Keethos 842 Report post Posted February 21, 2014 I finally pulled my finger out and started to look at some dashcams. Some people have gone for the RoadHawk or the BlackVue ones which are pretty pricey but well equipped, stuff like GPS, display screens or WiFi to stream images to your phone via an app and what not. When after a bit of research and being a bit stingy yet cunning, I thought carefully about what I want from the camera and what I'm going to be using it for. Well my research lead me to the Mobius ActionCam: Mobius ActionCam: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151071891306?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 Windscreen Sticky Mount: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/161054762107?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 (they also sell other mounts like suction mounts, straps etc) 3 Meter USB to Mini USB Car Charging Cable: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/151072001797?ssPageName=STRK:MEWAX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1423.l2649 The Mobius camera is actually an ActionCam (like the GoPro) but a lot smaller and not as well equipped but still has pretty good video quality, see these comparison videos: As you can see from the videos, the Mobius is very good compared to the GoPro in the right conditions. It's smaller, it's a hell of a lot cheaper and a lot more discreet which is great for a Dashcam. It can record in 1080p @ 30fps, 720p @ 30 or 60fps, it has a 120deg viewing angle and it can take stills of up to 2304 x 1536 size pics. The format it records in is .MOV so VLC or Quicktime will play it no probs and these can also be uploaded to Youtube no problem at all without converting it etc. It has the same features as you would expect from any type of Dashcam, it can record segments that are 3, 5, 10, 15min (it does record continuously, it just breaks the video up into smaller files with roughly 1sec overlap so you don't miss any footage) or until the file reaches 4gig (as the MicroSD card will be FAT32 or exFAT). If you memory card gets full, you can get it to overwrite the older videos for an infinite loop of recording, but when you capture something you don't want to lose like a crash, some idiot on the road or a track session, you can press a button to lock the footage so it doesn't get overwritten. The camera will power on as soon as the car is on and I've set it so it starts recording straight away and then powers off straight away when I turn the engine off, this is all down to the 12v source of the car which only powers on when the car is on. Now the downside to this camera is that it doesn't have any fancy extras or features compared to some dashcams which have a built in LCD screen (or WiFi signal to view via your mobile/app or something) to see what the camera sees, but why would you want to see what the camera sees while you are driving, it's only useful to set the camera in the right position and for it to point in the right direction but once you done that, there's no reason to look at it again (though you can hook it up to head unit if you have the right cables so I could use my reversing camera signal with this camera instead to display what the camera is looking at but I didn't bother, I just roughly pointed it in the direction I think it will need to look in and to my surprise, I was bloody spot on ). It doesn't have GPS so you can't track your position and speed but I don't need that, I've got my phone with the Torque app to do all the for me. Also, to change any settings on the camera, you have to plug it into a PC (though you can use your phone too but not managed to get that working) and you can either edit a text file or just download a program for a nice GUI to use instead - http://www.mytempfiles.info/mobius/ This site has the software, instruction manuals and what not on there. The real beauty of this camera is it's small, very subtle/discreet and pretty cheap (roughly £50 for the camera and the extra bits but excluding a MicroSD card), but with pretty good quality video capturing capabilities. I can fit it and forget it where as with a fancier camera that stands out a bit more, I'd be more inclined to take it off every night. Some people have been able to use 64GB Micro SDs with their cameras but it officially only supports up to 32GB (mainly due to windows not recognising the card I believe, not the camera not recognising it), I actually brought myself 2 Kingston 32GB class 10 cards for roughly £13 each, this will give me roughly 5 hours of recording each but again, they can recycle the recordings, reason I've brought 2 is so I can always have one in the camera while I take the other card away to extract the footage off etc, plus this way I don't accidentally overwrite anything if I forgot to press the button to lock the footage and this way I can use 1 card for a whole trackday and still have another for the journey to and from the track. Here's a pretty good review of the camera: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wmIyD1fM4M Installing the 3m long USB to Mini USB was relatively straight forward and simple: The edge of the roof lining has a slight gap and is flexible so you can actually just tuck the cable into the roof lining without having to take anything off (I used a plastic card to help me tuck the cable into the lining). I followed