Having witnessed a guy on a BMW getting shunted off at a roundabout a few weeks back I decided it might be time to look at a dash cam. Whilst it was a gentle accident and nobody was hurt, the moment one of those goes down on it’s side you are talking big money for the repairs. I was able to provide a full statement to his insurers so that they could take up his case but a few seconds of dash cam footage would have put the incident beyond doubt.
I thought that this review might be useful if anybody is thinking of getting one.
I don't want a system where I've got to glue something to my lid or remember to switch it on or charge batteries before every ride. I looked the reviews on a few systems and quickly discounted the majority of shite with unpronounceable names being sold on Amazon. If you are going to fit one it needs to be reliable.
As far as I can see it comes down to three systems. The Thinkware M1, Innovv K3 or Viofo MT1.
The Thinkware relies on a super capacitor to keep the unit powered up when you switch the bike off to save the current clip to the memory card. I began reading some reviews that would seem to indicate that this system can become unreliable and that the clips weren’t being saved. Not much use if you’ve just been hit off and your system hasn’t saved the incident.
The other two systems seemed to be on a par and so I made the decision to go for the Viofo as it was around £70 cheaper.
I think it’s important that you decide what you want the system to do before making a decision. None of these systems will give GoPro picture quality. You need 4k for that and that means processing the video in the camera which makes them too large and cumbersome to be mounted on a bike in anything like a tidy manner. I don’t want it to make holiday videos so I don’t care. As long as the picture quality is good enough to read a number plate I’m happy. In fact, you can clearly see drivers faces on the rear camera when they pull up behind you. Video quality is 1080p at 30fps and it’s plenty good enough even at night or in low light conditions. It’s also worth reiterating a point that DEG5Y made in another post which is that the Viofo has a gap between recordings which would be a right pain if you are stitching them together to make a holiday video.
The unit is very well made and the app can be operated by a gorilla. I had it up and running on the bench before the kettle had boiled. It is claimed to be IP66 rated which, unless you are intending to fully submerge the bike, is good enough. Looking at the unit I have no reason to believe that this rating isn’t correct.
Installation took a gentle morning, most of which was spent in a deck chair with a coffee deciding where best to mount the cameras. I decided to mount the rear camera on the offside mudguard so that the lens just clears the number plate. It clears my luggage system and gives a perfect view behind the bike. Getting the cable under the seat is easy and there is an existing loom there to zip tie the cable to which makes it very tidy. The mounts are supplied with self adhesive bases but I’m a bit anal so I decided to drill two very small holes in the mudguard and add a couple of stainless nuts and bolts.
The front camera is more difficult. I discounted mounting it on the mirror extender or behind the screen and decided to mount it under the nose on the small panel that pops out to give access to the parking bulb. It’s not quite so unobtrusive but it does give the best view of the road ahead and that is the whole point. Again I drilled the panel and used nuts and bolts but this was an easier decision as I have a spare panel should I ever remove the camera.
The main unit sits under the seat and just requires a red and black to the battery and an ignition fed live to the blue wire. I soldered into the tail light feed as mine doesn’t have a headlight switch so is live when the ignition is on.
There is plenty of room in the bird cockpit so mounting the manual record button and gps receiver is no problem.
So far I am very happy with it. I have it set to record 1 minute loops which is fine for my intended use. It just overwrites the old clips as the card fills up. There is a g sensor which saves the clip to a separate file which doesn’t get overwritten when it thinks you have been in an accident. I have turned this off as I am sometimes quite enthusiastic on the brakes when I’m on my own and this can trigger it which just wastes space on the memory card. I haven’t had cause to hit the manual record button which records what happened from about 30 seconds before you hit the button and saves that into another file which doesn’t get overwritten. You do need to keep the camera lenses clean but my OCD takes care of that.
If you want to see the gps data you will have to purchase dashcam viewer (cheap as chips from what I can remember – I’ve had it for a while for the dash cams in my cars) and this is pretty good fun for about 5 minutes. I can usually remember where I’ve been so have no use for it. But just remember that plod can access the data from your video clips and it includes speed. You might want to turn that feature off.
