Compact Full HD 1080p camera with night vision
Built-in G-sensor and Park Mode detector
Continuous loop recording for better storage
Features a photo mode, integrated speaker and microphone
140° wide viewing angle
Clear 3” LCD display
Kogan Car Dash Camera Video Recorder $45 Delivered @ DickSmith
10
jamesdeal on 02/08/2019 - 13:13 dicksmith.co.nz (142 clicks)
Last edited 06/08/2019 - 20:07 by 1 other user
Last edited 06/08/2019 - 20:07 by 1 other user
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Well most entry level Dashcams are around $200+ so I would assume no.
Can anyone confirm they're any good and is it a good deal?
Found this review. Not sure if its for this model tho. Sounds like its crap.
https://forums.whirlpool.net.au/archive/2258836
Why not use Autoboy on Android? Way better quality using your phone camera and can upload directly to Youtube. I used multiple dashcams in the past and a lot of low life thiefs break into your car to steal them, especially if you drive a nice car parked in a nice neighborhood.
Cool idea, didn't know about this sort of app. Just watched a 3 min review on youtube and looks pretty good, then I realised the video is from 2011 lol. Probably been updated since then.
One thing that does put me off with this sort of app though is battery. A while ago I spent 12 months driving all across Auckland a lot to various work sites and I'd have the navigation on a lot. After that year my battery was trashed. On the older Galaxies I could just swap in a new $20 battery. On our newer phones no such luck. I think the batteries have gotten better but I'm still really wary of anything that keeps the screen on or drains battery down now.
So that's one reason I'd rather spend money on a dedicated dashcam. But you're right about low life thieving scrotes - broke into my car and all they could find to steal was my windscreen mounted phone holder.
The dashcams all have crappy battery life, averaging about 300mah. So you'd have the exact same problem too. My solution was to use my car's usb port to charge the phone, or get one of those cigarette usb port dongles to charge your phone. Or, get a Xiaomi battery bank, but remember to take that out of your car as well. It costs more to fix the car windows than to buy these ascessories.
Lastly, Autoboy runs great in my phone and you can turn off the phone screen while it is running. For me, it drains less than 4% despite recording for an hour.
But yeah, phone camera quality is ao much better than dashcams, wider angle as well.
Does it heat up the phone?
@Banto: not for me no. It barely gets warm. I'm using a Galaxy S8+. But I'm also quite technical with phones and electronics in general, I am a power user and keep my phone in check. So that might be why.
Yes I thought of all that, I did have a car charger but using that causes heat on its own and so does just using the screen. In summer I had quite a few times where the phone suddenly announced charging had been suspended due to overheating. So that must tell you something and I'm not just being paranoid.
I also had another phone battery trashed after leaving it plugged in for a couple months (I expected that to happen but it served a need at the time).
So I'm careful with the battery in my main phone now they're not easily replaceable. (Maybe I can re-purpose an older phone).
Granted each phone will be different and yes I figured you could probably turn the screen off. The point is that I'd care less about a dashcam and be happy to run it off external power full time.
If I have to open up my Galaxy S7 to replace the battery I probably lose the waterproofing seal around the screen and would just rather not. So I think dedicated cams can still have their place. You asked why not and I'm just stating reasons for my reluctance.
4% is very impressive though and you have convinced me to try it out. Cheers.
@[Deactivated]: Yeah man, no worries. I'm not trying to convince you or anything, obviously go with whatever option you feel comfortable with.
Personally, my perspective on using a dashcam changed just a year ago. I've lived in 2 very good neighbourhoods and there are quite a lot of burglaries happening around the area (according to the stories that people posted on Neighbourly and according to my personal experiences). It's ironic, but you would think living in a good neighbourhood would be safe, but it's the opposite. Burglars target the rich neighbourhoods quite a bit and I've had my car window broken twice for 2 different cars (one of them is a crappy car and it still got targeted). It costs a good $300 to replace a window and the clean-up takes some effort/time as well. All because some low-life wanted to steal a dashcam that cost me $28 on Trademe (at the time). These are things that I consider nowadays, not just the ease of using something, but the potential risks as well.
