I totally get and understand that, and fully agree with it.
The main thing I was trying to understand is mostly about why have it be dependent on the front cam at all, why have it wirelessly connect to the front cam at all? Why not just have it be it’s own separate device, and if/when we want to review something, we would then just connect to it wirelessly with our phone to review the video, etc. I was asking to understand the request of having it connect to the front cam. Is it mostly for convenience of using the small LCD screen on the front cam instead of the phone? (to be clear, I am not arguing, just trying to understand, I totally respect personal preference and admit I have never had a rear cam, so I haven’t had much experience considering rear cams yet).
I can’t say it isn’t true, but this story doesn’t add up for me. I wonder if it wasn’t modified in it’s recounting to you. Some questions: Why was dashcam data even used if police already determined cause? And given dashcam use of GPS has accuracy varying from moment to moment due to satellite reception and only claims approximate speed, wouldn’t this be contestable? And since when aren’t all of us going 5 to 10 mph over the speed limit? If that can switch liability to 50%, then wouldn’t all insurance companies try to wiggle out of everything? Would an illegal burnt-out brake light bulb invalidate cause?
My personal story also fails to support this. I broadsided a car that entered my lane of travel from a side road with stop sign, Intending to cross my lanes, for a left turn, it instead stopped in my travel lane because the desired path was blocked by traffic. I was in the left lane at 60mph, blind to the stopped car due to curve and reaching the crest of a hill. My skid marks showed I was probably 10 mph over the limit, and my testimony also stated such. I truly felt that if I had been going only 50 mph, I would have stopped in time. Yet photos of the scene showed I hit the other car in the back door, not front and somehow that allowed my insurance company to successfully switch 50-50 to 100% their fault, despite no contest that I was over the speed limit.
That said, these doubts I have of this insurance settlement story are mine only. I suggest something is missing in what you were told.
I also thought Wi-Fi to phone was weird! But Wi-Fi to home network seems beneficial for slurping for archiving when parked at home. (I am not an experienced dashcam user, so this is uninformed)
They have to connect to the front camera because that is where the recording takes place. If you have two separate devices the front and rear facing videos won’t be synchronized.
Even if the police determined who was at fault, that has almost nothing to do with the insurance claim, since they don’t have to follow the police determination ( the police determination is for potential criminal prosecution, the insurance determination is for civil use). I do agree that making the person going 1 or 2 or even 5 mph over the limit somehow 50% at fault is a bull***t move by the insurance company and any good lawyer could have defeated it. Speeding does not mean you relinquish the right-of-way.
Yeah, that’s all quite possible. I can only say what the guy told me. Doesn’t mean he reported it accurately, honestly, didn’t minimize how fast he was really going, or didn’t leave out critical details…people like to focus on a narrow set of facts that will play to the narrative they want to tell after all.
I’m sure things vary a lot depending on different states’ laws and leniency (apparently some states actually strictly enforce the speed limit, while some allow 10-15mph over without issuing tickets), which insurances companies are involved and even the particular agents themselves. So many variables.
IANAL, but I imagine you are right that it could be contested. It still wouldn’t surprise me that an agent would TRY to leverage any excuse as a possible reason to avoid paying out the full liability. I do know for sure that insurance companies don’t always go based on what the cop says though. I have at least 1 personal experience where they decided against what the cop wrote, so I definitely know they can’t be legally bound to the cop’s opinion because I know of at least 1 instance where they decided the cop was wrong. I think the cop’s decision is just used as supportive evidence or something. IDK, I’m neither an officer, an insurance claim agent, nor a lawyer, so I am sure they would all have good insight into it. I just didn’t have any specific reason to doubt the guy (other than maybe that he possibly minimized how much over the speed limit he was really going). I knew he’d been in an accident, had a dashcam and that he claimed they used the evidence he was over the speed limit to claim they were making partly responsible, and that now he never includes speed or GPS on his dashcam recordings (so his behavior indicates that he at least fully believes this hurt him once… Anything more than that, I don’t know.
It is a little weird how inconsistent and arbitrary these liability things can be.
You do raise some good insight and points, and I have no objections to anything you said.
WiFi to phone is ideal for when you might have been involved in an accident and want to immediately download video of the accident to show or send to the police while still at the scene. Otherwise, you’d have to pull the card and find a computer to download it to. Of course, this could be done with a bluetooth connection, too.
Actually, a good lawyer could have a field day with that. “You wouldn’t have been in the same position to have an accident if you weren’t already breaking the law by speeding”. Or “a normal speed car might have been predicted, but a speeding car came too quick to avoid”.
