How to choose a dashcam.

Dashcams come in many different form factors and designs allowing them to adapt to many versatile situations and tend to have features that reflect these situations.

Resolution

If you are in the market for a new dashcam resolution does play a decent role but you must understand there is trade offs for having high resolution cameras over lower resolution. High resolutions tend to offer lower framerates which leads to image bluring this makes it hard to see characteristics of objects such as people, objects and most significantly number plates. Resolution also affects the recording time that can be done on a dashcam the simple rule of thumb is bigger resolutions will take up more space a 4K video will take more space of a 256GB Micro-SD card than say a 1080P camera, it should also be mentioned avoid buying a dashcam which has lower than 1080P this will put you at a disadvantage, in terms of effectiveness, so stay away from those cheap 720P models, a good happy medium for the resolution is usually 2.5K or 1080P ideally 2.5K gives you the benefit of a decently high resolution and you can get models with 60FPS recording at this scale. 4K based cameras also tend to get hot fast, encoding 4K takes a lot of processing power for these little devices.

Frame-rate

To maximize the effectiveness of a dashcam actually capturing an event such as an impact and holding a record of the actual event and number plate involved you want to look at a dashcam with a high frame-rate higher frame-rates are less likely to cause image blur leading to a reduction in visibility of the individual or vehicles involved. Ensure you look at cameras with at least 60FPS this will ensure it captures everything you need.

FOV - Field of View

Cameras all have something called a field of view this is how far due to a combination of lenses and size of the CMOS sensor can see wider the FOV the more the camera can see. So you want a camera that covers at least 100° of vision this will ensure it captures all those important events on the camera, if possible get an even wider FOV that covers more than 100° ideally between 100° and 120° that closely matches our actually FOV.

Additional Camera Modules

In the case you want to use the camera for simply rear and front you'll want a camera with the ability to plug in a multi-channel system what this does is connects the camera to 2 indepedent input channels that have different cameras connected, such as a rear and a front, or in the case of those of you who do ride sharing and Uber a 3 channel system which allows for rear, front and interior view.

Fuse-taps

To allow a camera to continuously record even when the ignition is turned off, you may want to purchase a fuse tap kit simply connect this into a fuse socket in your vehicle which commonly always has power, you can refer to to your vehicle manual for both the location of the internal fuse box and find an "always on" fuse socket.

Data-services

Commonly dashcams will sync to an app stored on your phone via an adhoc WiFi network bridge provided by the phone and if it has cloud sync enabled on the camera it will sync to your dashcams cloud storage system, you'll find the same technology here when you use the WiFi connection which sync's your phone to an Apple CarPlay or Android Auto system WiFi is used because bluetooth simply cannot send enough data to access all the app based functional on the phone. The second less common way some dashcams will sync to the cloud is via a cellular module, these are commonly found on BlackVue based cameras, which is effectively a mobile internet "dongle" but the antenna provided by the BlackVue is larger and more capable than a conventional phones antenna and higher power, this eliminates the need for the dashcam to sync to the phone and can instead send straight to the cloud for storage.

Another feature which may come under data services some dashcams have high precision GPS modules for absolute accuracy when an event happens again this is a feature offered by some dashcams but most commonly BlackVue which allows it to track speed and position with recorded events.

Auxiliary battery modules

In some cases dashcams can have an auxiliary battery module this means when the camera is connected to the vehicle instead of drawing on the vehicles standard battery it will pull from this auxiliary battery again this is a feature common to BlackVue. It should also be noted some dashcams carry an internal battery as well, but many manfacturers prevent you from replacing this battery yourself because they do not want you doing it, anticompetitive anti-right to repair garbage. Just make sure you are aware of this. https://www.blackvue.com.au/accessories/blackvue-b-112-battery-pack/

Parking sensors and impact detection

This should make perfect sense whena vehicle is parked you want the camera to kick in in response to either an impact or another event you can calibrate them to activate on movement or impact or both. In such as case when a vehicle accidently runs into you and results in damage you want to capture that event and number plate, you will need a dashcam with a fuse tap to ensure this works.

The other less known feature you should know about is accident detection, dashcams some now provide a subscription service that is an SOS feature where it automatically calls emergency services in the event you are knocked unconcious. This doesn't cost an excessive amount but to get more information about this I recommend you reach out to Nextbase to confirm the feature functionality.