Dash Cam

keith

Member
Messages
624
I am planning on fitting a dash cam (Thinkware F770).
I am going to get the hardwiring put in both my cars, and just switch the camera, as I use the Ghibli fairly infrequently.
Does anyone have any advice or experience of fitting location etc?
Thanks in advance.
 

GeoffCapes

Member
Messages
14,000
The dash cam on mine (although not fitted it to the BMW yet as it's not staying!), is behind the rear view mirror, so basically you can't see it.

If you don't want to see any wires etc, then you need to remove trim etc. which can be a bit of a ball ache.
Can't remember what make mine is, but I'm quite impressed with the picture quality. And it wasn't that expensive (£80 I think).
 

Scaf

Member
Messages
6,512
I have that same camera fitted to fine - front and rear hard wired. I can take some pics of how it looks in situ.
From camera is behind the drivers mirror on the passenger side and is unobtrusive, the rear camera is to the side of the high level brake light.
 

Wanderer

Member
Messages
5,791
Are there any dash cams that with an appropriate LTE connection, ie Three AYCE, that can stream the entire journey for family members to take a look re: progress etc?
 

lifes2short

Member
Messages
5,821
Good idea, it's exactly what I do with my classics, all are hardwired and just simply put camera into which ever is being used.
The daily runners each have a camera hardwired in, dead simple in the beemers to hide the wire and then use a piggyback fuse, not sure how simple it is in your motor to hide the wires
 

keith

Member
Messages
624
Thanks for the responses. I’m thinking with below or even on the sensor box that sits on the top of the windscreen behind the mirror, or as Scaf said on the passenger side.
My dealer said he’s happy to plum it in.
Apparently the F770 gives speed camera alerts, plus albeit of less value lane departure and front collision warning. Although those last two I expect I will end up switching off.
These latest cameras do without a screen and connect wirelessly to your phone for viewing and settings etc.
Finally in respect of Wanderers point, iCloud functionality is being introduced to allow for remote viewing.
 

Scaf

Member
Messages
6,512
I think the 750 (770 later model) are really good and have one in two of my cars, both front and rear hardwired giving parking monitoring etc.

The footage is saved in 1min clips so creating a journey to play back means dropping them into movie maker.

The clips can be viewed form the phone and downloaded although I tend to remember the memory card if I want more than a couple of clips.

The cops are saving automatically into separate folders such as “Parking” “incident” “continuous” which means important clips don’t get overwritten.

The speed camera alerts are very helpful, the lane control and distance alerts I have turned off.

Front

Rear
 

Scaf

Member
Messages
6,512
There is a “format disc” button that is easy to access if the blue lights are behind you.........

But yes works both ways, in my case I have had four incidents over the years where my dash cams have saved the day and an awful lot of hassle.
 
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Lozzer

Member
Messages
2,280
Ask MrMick, I think the ideal location is, windscreen , front grille, passenger door, passenger side rear door , rear window, rear bumper, and bootlid...all at the same time....... :D
 

Navcorr

Member
Messages
3,839
There is a “format disc” button that is easy to access if the blue lights are behind you.........
Unfortunately, this won't wipe any data permanently. It's only a high level format.
Besides, could a request to hand over such footage be refused?
Privilege against self-incrimination … not something I'd want to test though.
 

lifes2short

Member
Messages
5,821
am I missing something, what's the point in knowing speed and location anyway, if you are involved in an accident it should be fairly obvious from just the video footage who was at fault
 

CatmanV2

Member
Messages
48,547
am I missing something, what's the point in knowing speed and location anyway, if you are involved in an accident it should be fairly obvious from just the video footage who was at fault

Someone de-cars off video, reports the car stolen, says they were somewhere else etc etc

C
 

lifes2short

Member
Messages
5,821
Someone de-cars off video, reports the car stolen, says they were somewhere else etc etc

C

I do remember seeing something a couple of years ago where a staff member took a customers car out for a quick thrash around the area reaching speeds of 80/90mph not realising the thing was fitted and customer was none too pleased when found out and confronted the garage with the evidence with speed and route taken, what I've noticed lately is that some garages/main dealers disconnect the dash cams giving some lame excuse, think the service technicians are camera shy;)