Radar Training for LEOs required a daily re-calibration as well as allowed for roughly 5 mph (its been awhile) error rate. A GPS conviction would require similar procedures, as all GPS is not created equal and is dependent upon the software and I am sure the antenna placement.
I never had training on using lidar.
Years ago on one of my first laptops, I used a GPS antenna on a Microsoft mapping program which would about 25% of the time show me tracking off-road during cross country trips. I know things have improved, but they are still imperfect, certainly not beyond a reasonable doubt.
GPS is best used as a mostly accurate point of reference as far as I am concerned, and on 4 of the cameras I have owned always had an option to turn it off. Personally, I like having mine on because it keeps me more accountable for my own actions and keeps me (hopefully) honest.
I replaced one of the cameras because I accidentally dropped it, and another because it continued to overheat with the rear camera connected in the summer time. The dropped camera also required and external GPS antenna, which I detested having to mount.
I appreciate Wyze reaching out about a dashcam. I would totally get one if Wyze made one.
One thing I forgot to suggest in the survey is an ability to easily rotate the forward-facing camera toward the cabin, and especially toward the driver-side or passenger-side window. This would allow recording encounters with police, or anyone who decides to bother the driver from the sides. Evidence is just as important for police encounters as it is for accidents.
The survey didn’t ask about continuous recording, so I hope that is already a requirement.
My dream is to have four cameras facing to the sides as well as front & back. It would be great if Wyze could come up with a way to make the cameras more modular, more “pluggable”. In other words, you could easily buy more cameras and place them anywhere on your car, and their footage would always be recorded. This configuration would work well with the option to record when parked, too, to catch those dang door-dingers, though it would be limited by power constraints. (Hey, how bout a solar panel while we’re at it?) Maybe the modular cameras would function similarly to the Wyze Cam Outdoor, with the cameras being rechargeable, and saving footage to the base station upon motion capture events.
Both of the dash cams I have allow you to turn the cam around or face any direction you desire and I think many do depending on the type of mount. Also I believe all dash cams have loop recording, mine has a 128GB SD card in it but it will work with a 512GB card. I’ve never used the parking mode on either cam so I can’t comment on that.
If you do a decent dash cam I would try having one face out each side of my car and have one facing interior. One, it would be fun and, two, to catch better footage of sideswipes. So if they can link together it would be nice and maybe have a screen and no screen option.
I have used a v2 cam in my car now for 2 years, While parked remote as long as I could connect to xfinitywifi, I was able to have it online while parked.
Speed and gps should be optional, the user should be able to control it.
In Pennsylvania a rear cabin facing screen violates state law. So at a minimum the ability to turn off the screen while the unit still operates is a mandatory feature for legal compliance in PA.
Rear cameras tend to not have a very high resolution, but front needs to capture license plates.
The change of light is also important as a current home cam when switching from day to night filters can blind the unit and since brake lights just before an accident can trigger the filter, I would hope that would be tested.
The units should be smaller to not stick out and the front cam should be reversible. When pulled over one of the advantages of better car cams is the ability to record the police and under the worse situations to record police doing a car search.
There have been more then one incident of police planting drugs and getting caught by body cams. Being able to flip it to record the interior is very important.
Highly doubtful. In any case, the argument can be made that GPS accuracy for speed is not precise, so it’s very possible the person wasn’t speeding at all. I’d be glad to argue the point with a lawyer (who probably has no idea how GPS works) any day of the week.
“Rear cameras tend to not have a very high resolution, but front needs to capture license plates.”
While that used to be true, many devices with rear cameras have the same resolution as the front camera. Both of mine, for example, are 1080p front and back. Top end models are at least 4K front and 1080p rear, and way at the top are models that are 4K for both.
And really, even if the rear is 720p, it’s still more than enough resolution to record what happened.
Concerns over resolution (unless it’s real crap, like 360 or 480) is a poor argument against a rear camera.
I agree a rear cam is important, 720p should be fine.
Most of the time rear end works covering getting hit from behind. And since all states do not require front tags, the detail is not as critical as the front camera. Though an argument can be made if it clips you and spins the car. But most rear ends are texting or not paying attention.
Agreed, and that’s kind of my point. Having the rear camera would help to prove that the person who rear-ends you was texting, something they could otherwise deny. It would help to also document whatever else was going on behind you.
We don’t disagree here, I just think that the more you have the better off you could be.
I would like a two part device so that the actual recording is on a second device that can be locked in the trunk or some other place. It is too easy for someone to simply grab a dash cam and it’s data just when you need it the most, like an illegal search and seizure or an accident.
