what's a good cheap dash cam?

spaceboy

The cheaper the better but still good. Car has a USB-C port at the rearviewmirror to plug into.

Grumpy_chap

Good and cheap are not necessarily the same thing.

I have had some good Nextbase dashcams - easy to use, good video.
Mine was connected from the cigarette lighter.  I don't know whether it could be simply connected to the USB port that is available.  You will need to check, but I suspect it may be as I can't think what else that USB socket in that location would be for.
Their cheapest model on the Halfords website today is £59.  You may find cheaper if you shop around.

What do you consider "cheap"?

Goudy

The Viofo A119 always gets good reviews, though not the cheapest.

70mai make some cheap cameras that are fairly fuss free.
The M300 is around £30 on Amazon. It's pretty basic but does the job.
The A500 Pro Plus is around double for the front camera but it's a very good camera.

If you keep your eye on Amazon, there are often deals on various Nextbase models.
The 222xr (front and rear kit) was around £75 until recently, that was cheaper than the front only 222 from Halfords.

Pretty much any Dashcam will come with the standard, cig lighter charger but that's not to say you have to use it.
The most common alternative is to hardwire them into the fusebox with a hardwire kit for around £15.

To work properly, ie to come on and go off on the cars ignition, you need to connect to a switched live (a feed that becomes live when the ignition it turned on) with a hardwire kit, you piggyback a switch fuse with the kit.

Your USB C socket by the mirror needs checking it it's switched or or not. Just plug something like a phone into it and see if it only charges with the ignition on.

If it is switched then yes you can use that if you buy a suitable cable.

Most Dashcams have a USB Mini socket on them, so you would need a USB Mini male to USB C male cable.
Again, Amazon is your friend and shouldn't cost more than £10.

droopsnoot

I have a cheap one, and it's not great - I wish I'd spent a bit more. The pictures are OK, but not great, and the app for it requires lots of permissions on my phone that I'm not prepared to grant it (access my contacts, send text messages etc.), so getting any footage off it means taking it in the house to download it. I won't put the make on here as I'm not sure of the "name and shame" rules so err on the side of caution, also I've had it about five years so they might be selling better ones now.

Spend the bit extra and get something decent.

spaceboy

Grumpy_chap said:

Good and cheap are not necessarily the same thing.

I know. That's why I used both words and not just cheap.

uknick

Most, if not all, dash cams work ok during the day.  But night time is a completely different matter.  My original Tesco service station cam, cost about £30, from a few years ago just about showed recognisable cars at night, forget about number plates.  My current Nextbase, cost about £100, is much better showing number plates but it can be difficult to read them in some circumstances.

It all depends on what you want the cam for.  If you want it to record someone hitting you, cheap is probably OK as your witness statement will state date and time of accident and the video footage will record a car hitting you at that time.  It's very unlikely you'll be hit twice at the same time 

But, if you want high definition video showing identifiable faces and number plates you'll need to spend more.

It's worth checking out some YouTube videos on the subject to get an idea of video quality. 

Goudy

YouTube uses video compression, so you'll never get a real sense of cam video quality from their.
You won't see any differences on there unless the original file was at least 2K.

Have a look at this site.
DashCamTalk

powerful_Rogue

I bought this one in October and hard wired it in. Very happy with the video quality.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B098WVKF19/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1

uknick

Goudy said:

YouTube uses video compression, so you'll never get a real sense of cam video quality from their.
You won't see any differences on there unless the original file was at least 2K.

Have a look at this site.
DashCamTalk

True, but you can use it for comparative purposes.

Silverbirch28

Has anyone hard wired a front & rear dash cam to a hard top convertible?  Want to install one in mine.

RichardInDorset

spaceboy said:

The cheaper the better but still good. Car has a USB-C port at the rearviewmirror to plug into.

Be careful to double check that whatever dash cam you're looking at will not cause a problem with any 'smart' tech on your car. I have a Subaru and the on-board system for anti-collision, smart cruise control and lane detection requires nearly all of the windscreen to be kept clear of objects, so nothing attached to the windscreen apart from in the bottom corners of the screen.
Find a forum for your car and see what others have fitted,