. It has a good comparison table partway down.
Adhesive mounting, no suction cups
I prefer a bracket with adhesive that the camera clips into instead of a suction cup. I’ve had suction cups let go in both heat and cold. It’s difficult to achieve the same angle once it’s fallen off. Also, this happening while driving can be startling.
Versatility
Bit of a unique situation to my use case, but I often remove a couple cameras to attach to my bike when going on a ride with a lot of road riding, or sometimes with my family. I have mounts on my bikes I just clip them into and I slip a USB power pack in a pouch with a cable running to the cameras. Basically this let’s me not have dedicated bike cameras.
Insurance on your insurance
As I mentioned before, the camera can be considered your insurance policy. Something I recommend to anyone that asks about dash cameras is to consider guarding your possession of the camera a tertiary insurance policy.
If you are ever involved in an accident, don’t say a thing to anyone about the video evidence. Best case scenario, it throws a would be liar a curveball and they admit whatever fault is theirs. In my opinion, it’s not worth bringing up because of the risk that someone is desperate enough, they might try to commandeer the camera from your vehicle. This also helps trap someone in a lie should they go that route.
Final paranoia
I addition to your primary insurance (policy), your secondary insurance (the camera), and your tertiary insurance (not volunteering the footage), I also practice a fourth level of insanity - I mean insurance - whereby I keep extra SD cards in the vehicle so following an accident, I can quickly replace the cards with the accident footage on them with empty cards to record the aftermath.
This way if anyone sees the camera in the windscreen and removes the card or even the entire camera, I’m still covered. These extra cards aren’t huge capacity, maybe enough for an hour of footage.
I didn’t realise I had quite so much to say on this topic. Hopefully the insane parts were outweighed by the useful parts haha.
I’m with you there.
Not too long ago, my company was informed by letter (as you should have been) of a price increase. I can’t remember exactly, but I want to say it was a 600% increase on the company’s rates. There’s never been any claims on the policy, they just decided they could do it to enough of their clients, and probably enough would pay it that it wouldn’t matter they’d lose a bunch.
I understand the provide we switched to actually provides greater coverage for less than the original amount we paid the first provider. Unbelievable.
It wasn’t specifically for insurance reasons, but I got rid of my car after I noticed I wasn’t driving very far. Now we have a couple cargo trailers and we do the shopping and the errands just as easily and we’re saving tens of thousands doing it. We go through the winter as well, it’s not for everyone but dress appropriately and have lights and you’ll do great.