Inexpensive ($30?) dash cam USB battery powered microSD up to 64GB

I saw a guy disconnecting his dash cam off his rear-view mirror
as he parked on the street and I asked him what it was (I had
thought it was a really tiny GPS).

He showed it to me, and it was this really small dashcam that
he said he got for 30 bucks on the net, which had a 64GB microSD
card slot and a mini-USB charger port on the side.

It had a small screen of about an inch long, and a few
buttons. It was really small, about the size of a golf ball,
and the mount was a slot that clipped onto the mirror.

My question is WHERE can I find such an inexpensive dashcam?

Googling, I can't seem to locate a similarly small model.
I can only see the more expensive bigger models like these
http://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-dash-cam/
Or these:
http://users.tpg.com.au/agnet/cam1.html
Or these:
http://www.tested.com/tech/456565-best-dash-cam-your-car-costs-60/

The one I saw was really small.

 

Ahmed E. Souaiaia wrote, on Wed, 23 Apr 2014 18:33:50 -0500:

I suggest a cheap dash camera with some of the following specs:

1. SDXC-compatible if possible, so as to hold a 64GB SD card
2. micro or mini USB 2.0 charging & for video download
3. 640x480, 848x480, or 1280x720
4. 2 min, 5 min, 15 min, or continuous loop (with short gaps in between)
6. Motion activated and/or autostart
7. GPS & time stamp (black or white lettering)
8. Audio recording with mute
9. Tiny screen (to align) that can be turned off (to save battery)
10. Runs at least 1/2 hour on battery
11. Good night vision (very hard to test before buying!)
12. AVI container compressed with the H.264 codec
13. Discreet size and shape with no blinking lights when being used
14. Wide angle lens with wide dynamic range
15. Upgradable firmware
16. Ability to be hard wired so as to be a parking cam
17. Mil spec environmental conditions for heat/cold
18. Shock sensor to disable looping after a crash
19. Lock button to prevent overwriting after a critical event
20. Cheap, maybe $30 or $40 at the most

 

BTW, it's about 50MB/minute, so, plan accordingly.

 

Per Ahmed E. Souaiaia:

Check out some of TechMoan's reviews on YouTube.
He has a couple of favorites among cheap cams and some of them are way
small.

I have one of these http://tinyurl.com/jwlho7a and it's been pretty
good.

Probably could have gotten one for $30-40 from AliExpress, but I've read
that the problem with cameras like that which have such a good name is
that the market is full of knockoffs and ripoffs crafted to look/sound
like the real deal but nowhere near as good - so I went with a known
supplier.

 

There are many many many models out there. Some ship direct from sellers
in China. Odds of finding it without a model/mfg are pretty low.

Can try going through ebay sellers, but even then it might not be found.

 

Just out of curiosity...why?

What you're capturing is the road in front of you, right? What
happens there that you want to record and view later?

People ask my why I'm taking a photograph of this or that, and I don't
have to have a good answer beyond "because I want to", but I am
curious if that's your answer or there's something I'm missing.

 

there are many reasons for dashcams, including documenting what really
happened in a collision. that can backfire if you did something wrong,
but on the other hand, it can also mean winning. some dashcams have
motion sensors and can trigger if someone tries to steal or vandalize
your car. another use is for road trips, which are generally played
back at super-speed.

why does it even matter?

 

I'm not interested in why you think one is worth having. I'm not
interested in whether or not you think it matters. I don't need to
justify to you why it matters.

I'm curious about what Ahmed and Pete think and what has motivated
them.

You are quite welcome to jump into any thread in the newsgroup, but
your "why does it even matter?" comment indicates that your primary
interest is just to stir things up.

 

On 4/23/2014 11:43 PM, Tony Cooper wrote:

<snip>

Hard to think of a better reason, unless you're doing it to eat, etc.

 

Nah! nospam would never do that.