If you want a fit and forget system that you know is recording from the moment you start the bike then this does the job bill nicely.
I thought that this review might be useful if anybody is thinking of getting one.
I don't want a system where I've got to glue something to my lid or remember to switch it on or charge batteries before every ride. I looked the reviews on a few systems and quickly discounted the majority of shite with unpronounceable names being sold on Amazon. If you are going to fit one it needs to be reliable.
As far as I can see it comes down to three systems. The Thinkware M1, Innovv K3 or Viofo MT1.
The Thinkware relies on a super capacitor to keep the unit powered up when you switch the bike off to save the current clip to the memory card. I began reading some reviews that would seem to indicate that this system can become unreliable and that the clips weren’t being saved. Not much use if you’ve just been hit off and your system hasn’t saved the incident.
The other two systems seemed to be on a par and so I made the decision to go for the Viofo as it was around £70 cheaper.
I think it’s important that you decide what you want the system to do before making a decision. None of these systems will give GoPro picture quality. You need 4k for that and that means processing the video in the camera which makes them too large and cumbersome to be mounted on a bike in anything like a tidy manner. I don’t want it to make holiday videos so I don’t care. As long as the picture quality is good enough to read a number plate I’m happy. In fact, you can clearly see drivers faces on the rear camera when they pull up behind you. Video quality is 1080p at 30fps and it’s plenty good enough even at night or in low light conditions. It’s also worth reiterating a point that DEG5Y made in another post which is that the Viofo has a gap between recordings which would be a right pain if you are stitching them together to make a holiday video.
The unit is very well made and the app can be operated by a gorilla. I had it up and running on the bench before the kettle had boiled. It is claimed to be IP66 rated which, unless you are intending to fully submerge the bike, is good enough. Looking at the unit I have no reason to believe that this rating isn’t correct.
Installation took a gentle morning, most of which was spent in a deck chair with a coffee deciding where best to mount the cameras. I decided to mount the rear camera on the offside mudguard so that the lens just clears the number plate. It clears my luggage system and gives a perfect view behind the bike. Getting the cable under the seat is easy and there is an existing loom there to zip tie the cable to which makes it very tidy. The mounts are supplied with self adhesive bases but I’m a bit anal so I decided to drill two very small holes in the mudguard and add a couple of stainless nuts and bolts.
The front camera is more difficult. I discounted mounting it on the mirror extender or behind the screen and decided to mount it under the nose on the small panel that pops out to give access to the parking bulb. It’s not quite so unobtrusive but it does give the best view of the road ahead and that is the whole point. Again I drilled the panel and used nuts and bolts but this was an easier decision as I have a spare panel should I ever remove the camera.
The main unit sits under the seat and just requires a red and black to the battery and an ignition fed live to the blue wire. I soldered into the tail light feed as mine doesn’t have a headlight switch so is live when the ignition is on.
There is plenty of room in the bird cockpit so mounting the manual record button and gps receiver is no problem.
So far I am very happy with it. I have it set to record 1 minute loops which is fine for my intended use. It just overwrites the old clips as the card fills up. There is a g sensor which saves the clip to a separate file which doesn’t get overwritten when it thinks you have been in an accident. I have turned this off as I am sometimes quite enthusiastic on the brakes when I’m on my own and this can trigger it which just wastes space on the memory card. I haven’t had cause to hit the manual record button which records what happened from about 30 seconds before you hit the button and saves that into another file which doesn’t get overwritten. You do need to keep the camera lenses clean but my OCD takes care of that.
If you want to see the gps data you will have to purchase dashcam viewer (cheap as chips from what I can remember – I’ve had it for a while for the dash cams in my cars) and this is pretty good fun for about 5 minutes. I can usually remember where I’ve been so have no use for it. But just remember that plod can access the data from your video clips and it includes speed. You might want to turn that feature off.
If you want a fit and forget system that you know is recording from the moment you start the bike then this does the job bill nicely.
Wonder how many screens I'll go through to get it right
