Any impressions yet on how they are working and which you like?

 

For the most part, I put them up in the windshield, just sort of set it and forget it. Like my home DVR system, they run in the background on their own without any input from me. I've not really reviewed much video beyond my initial testing just to make sure they were working. After a month and a half, they both still appear to boot up when the car is started and appear to still be recording. One of these days I'll bring them inside the house and download more video just to check them again.

One is called a G50 from Napoer (also sold under multiple brand names on Amazon). It has a suction cup mount which I wanted so that I could use it in my classic cars and move it around from car to car easily. It seems to work quite well. Only gripe is that it seems to be trying to adjust for different lighting conditions, particularly between clouds and sunshine, and thus the color is sometimes off. But that wouldn't matter in an accident. At around $50, it seems to be a good value.

The other is an A118C from CIBest also sold under at least a dozen brand names on Amazon. It mounts with double-sided tape and is a little more discreet tho both are very small. That one I had to send back and exchange because the first one delivered would not remember the date and time settings after it was powered off. The exchange went smoothly and the second unit worked perfectly. It is actually a little better image at least as the color is more stable. At around $60 it is also decent value but a little risky as there must have been a bad batch since there were other reports of the same date/time issue on Amazon. Resolution on both are quite good, good enough to read a Texas license plate at 30-50 feet.

I will be more concerned with durability and longevity as we get into summer. I plan to just leave them in the windshield while I'm at work. The A118C uses a couple of capacitors to provide a few seconds of power after the ignition is shut off, long enough for the unit to save its last video and exit programs before shutting down. The G50 has a more traditional lithium battery on board to do the same thing. The capacitors are supposed to be more heat-tolerant but we'll see.

Both are supposed to have parking monitoring function, but you'd have to permanently wire them into a constant power source and be sure that it wouldn't drain your battery. I have not tried that yet, just running them off the lighter socket for now. Plus having just the front windshield view isn't likely to catch vandalism or anyone backing into it in a parking lot. You'd really need several cameras to cover 360 degrees and I'm not sure how much power that would drain. I'll think about that at a future time.

 

all these cameras have wires going from them to a power supply, correct?
no totally wireless cameras that can be run on rechargeable batteries or something??
dont want a wire ruining the look of the interior

 

The möbius runs on a battery. A lot of the drone racing guys use them for on board video. I'm not sure what the battery duration is though.

 

Yes, wires. I bought a kit to permanently wire one into my daily driver and hide the wires, but have not had time to mess with that yet. All it basically consists of: you choose either micro usb or mini usb plug whichever fits your camera, 10 or 15 feet of cable and a 2cm x 2cm x 4cm little box that both reduces the voltage from 12 to 5 and supposedly will shut off the power when it detects the battery has drained to some minimum level. You tap into a constant power source and the camera will record all the time. Tap into a switched power source and the camera will boot up when you start the car and power off when you turn off the ignition. You might have to remove some interior trim to route the wires, but I watched a few youtube reviews and seems some people have managed to hide them just be tucking them under the edge of the headliner and/or c-pillar trims.