 

those are not my reasons. i don't even have a dashcam.

again, this is not about me. it has nothing to do with me. i'm telling
you why people get dashcams.

those are the main reasons. there are others too, but the only reason
that actually matters is that someone wants a dashcam.

whether you think it's a good idea or not makes no difference
whatsoever.

wrong. all i did was answer your question.

you are as usual arguing just to argue.

 

Per Tony Cooper:

Several reasons, drinking too much coffee probably being one of them.

But it's even worse: the cam I mentioned is facing backwards. There's
another, more expensive cam, behind the rear view mirror facing
forwards... and I'm still trying to figure out how to have 360-degree
coverage without a rat's nest of wires and devices.

My rationalizations were:

- The technology is there, it's reasonably priced, and being
a computer application developer I get off on stuff like this.

I got semi-addicted setting up a surf cam for a windsurfing
shop so people could see what's going on on the bay and not
call the owner every five minutes on windy days.


- I had been seeing more and more bizarre driving behavior and
it seemed like it would be entertaining to capture it.

Dunno exactly what I'd do with the captures... maybe start
yet another YouTube channels devoted to such stuff.

The precipitating incident was when some guy in a red sports car
passed me on the right - running the shoulder - at what seemed
like a very high rate of speed - as in the vicinity
of 100 mph - and disappeared from sight slaloming through
traffic. About 10 minutes later, I came upon an accident
scene: red sports car upside-down on the median barrier,
guy strapped to a spinal board being loaded into an
ambulance. Same car? Dashcam might have enabled
comparison of license plate numbers....

Of course, I haven't seen much of anything since installing
the cams.


- In some countries, people actually engineer traffic "accidents"
so they can extort money from the target of the crash.

My understanding is that's what is behind the wide use of dash
cams in Russia.


- After a crash, it *might* be good to have some footage.

Probably depends on who was at fault.

Of course I fully expect that, after an accident, I will find
that the critical camera's SD card had become corrupted weeks
ago and is useless..... -)


- OTOH, I can see the dash cams in the same light as my little
2KW generator: largely useless, but nice to have on those rare
occasions when the power goes out.

Dashcams record to an SD card and automagically rotate the clips
so the SD card is pretty much full and the clips on it are the
latest going back as far as the capacity of the SD card will
allow. The exception is certain cameras (as in my front-facing
cam) where a clip can be designated as a "Keeper" and kept
in a special folder from which it will never be deleted.

On this cam, I just bump the cam with my finger when I see
something entertaining. This creates a g-force event that
tells the cam to keep that clip in the special folder.

Usually there is a button on the cam for that purpose,
but bumping it is easier and more intuitive.

 

Per (PeteCresswell):

Some cams allow reviewing of clips via the cam, but my
take is that, for practical purposes, you need to pull
the SD card and plug it into a laptop or tablet to
get any meaningful functionality.

If something has just happened and you want to show
somebody - like a cop - the clip of the event, lots
of luck. I've never put a timer on it, but popping
out the SD card, inserting into another device, firing
up the other device, and then bringing up the clip has
got to take at least five minutes..... maybe more depending
on how shaken up one is. And that's assuming that
you even *have* said other device.

To me it's more like "Get home, swap out the card, sit
down at one's PC and then spend a half-hour or so isolating
the critical footage, transcoding it to a smaller file, and
then burning said file to media of choice or uploading
it to YouTube or Vimeo.

 

Fair enough. I don't think you need to have a reason other than the
fact that you want one of these things, but I was curious about your
thinking. You've expressed it well.

 

Raging cops and insurance disputes. My reason for running a camera is
the former.

 

Per (PeteCresswell):

"Mobius" is one that he really likes - and he says that many people are
using it as a dashcam.

http://dashcamtalk.com/mobius

http://www.techmoan.com/blog/2014/2...ra-and-some-accessories-to-make-my-ideal.html

 

I want one and I haven't even got a car. But for me I see them as inexpensive webcams.

 

Flared-cone (truncated hyperboloid?)-shaped mirror and some processing
software ought to do it.