Welcome back to Grand Adventure! I'm your host Marc Guido, and if you've ever towed a travel
trailer or driven a motor home you've seen lots of people doing lots of stupid things
right in front of you, expecting you to be able to stop that heavy rig on a dime.
That's where dash cams come in, and we're going to talk this week about why
you need one, so stay tuned!
I've been in the insurance claims industry for well over 30 years, and people driving
with dash cameras have made my life and my profession so much easier, because it removes
any question and any ambiguity regarding how an accident happened. Let's look at a few examples.
In the clip that we showed you at the intro to this video,
the other semi driver on the shoulder tried to say that he was stopped in the travel lane
waiting to make a left turn when the driver with the camera tried to pass him in the oncoming lane.
How about this fine example of stunt driving?
We've all had the guy who passes your RV, then immediately changes lanes into your lane, squeezes
in front of you, and slams on the brakes just trying to get to that exit ramp a split second
earlier. Having a dash cam removes any question as to the events surrounding this accident.
We hope that we've convinced you that these little gems are worth their weight in gold,
but which dash cam to buy?
We tried several cheaper models before settling on a Garmin Dash Cam 57, and you get what you
pay for. The cheap models struggle with high contrast lighting or night vision,
and their resolution was insufficient for reading license plates. Not so with the Garmin
that we've tucked right behind our mirror! In this position you can't even see it from the passenger
compartment. We found on Amazon a wiring harness that adds a USB port to our auto-dimming mirror,
which eliminates another unsightly cable running to our dashboard to power the camera. In this way
the second we turn our ignition key, the camera turns on and starts recording
for a completely mindless experience. Just set it and forget it! Let's take
this little guy down and bring it inside to discuss some of Garmin Dash Cam's features.
Now let's spend a few moments talking about the features that we really enjoy
about this Garmin Dash Cam 57. It has a 1440p sensor so it's recording video in 1440p,
which is a higher resolution than, say, a 1080p television that you may have. That's an
adequate resolution that, in many or if not most circumstances, you can actually zoom in and make
out a license plate number. It has a 140-degree field of view, so that's going to capture
pretty much the same thing as what you're going to see out of your peripheral vision. Say that you're
stopped at a traffic light at an intersection -- you'll be able to see traffic approaching from the
left, you'll be able to see traffic approaching from the right. Garmin also makes a wider angle
version of this camera called the 67W, W standing for wide angle, of course. And while that does
encompass a wider field of view it also introduces a lot of fisheye distortion that we didn't like.
In addition to that, things did not appear on video to be as close as they appeared in person
because of that wide-angle lens. Things on the video appeared further away than they really are
out in front of you, and we didn't feel that that was a really good effect so we opted for the 57
rather than the 67W. Now the Garmin does record onto a microSD card and they do, to their credit,
include a 32 gigabyte microSD card in the box with the camera. However, like most dash cameras,
the larger the card the better it is, because they record on a first-in-first-out basis. So
as the card writes new video or ... as the camera, excuse me, writes new video to the card, it is
overwriting and deleting the oldest video on the card. So as with most dash cameras, the bigger the
card the better because you will have more footage stored for a longer period of time on the camera.
The Garmin Dash Cam has a built-in accelerometer so it will automatically detect a crash
and automatically save that 30-second video clip so it cannot be overwritten.
However, let's say for example, let's go back to sitting at the traffic light and you happen
to witness a collision in the intersection in front of you. It doesn't involve you,
but you're a witness to what happened and so is your camera. All you have to do is use Garmin's
voice command to say, "OK Garmin, save video." It will automatically save that 30-second video clip
in the exact same way as if you had been involved in a crash yourself.
Saving video, programming, and more is available via a wireless connection to your smartphone
with the free Garmin Drive app. I'd like to tell you about a few other features of the Garmin Dash
Cam 57 that we're not using ourselves, but it's worth telling you about. One of them is
called Parking Guard and that allows you to know if your vehicle is parked, if any other
vehicle bumps it or something like that. You'll automatically get an alert on your cell phone.
It also has Live View which allows you to use that same app, the Garmin Drive app, to check
in on your vehicle anytime it's parked somewhere or away from you. Now those two features require
an adapter for constant power that connects the dash cam to the OBD2 port in your vehicle.
It also requires a constant wi-fi connection, so for those two reasons we're not using
those two features. It also has driver assist features including a lane departure warning,
a warning if you're following too closely the vehicle that's in front of you, or if you're
stopped in traffic when traffic ahead of you begins to start moving again. It'll alert you so
that you can start paying attention, get your nose out of your cell phone and start rolling yourself.
Also it has an upload, a Vault to which you can upload the video clips that are saved on your
dash cam. The normal free default is a 24-hour Vault at Garmin's website. You can optionally
purchase additional time for online cloud storage of your video clips. Finally the Garmin Drive app
does come with a red light camera and a speed camera database that will alert you. And again
this is optional. You don't have to have this on but it can alert you via the camera when you are
approaching a red light camera or a speed camera. The default comes with it for free. If you want
to keep that database updated over an extended period of time that's an optional subscription.
That's all well and good, but what about things that happen behind the driver?
A dash cam can only see what's ahead or to the peripheral vision, so how do you record
those events? Our Haloview system that we have on our trailer has that covered!
A side view camera removed any question regarding liability for this collision.
While the other driver tried to say that the trucker changed lanes, the video tells the truth.
We first introduced you to our Haloview rearview and side view cameras back in 2020
in our Episode 152. We'll put a link right here on the screen so you can go back to check it out.
Haloview's monitor records video to its own microSD card, so we've got all four
sides of our rig covered with recording cameras as we're towing down the road.
So we hope that we've been able to convince you that a dash cam is a valuable addition to your
RV life! If you liked this episode please be sure to give us a big "thumbs up" down below,
and while you're down below you'll find the comments section and we love to hear from
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OK Garmin. Save video.