Agree… Nexar would be #1 brand that I would Trust and Use. Cheap is something I am not looking for in case of a Accident or Recording a Accident. The Cam must work at the time of impact…not after the hit happens.
I’m a big fan of the Street Guardian brand. Bought my first 2 in early 2015, still in daily use today, and have never failed to record.
Looking to buy a car wire less rear and dash cam to download to my android phone.
[Mod Note]: Post was moved to this topic for consistency in grouping posts in similar topics.
Legit Car Dashcam, not a Wyze cam conversion
I am a big fan of the Wyze cam 3 video clarity and night color feature. Any thoughts on making a car or motorcycle dashcam?
Anyone else with me on this?
Currently v3 cams don’t pick up license plates at night, so I don’t know
Capturing license plates at night is a big challenge, even for purpose build dash cams - of which there are already hundreds available. I has to do with the highly reflective nature of the plates themselves combined with the relatively small size of the lettering on US and Canadian plates.
Making a dash cam that can reliably and consistently capture plates under all conditions is pretty much the ‘Holy Grail’ in the dash cam industry. Even the most expensive (which doesn’t equate to the best) cams can’t manage it and they cost hundreds of dollars. I’m sure nothing that Wyze can produce at their target price points would even come close.
To be honest most of the other dashcams out there have that issue. However, video and voice of any kind can be in your favor should there be an accident or incident (considering you are not at fault, lol). I would pay upwards of 100 if wyze did create one since they have a track record with their products, either being superior or on par with others out there that cost much more. Watching what wyze has done these past years, I have full confidence in them.
My experience with their ‘track record’ is the products are finicky and generally unreliable - two attributes you absolutely DO NOT want in a dash cam.
How many plate numbers do you want. I have a 5 Year old LS460w DoD dash cam that can get plates and everything else at 30fps. It has super Sony Starvis night recording, loop recording and GPS built in. Not a cloud cam, records to a 64GB card. DoD cams are not sold in the U.S. anymore, Made in Taiwan. Many new $$$ dash cams now are 4K and cloud record which I do not want and I don’t think WYZE could make for a
cheap price.
I don’t want any - that’s not a priority for me. My prime purpose in having dash cams is to show that I’m not at fault for any incident that might occur. Any event that might happen where a plate number would be useful (hit-and-run, parking lot damage, etc.) I have insurance to cover any loss.
I was referring to you comment:
that can reliably and consistently capture plates under all conditions is pretty much the ‘Holy Grail’ in the dash cam industry. Even the most expensive (which doesn’t equate to the best) cams can’t manage it and they cost hundreds of dollars
And I stand by that statement. I have yet to see any dash cam (including those with Starvis sensors) that 'reliably and consistently capture plate numbers under all conditions’. The reflective nature of most plates will overwhelm any sensor when lit from directly behind by headlights making the entire plate a totally white, overexposed rectangle with no discernable detail.
Not my experience. Don’t get directly behind another car with your high beam lights on 
Don’t remember saying anything about high beams. 
Would love to see a clip from your DoD under the conditions I just described with a readable plate.
You will be waiting a while for a clip. Since I no longer have to work I am not going to wait until it gets really dark and go find a car in front of me just to prove a point. Since I have visitors arriving later this week maybe I can get you one when we go out for dinner or something.
Here’s a couple of examples of what I’m talking about. The plates on both vehicles in front of me are totally illegible due to the highly reflective nature of the plates. The car on the left isn’t even directly in the headlight beam. This is very typical of dash cams.
The LPR use an IR filter to pick up the plate. OCR (optical character recognition) converts it to text. Some of the higher end License Plate Readers can get color, make & model.
No question about it - and mobile units cost significantly upwards of $20,000 which is well beyond what would be considered a consumer level dash cam, which is what this discussion is about.
LPR parking enforcement offers return on investment (ROI) (ops-com.com)
You are correct @R_T. Intended to suggest retry with the IR filter in place.
As far as cost goes, some are less expensive.
Vigilant Solutions, one of the country’s largest brokers of vehicle surveillance technology, is offering a hell of a deal to law enforcement agencies in Texas: a whole suite of automated license plate reader (ALPR) equipment and access to the company’s massive databases and analytical tools—and it won’t cost the agency a dime.
Most (all?) dash cams have IR filters built-in already - and I’m not sure what would happen with the installation of a second one - even if they were universally available. If nothing else the sensor in the cam would have to be sensitive to the resulting wave lengths and given that dash cams are designed for visible light who knows? (Optical engineering is an area where I have virtually zero expertise beyond what it takes for 35mm photography, and digital equivalents.)
Unfortunately, I’m not a law enforcement agency nor am I, fortunately 
, in Texas.
I couldn’t find anything on Vigilant’s (which appears to be a subsidiary of Motorola) web site about product pricing. Be interesting to see their analysis in coming to the determination that “it won’t cost the agency a dime”. I’m guessing it has to do with increased revenue streams to offset the initial costs, which wouldn’t be a factor for private citizens.
But, again, well beyond the scope of this discussion.