Tacoma Dash Cams

Another vote for Viofo.

I currently have a Rexing in the truck, Viofo A119-Mini in the Miata, and a Viofo A129 plus duo in the 3speed.

Of the three, the Viofos blow the rexing out of the water. Better dusk and night resolution, better parking mode (with buffer so that it captures an event a few seconds before it happens, instead of a few seconds after), and its easier to wifi a video to the phone when needed.

The only major downside to the Viofos are that both cars get parked in the summer sun, and on occasion they need a hard reboot after being cooked all day.


But, as they say, a cheap camera is better than no camera.

 

Do you recommend A119 or A129 as option for Tacoma?

 

FitcamX in the truck, DDPai in the cars. For those that run dashcams with integrated screens, what is the need for the screens? Just adds unnecessary bulk imo.

 

Depends on how important a rear channel is to you.

129 pro duo - 4k, buffered parking, gps datalogging, front + rear
119 mini - 2k, buffered parking, gps datalogging, front view only Best bang-for-buck on a front-only camera.
129 plus duo - 2k, parking mode not buffered, gps yes, front+rear

The screen makes it easy to set or adjust menu options without having to bluetooth or wifi into the unit.

 

Small/no-screen is better for hiding. On-screen lets you access controls without a cell-phone, especially if the BT interface gos buggy. The screen goes black for me after a minute of starting up so is a black "nothing" in line-of-sight.

 

FITCAMX in several vehicles with no issues for a couple years now.

 

It still looks good off of the youtube video. gonna put that into consideration

 

How much of effects does connecting to OBD port has on the battery life do you think?

 

How does your dashcams holds up so far? hows the quality after quite some time ?

 

As good as the day I bought them.

 

I'm sure it varies from camera to camera. The VIOFO A119 V3 appears to draw about 250-300 milliamps when actively recording. For a standard 60-70 AH (amp hour) lead acid or AGM battery, assuming a safe voltage cut-off of about 11.5 volts, I'd guess you could get about 15 amp-hours, which works out to about 50-60 hours of active recording time on this particular dash cam.

These are just guesstimations, I'm sure some nurdz over at dashcamtalk forums have done extensive real-world tests with graphs and so forth.

The VIOFO A119 V3 (and many other VIOFO variants) has some sort of motion-detection stand-by capability in park mode, i.e. it uses the on-board G sensor in the camera to only wake the camera & record if the vehicle is bumped or vibrated. IDK how much power this "standby" parking mode draws.

 

Same here. Maybe once or twice a year I actually connect and make sure they're still doing their job and they always are. I've got the rear cams long wired into the fronts too.

 

I have a viofo a119 v3 as well. 4k would be nice, but costed quite a bit more back when I bought mine. It seems to still be a good middle ground between sensor quality, cost, and reliability. I'd buy another one if mine were to break.

 

I haven't noticed anything. I work from home, so there's been several days in a row where i havent started the thing.

 

Installed garmin 47 dashcam - very nice, fit well behind the mirror, powered through Dongar dashcam adapter. https://dongar.tech/products/12pin-tacoma . this dashcam already saved me more than 1k$ in fraud attempt

 

Dashcams were all-the-rage in Russia for years before the US caught the bug. Apparently fraud in Russia for auto accidents was rampant.

 

And still is. I was living there for 10+ years

 

I have a Garmin Mini (version 1) in my commuter car. I like that it's small and easy to hide behind the mirror. A while back it started rendering the sky and other highlights magenta. It turns out it comes and goes based on pressure on the back of the case. I was able to fix it for now by adjusting some screws inside. That tells me they have major mechanical/manufacturing process issues. Maybe a bad solder joint on the sensor? It's a common enough problem that other people have posted about it online. It also runs extremely hot occasionally, and the only heatsink is a little square of metal behind the processor. They have serious design issues. And it sounds like version 2 still has many of the same problems. The app was pretty bad when I first bought it years ago, but it's working well now.

I'm considering a FitcamX for the Tacoma, but for how little I drive it I might just put my old no-name Amazon dashcam back in.

 

Garmin mini 2 with the dongar power adapter that was posted in another thread here some time ago.
It works perfect for what i want, small, relatively inexpensive and simple to install.

 

I been using an $89 Auckey DR02 for years. its only 1080P but seems to do ok.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aTLWEZUWWi9SxVje8Q5XcWCV5pwsk7C1/view?usp=drive_link

Then if you watch the clip above the video quality is nice for 1080p and it's got a decent wide angle. The problem I see with it is some glare off the glass. For example in the clip I posted you can see my vehicle pass for Camping Ohiopyle state park that's on the dash reflecting off it.
Chris Fix had a video about installing a dash cam where he used a Vantrue camera and added a polarization filter to help with glare off the windshield.
I'd also been thinking about moving up to a front and rear set up.
I'm just not sure how to route the wire or mount the rear and if my tinted glass will be an issue
This is the model I'm looking at.
【Bundle: Vantrue S1 PRO Dual Dash Cam + Vantrue CPL Filter】Vantrue S1 Pro 2.7K Front and Rear 5G Wi-Fi Dash Cam, 1944P Dual Hidden Dash Camera for Cars, STARVIS 2 IMX675 Night Vision, Motion Detection

$174 【Bundle: Vantrue S1 PRO Dual Dash Cam + Vantrue CPL Filter】Vantrue S1 Pro 2.7K Front and Rear 5G Wi-Fi Dash Cam, 1944P Dual Hidden Dash Camera for Cars, STARVIS 2 IMX675 Night Vision, Motion Detection

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0CLTSK4JN