this all the way to the door pillar: Here if you pull the rubber seal open, you can actually see the edge of the plastic pillar cover, you can actually just tuck the cable into this gap and it should just about tuck behind the plastic pillar cover (so again, no need to remove any trim here). Start moving down the pillar while lifting the rubber seal and pushing the cable in until you get down to the dash. Remove the side panel that houses the baby passenger air bag switch by digging your fingers into the little hole at the bottom of this panel and work your way towards you and upwards until it all pops out, you will need to pull the panel outwards (towards the open door) to unhook the back/other end of the panel: Continue tucking the cable behind the rubber seal but now you'll need to maneuver around the dash corner so just continue to tuck it around while still leading it down and then through the gap between the metal and plastic panels: As you feed the cable through this gap, open the glove box (might want to empty it to make room) get your hand through the small gap below the metal bracket and stick your hand into the glove box and try and feed the USB head into the glove box: The USB cable needs to go up and through the triangular hole in the picture (where that white line is pointing at): Continue to feed the cable all the way through into the glove box, then wrap up any excess cable and then plug the cable into a 12V to 5V USB adapter: This is what it looks like with the glove box closed: Fit everything back together and then plug your camera in: At night you can barely see it beside the white sticker that I've now taken off: And what it looks like in the day: Hope this helps people! 1 Pitman reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keethos 842 Report post Posted February 21, 2014 Here are some of my example videos: Night Test: It may not look amazing at night be it's still pretty good for £50 and it's better than a lot of other cameras out there Morning Wet Gloomy Test: Pretty clear in gloomy scenes where there's plenty of light but not glaringly bright Bright Afternoon Test: Starts off a bit dark as the camera might be pointing a bit too high so it's capturing too much of the sky thus adjusting the exposure to suit all the light and not the rest of the scene thus darker images, but as I drive on and start to face away from the sun, the image becomes a lot brighter. Towards the end, you can see its really bright but again I'm away from the sun until right at the end where I'm facing straight at it and it gets mega dark in areas, but this would happen to most dashcams anyways. No idea where the police were going but it wasn't me Raw .MOV Upload to Youtube: Thought I'd upload this raw .mov file to see how it looks, all the vids I've uploaded so far don't actually look that great compared to other youtube HD videos and definitely not true to the raw video's from the camera. At first I thought maybe my editing had lowered the quality but its the same with this raw video that seems to indicated that youtube is compressing or doing something to the vids which is a bummer. But there must be something I can do to prevent this as some HD vids on youtube seem pretty sharp still!!! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mark-in-Stoke 488 Report post Posted February 21, 2014 I'be been looking at the mioview recently about £130 and will have a good nosey at yours tomorrow, if you don't mind Keith. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keethos 842 Report post Posted February 21, 2014 Yeah no prob Mark! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rob275 1817 Report post Posted February 21, 2014 lol at the old bill! the quality is fine here on my mobile. Like it looks really crisp. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keethos 842 Report post Posted February 21, 2014 Yeah, if you watch it on a big screen or something that displays 1080p, you'll see some artefacting (is that the turn for square clumps/blocky pixels?) Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rob275 1817 Report post Posted February 22, 2014 i see what you mean, its similar to mine though and a hell of a lot cheaper, you routed the wire similarly to me, albeit a bit neater but whatever, you cant see it anyway... Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mark-in-Stoke 488 Report post Posted February 22, 2014 Keith I was really impressed with your cam and i'm going to order one myself now. Nice find bud!! 1 Keethos reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pitman 188 Report post Posted February 22, 2014 Just ordered one as well. Thank you for the heads up. Keith Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rob275 1817 Report post Posted February 22, 2014 No love for my cam haha Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GT86-Ian 351 Report post Posted February 22, 2014 Strangely enough last night I was looking for a new car shampoo as halfords no longer do the one I use, so looked on autoexpress at reviews & the first thing up was In car cameras, Keiths one unfortunately isn't listed but does produce a very clear video picture, could be handy for track days Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rab 60 Report post Posted February 23, 2014 I am keen to fit an in car camera soon so thanks for the info Keith! Few questions though. Could this be wired in to a constant live to allow continuous recording while the vehicle is unattended? I would disconnect it while it's parked up my driveway but I would like it to be on constant record while I'm away from the vehicle, car park monitoring etc. Did you come across any systems with front and rear cameras while you were researching this? I saw a system last year which had capacity for up to 4 cameras, it came with a windscreen mounted unit which recorded both front view and in-cabin view, and another cam which mounted in the rear screen. Which left 2 channels free if you wanted to add side cams in the rear quarter windows. But I cant find it anywhere! Cheers! Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mark-in-Stoke 488 Report post Posted February 23, 2014 Couldn't you just add more individual cameras Rab, you could have one sitting on the rear brake light as they're that small. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rab 60 Report post Posted February 23, 2014 The system I saw had better memory (wish i did!) but yeah that's an option I'm considering too. Not bothered about the in-cabin footage though. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mark-in-Stoke 488 Report post Posted February 23, 2014 Rab with regards to the in cabin footage, did you want this so that 1, you could watch yourself driving 2, if anyone got inside you'd have footage of them 3, something pervy. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keethos 842 Report post Posted February 23, 2014 I agree with mark, all these cameras looking into the car sounds a bit seedy.....what are you planning? Rab, if you're savvy with your splicing of wires then I'm sure you could splice into the interior light source though you'll need drop the volts down to 5v (assuming that it'll be a 12v source). The alternative would be to get something like the Power Magic Box which connects to your fuse box and can get it to supply continuous power even when the car is off. As for systems with both front and back cameras, most of them would only do 1080p at the front and 720p at the back, and these systems were a lot more expensive. I believe BlackVue did one, if you check this site out, scroll to the bottom and you'll see a list of multi camera systems that are available. And Rob, we all love a bit of Road kill now and again Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Rab 60 Report post Posted February 23, 2014 Rab with regards to the in cabin footage, did you want this so that 1, you could watch yourself driving 2, if anyone got inside you'd have footage of them 3, something pervy. Lol, Regards no. 3 - who'd want to see my bare bum bobbing up n down? I didn't want the in cabin footage, it was just a feature of the system I saw. Thinking it might have been in Auto Express ... Thanks Keith I'll have a look at BlackVue Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
rob275 1817 Report post Posted February 23, 2014 Rob, Steve (BRZ2) had one that recorded when the car was off, may be worth speaking to him. He seems to have gone in to hibernation mode since JAE though :S Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Special K 442 Report post Posted February 24, 2014 Rab - in order to record continuously you have to hard-wire the camera into a permanent live feed. Via the cigar lighter/ignition the power shuts down when you turn the engine off.. Mind you, if you forget to disconnect it you'll end up with a flat battery... you will need a BIG SD card... typically a 20-minute record session will use 1.2-1.5GB space (Roadhawk HD, not Mobus). Spec K Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Riceburner 284 Report post Posted February 24, 2014 Ive just ordered a Roadhawk HD,thought it was time to get some vids posted. 1 rob275 reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GT86-Ian 351 Report post Posted February 24, 2014 Just ordered a G1W £39.99 has a 2.7 lcd display. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Keethos 842 Report post Posted February 24, 2014 Yeah, BRZ2 uses the Power Magic to power his camera continuously I believe as it's connected to the fuse box rather than the normal 12v socket. Interesting stuff guys, keep us updated with what you've purchased! And good choice Ian, I did look into that camera but was won over by the Mobius in discreetness. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
GT86-Ian 351 Report post Posted February 24, 2014 keith your cam seems to be one of the best for day & night recording, only thing that lets it down for me is the lack of a lcd display, Ive just taken a punt with the G1W, the original cam I was going for was the DOD LS430W but @ £159 was too expensive this month. Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Pitman 188 Report post Posted March 1, 2014 Just ordered one as well. Thank you for the heads up. Keith Camera arrived today (only ordered last Saturday!) and fitted. Now to go and test it While I was about it, I also bought my car an 11 inch Asus touch screen laptop, so I can easily down load any videos, as well as logs from my AEM and Innovate gauges Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
Mark-in-Stoke 488 Report post Posted March 1, 2014 Tut tut boys and their toys eh! Ordering mine soon too lol 1 rob275 reacted to this Share this post Link to post Share on other sites
