The Wosson guide to Dashcams!
They say never leave your house without…your keys, your phone, your coat? We say never leave your drive without a dashcam!
Let’s face it, pretty much every driver has an anecdote of something that they’ve seen or been involved with while they’ve been out in their car. Whether its something serious such as; a collision, a crime, a road rage incident or maybe just some general dodgy driving!
We won’t fill this post with anecdotes or videos of bad driving as there are plenty of websites already doing this but with the average family car costing upwards of £20K then a dashcam is a relatively inexpensive add on that could turn out to be one of the best purchases you make this year.
There’s certainly plenty of choice out there but before you jump in and make a purchase there are a few things that you may wish to consider before reaching into your pocket:
What do you want to achieve?
It’s always worth remembering you get what you pay for but if it’s just to cover basic road risks then maybe you should just look for a quality dashcam with entry level features. If you would prefer a unit with extra features such as; QHD or UHD 4K video, the ability to view the footage via an app on your smart phone, cloud connectivity, speed camera alerts, ADAS etc etc… then perhaps an entry level camera isn’t the best fit and you should look at some of the higher end models.
What type of vehicle is the Dashcam for?
For family cars and very light commercial vehicles (such as tradesmen’s vans) a Dashcam is great option and can deliver tangible benefits.
For taxis and larger commercial vehicles (while a car dashcam is certainly better than nothing) there are other options that would be better suited to these types of vehicles. Wosson? offer a range of “Commercial Vehicle Dashcams” and our “Wosson Pro MDVR system”
How many cameras?
Generally Dashcam’s come in two flavours – Forward Facing or Forward and Rear. In most cases a “Forward facing camera” will provide enough coverage for the average car but some customers do opt for “Forward and Rear”.
Taxis for instance often require an internal camera to record the driver and the vehicle occupants but with the limited recording times of a standard dashcam they often opt for a much bigger system such as our “Wosson Pro MDVR”
Plug and Play or Professionally installed?
A “Plug and Play” unit is great for swapping between vehicles but they do have some downsides as they are very easy to accidentally unplug, take up the 12v socket in your vehicle and have untidy wires inside the vehicle. A professionally fitted unit is much tidier, leaves the power socket free to charge your phone and can offer added benefits such as parking modes etc.
Before you jump in to install your new dashcam yourself we do have another “Wosson ‘Ere” post all about installations which you may also like to read
SD Cards
You may have a top of the range camera but if you are using an inferior or old sd card then your top of the range camera may not be recording any footage at all and you may not find this out until its too late!
Most of the camera manufacturers supply their own brand of sd cards. These are usually more expensive than an online purchase but they are tested thoroughly with that particular camera and meet the correct specification so although the cost may be slightly higher they present better value for money.
Another top tip is that the SD Card is a wearable part and does need to be replaced periodically. Unlike a tyre where you can see it is worn out the sd cards read and write speeds will slow down over time and this can cause the flash memory in the card to fail or corrupt. Each manufacturer has their own guidance so its worth asking about this or looking this info up in the cameras instruction booklet.
Parking mode
Some customers request the camera has the ability to continue recording when they are away from the vehicle and many cameras do offer this feature. It is well worth noting that the camera does become a parasitic power draw on the vehicle though so we always recommend using a camera that has a power down timer or even better where the camera monitors the vehicles battery voltage and powers off the camera when the voltage hits this parameter. After all it’s much more important that when you turn the ignition key the car has the power in the battery to start the engine.
Here at Wosson? we offer a range of competitively priced Dash cameras from well known brands such as; G Net, Thinkware, Blackvue, Vueroid etc... and we are always happy to listen to your requirements, discuss options and make recommendations.