This is part of the A Roadtrip with Roav/ We Love testing Program Here
The dash cam is something of a necessity in todays day and age. With so many things going on in the world we have to find a way to protect ourselves and our property, fortunately we can do so while driving with the use of a dash cam.
Upon receiving this dash cam I opened up its orange and white box, inside was the dash cam surrounded by foam to help protect it. Underneath the foam we have a trim tool, 2- stick on plates, a Micro SD card, and a 10’ power cord along with the manual and safety guide.
Because the dash cam attaches to the windshield with a stick on backing plate, you have to make sure to clean the surface and test fit before you peel the tape off the plate and put it into place. It is rather hard to remove the plate so make sure you test fit and put it where you want it first. I stuck mine underneath my mirror as it was the most ideal spot, I cleaned the surface and pressed it into place for about 5 seconds. I then slid the dash cam onto it, make sure it clicks otherwise it can come loose with vibration. I then ran the wires up to the roof and hid them along the windshield/roof line…I didn’t need to use the trim tool for my car since my headliner already had a spot for wires to run, but others may need it and its great the Anker provides the trim tool.
Its a good idea to setup your dash cam Before installing it, I made the mistake of installing it first and had to walk through the setup while mounted to the windshield…it takes a bit of force to remove it from the mount once its snapped into place and I ended up breaking a nail removing it. Once configured, every time I start my car it automatically starts to record your trip. You can set the interval for the video loops from 1-3-5 or 10 minutes, you can also choose your resolution and frame rate. I set mine to 1080p@60 fps for the best clearest picture. I also set the sensitivity level, set parking monitor and adjusted the screen timeout delay. Once set and placed in my car, anytime I started the car it would begin to record and stop recording once i turned the car off…it would record for an additional 30 seconds and then go into parking monitor mode. Any swift shake or sharp vibration to the car that transfers to the camera will set it off and it begins to record.
This camera has a Sony starvis cmos sensor and its suppose to be really great, which allows it to take awesome videos day and night, the camera also has Nighthawk vision for excellent night time recording. The problem I have with these two is that minor user error can cause all sorts of problems for these sensors. Not the cameras fault but the fault of my own and my rush to install the camera, I didn’t realize there was a plastic lens cover on the camera so when I installed it I got nothing but glare from any and every light source there was. And since I left this in my car I didn’t realize just how bad the glare is until I went to review my footage…to make matters worse, when I went to delete some of the footage I ended up deleting all of it. So I will go out tonight and record some more footage, this time with the lens cover removed. sorry folks, I’m a spaz and am a victim of my own excitement.
As far as the camera goes, its small size will allow mounting it out of site and if done properly no one would know it was there. It can be easily accessed from the app, so you never have to touch the camera unless you wanted to…or you want to bring it inside because it can be painfully slow to transfer the files from the dash cam to your phone. I really don’t know why its so slow and takes so long as up to 30 minutes for 1 10 minute file, but it really is a pain. The screen is small and can be hard to make out details when viewing the videos on it, but you generally wouldn’t use the camera itself for viewing and would use the app or your computer. Do not remove the micro SD card to extract the footage, unless you want to reformat the card every time you put it back in. I made that mistake and had a few corrupted files from doing so.
If your in the market for a dash cam, this would make a great starter camera. But, if your looking for something with a bit bigger screen then go with the C2 Pro as you have the suction mount and it has the sony starvis and Nighthawk sensor
Ps, I wil update this with additional video once I get them
Update 11/19/2018:
So after having and using this more I see that its not without its faults. More specifically it needs a cal filter badly, I will be making my own soon, but for now here are some videos as promised earlier. You can see that at night and in the rain there is horrible glare from oncoming lights and reflection off the windshield doesn’t help any. This cam works great during the day and is nice and clear, but the moment it starts to get dark the oncoming lights seem to overwhelm the sensors a bit. I have compared the video to my inlays dash cam and they experience the same thing so i can’t complain too much seeing as theirs cost 200 dollars and this is less than a hundred. Once I make a cal filter I will post updated videos to show the difference.