And there were couple of times when I actually needed the footage and someone tried to fight me to take the microSD off the dashcam. If it's on your phone, you could simply hit a button within Autoboy (or some other dashcam apps) and upload directly to Youtube for backup & add redundancy. Just put it in your pocket and let the upload run in the background. With a dashcam, unless you get the expensive ones that can sync to your phone via bluetooth/wifi, then you're completely relying on the microSD not to crap out (or the dashcam to crap out).
I'm quite technical and rooted my phone (Galaxy S8+) and set up a lot of things to keep my phone in check. I get pretty good battery life out of my phone and it never gets hot or overheat, so maybe that's why this new method of using it as a dashcam works well for me. Plus, it's a company phone, so doesn't really matter to me whether it breaks or not.
For my daily use commuting to work, I would just let it run on battery and then charge it at work. This prevents any heating issue (if any) due to battery being charged while being used and I also get free power at work lol.
Anyway, just sharing my 2cents. Hope it helps and good luck to whatever options you choose.
@NovaAlpha: Haha nice, company phone :-)
Blooddy hell that's shocking to be assaulted for the sd card. Yeah it had occurred to me if there were ever some incident that might actually make things worse if someone realised it pointing at them. Sadly not surprising in this country now.
My area isn't particularly rich I don't think but it's the same local comments on Neighbourly, always car break-ins and random people snooping around down long driveways 'I'm looking for Phil' or 'I'm here to check your vodafone problem is fixed'. It's genuinely scary some of the stories you read on there. Two people dumped a stolen car on one fellows driveway recently claiming to have run out of petrol, harassed him and wouldn't leave until he relented and gave them $10 'for petrol'. Then still wouldn't leave, started asking who owned the other cars parked around the shared driveway and so on. WTF?? Some minutes later after they finally left the mans wife looked out the window and saw they'd set a fire on the driveway next to the dumped car. Fire dept and police involved… sigh just the sort of shite no-one needs to be dealing with ever!
Mine's a 17 year old Toyota Corolla (could replace it but it was my late dads) and I keep nothing of value in it. During broad daylight they broke my passenger window to take a $17 windscreen mount and my old loose driving glasses. Inexplicable, they're no good to anyone else and hardly designer spec frames. I'm convinced they took them just to spite me coz they found nothing else.
I hope they felt the slightest twinge of guilt when they saw my dads disability and RSA veteran badges in the glovebox.
And you're right, quite apart from the $300 to replace the window, although that was done professionally at Smith & Smith, the new glass came off it's mount the following summer (cheap glue?). So 3 years later I still can't use that window because it wants to fall down inside the door. Aris holes. They cause so much damage and hurt far surpassing the value of anything they obtain usually. Feeking scrotes and scum of society.
I got the app anyway. And another windshield mount. Will be trying it out tomorrow, thanks.
@[Deactivated]: Damn, that is scary and sucks to hear…I had a similar experience. One time, there were 2 maoris snooping around outside my house. I wasnt home and my neighbours told me about it after. They thought the maoris were gardeners. The thing is, my house has a gate and I have outdoor cameras and indoor ones. They had the balls to open the gate and walk down the driveway in broad daylight under multiple security cameras…
Yeah but you'd kill the battery in your mobile quickly if you used it as a dash camera.
Nope, my battery lasts all day. Just 4% drain per hour and screen is off while app is running. You can always charge it at work or with a portable battery bank. Have you actually tried it?
I have bought a few things from Dick Smith and Kogan - in general its fine, gotta watch the shipping for some things its free or good price, for other things the shipping is ridiculous, like $60 for a small item.
But in general its fine, until you have an issue, then its impossible. I had a cheap item, that was faulty out of the box, they wanted me to ship it back to Australia at my cost for them to assess - that was after sending a stack of emails and generally mucking about for a couple of weeks for a sub $50 item was not worth the hassle in the end.
Something to keep in mind.
Other option is to get the Xiaomi 70Mai dashcams in the ~NZD50 range. They are pretty good.
Are these any good?