On offer Thursday for £39.99 for anyone who is interested.
Three years guarantee - would be amazed at any dash cam that lasts this length of time so could very easily end up being refunded your money sometime down the line!
www.lidl.co.uk/en/our-offers-2491.htm?action=showDetail&id=25365
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I would consider a dash cam (and rear) if there wasn't the need for lots of wires.
I wonder how long before this is a feature on cars? For auto-headlights for the LED variant or infinite adjustment type for Bi-Xenon, a camera is needed. Cars have speed sign recognition. Surely this will be an option.
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I'm amazed that new cars don't have a number of USB sockets where they might be useful eg. on the top of the dash.
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Understandably, for commercial and safety reasons, car makers would rather buyers specified their own, built-in devices than aftermarket alternatives. We already see an alarming number of vehicles with phones and navigation screens suction-padded to the screen in the driver's line of view. Dash-top USBs would only encourage this, and there'd be more hard, heavy objects in places where they could come loose in an accident and be flung about by the airbags.
Drivers will find ways to be idiots anyway, but we don't need the car makers to make it easier for them. Built-in cameras will come soon, I'm sure, but the camera trend has been recent and rapid and has probably taken the makers by surprise.
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>> www.lidl.co.uk/en/our-offers-2491.htm?action=showDetail&id=25365
Or if you just want to have a play with something, I bought this £10 one from Amazon a few months ago, and it seems to work quite well. Don't actually use it now though due to the wires issue.
www.amazon.co.uk/1280P-VISION-ACCIDENT-CAMERA-Recorder/dp/B0085ZD17G
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Like this dashcam or similar, but would want to feed the wires via the A pillars for a neat job and they contain air bags...:-(
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My dash cam has 2 inches of visible wires.
One inch from the camera to the roof lining surround at the windscreen and the other inch where it plugs into cig light socket.
Cable runs along edge of windscreen, tucked into the Windscreen pillar, then down the rubber stripping at the door, under and behind the glovebox and then out just beside gear stick.
A five minute job at best and no danger with airbags etc.
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Can you not get access to the door rubber and hide behind that running parallel to the A pillar trim ? That was to Stuartli
Last edited by: gmac on Thu 23 Jul 15 at 10:47
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>> Like this dashcam or similar, but would want to feed the wires via the A
>> pillars for a neat job and they contain air bags...:-(
Why not feed them up into the roof where the interior light feed is? You can also hook up a USB power outlet to run it - e.g. www.ebay.co.uk/itm/141049368893 (I know someone who has used these with no problems)
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Others are welcome to try it but I'm reluctant to start taking a lease car apart...
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This is a slightly different type of dashcam and just £20:
www.ebay.co.uk/itm/381122925587?_trksid=e100084.m1843&_trkparms=clkid%3D7759648426786126578&_qi=RTM2014608
Re the windscreen pillars. I'd rather not mess around with the "works" trying to fit thick cables into them..:-)
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I have two of the ones Focus has. Fitted front and rear on the Vitara and plugged in al the time.
The cable is very thin and you can only really see the end at the camera next to the mirror and the.end at the plug. The rear one has to be fitted at the hinge side of the rear door and the socket is on the other side but it wasn't hard to run the cable under the trim across the 'boot '.
32 GB card at the front and 8GB at the back. I carry a couple of spare cards in the car.
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Why does a camera need power from the car at all? Given where it needs to be sited, it should be easy to supply it from a photovoltaic cell, which could charge a battery to keep it going at night.
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I read the blurb on the box of one of these cameras today, it had words to the effect of " It works at night on streets with good lighting". I did not buy one.
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>> Why does a camera need power from the car at all? Given where it needs
>> to be sited, it should be easy to supply it from a photovoltaic cell, which
>> could charge a battery to keep it going at night.
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I think you've never had one of these cameras. The battery inside the case lasts about 20 minutes on a good day. The heat some of the smaller cameras put out drastically shorten the life of any battery.
Some development work is required before manufacturers fit them as standard. One permanently hooked up can drain an 80Ah 12v battery in fewer than 10 days.
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I wonder if my nephew's drone camera would work in a car windscreen? I don't see why not. The thing doesn't use all that much juice, and it focuses very quickly on anything it sees, the lens shooting in and out all the time. Perhaps the angle could be widened if it was mounted rigidly, pointing straight ahead. Of course it would make all of you and your jalopies look like gypsies as you flashed or mimsed past.
I'll have to ask a 13-year-old I suppose, or if it comes to it a 35-year-old.
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Quite a few would say they've already got a drone. It usually sits in a passenger seat......
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Lidl dash cam - rtj70
