Hello Scotty,
If you have a old Android cell phone ($0.00) you can you it as a dash cam. I bought a program called Auto Boy Pro ($4.99) in the app store (they also have a free version), bought a suction cup cell phone holder ($10.00), mounted to top of windshield to the right of rear view mirror. PROCEDURE: after you set up Auto Boy on your phone. START Auto Boy, place cell phone in holder with the back camera facing to the front, when you are done take phone out of holder pull down the notifications and stop the program. It has terrific video (based on the camera of the old phone you are using), it shows MPH and GPS location on play back. I too am cheap I have a 02 Highlander with 86,000 miles same color as your wife's Lexus.
Mike from Santa Clarita California
I mean… you spent $15 and you’re relying on an old android to have clear images in day and night.
DashCams are very important and I’d recommend going the extra mile and spending a whole 10-15 extra bucks on a compact, reliable higher quality solution.
I’ve owned cheap dashcams from YI and 70MAI (All part of the Xiaomi corporation - nicknamed “the apple of China”) and never had issues, they have great iPhone apps a to download videos and the quality is definitely good enough.
too much hassle. A dash cam needs to be automatic or it won't get used.
That sounds interesting, but since I don't have an old Android on hand, anybody have a recommendation for an inexpensive dash cam?
I just looked on Amazon, and they have 13 pages of dash cams, some as cheap as $30, but who knows which ones are good and which ones are junk?
Xiaomi MI, YI dashcams, 70MAI are all reasonably well built. Make sure to look at reviews before you go out and buy one.
I personally use a YI Dashcams Ultra 2.7k I got on sale for 55 bucks and as far as the quality it could’ve been a sports or even a cinema camera.
I use Blackvue cams and they work great. They are a little on the high side, but the quality is very good.
Thanks - FYI other folks, this is the link for the one he recommends (and yes, this one is automatic). Looks like a nice balance of price and function.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07CT6JPYW/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=scottykilmerc-20&camp=1789&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=B07CT6JPYW&linkId=2df3a66efa853c18dd7a4ab11959fdc2
I have one in my car and one in my truck. One is a Pruveeo F5, I've had it for a few years and it has done a great job, not sure about the other one. Regardless of what you get, you might want to check a few things:
- See if you have a 12V socket that only comes on when you start the vehicle (My F150 only had 'always on' 12V so I had to wire another outlet into the fusebox). It may not be a big deal on some cameras, but the cameras I have will run all the time if on a full time power socket and will drain the battery.
- Check the description for whatever you buy and make sure you can set it to automatically start recording when it gets power from the 12V, or that it has some sort of 'smart' feature that detects when you turn the vehicle on so it knows to start recording.
- Check the cord length in the description to make sure you have enough cord to hide behind trim, around the top of the windshield and to wherever your 12V outlet is located.
- Check the maximum micro SD card size it will handle and get a card that size, preferably a brand name card like SanDisk, Sony, etc. unless it calls for a specific card or comes with one.
- Make sure it 'loop records'.....in other words once the card fills up it starts overwriting the oldest video.
- If you want to get vids onto your phone easily, make sure it has some sort of Wifi connectivity and a phone app where you can pull the vids without taking out the SD card.
- Other things to check: video quality, night vision, recording options, sound options, etc....
That is all I can think of....I went through some really crappy cameras early on before I found some that actually worked like I wanted.
