okay hi and we have another product to review
it's a mirror dashcam by a company called Auto-Vox and yeah we thought this
looked quite interesting essentially what you have is a dashcam built into a
mirror so this is going to clip on to actual rearview mirror this has got a
full nine inch touchscreen built-in so that should be much nicer to use than
the fiddly screens on a normal dashcam and yeah there's the camera that will
look straight forward now it's not just this though it also comes with a rear
view camera which is here that can be mounted internally or externally and of
course it functions as a twin dashcam now but also a reversing camera so that
could be quite nice for an older car that doesn't have reversing cameras with
this you would have so yeah it comes a little ease of course we've got a long
cable to different rear camera mounts power cables straps for the mirror
everything we need so I'm going to quickly get this set up and be back with
you in a moment okay so we've set it up quickly all I do
now is plug it in and it should turn on for the first time look and there is so
it starts off in rear camera view as you'd expect and it starts recording
just like any other dashcam but you can just touch the screen and getting to all
the menus adjust any of the settings you need to it's got quite a nice big menu
system stop recording before I do that stop recording and then I can into the
menu and instead of having a fiddly screen you've now got a nice big screen
where you can look at all the settings will have a quick
talk about the details of this later but yeah that's how many works also on the
screen you've got buttons to quickly turn off the microphone switch camera
views was just quite neat so that's both views front and rear at once it also got
just the front if you want to check the setup or normally you'd want the rear
view because of course this is functioning as the actual mirror in the
car now you can also take a still picture if you need to or you can lock
it there's a brightness adjustment at the top and yeah you just go and drive
now that's the normal thing you'd use it for just for a couple of specs um it's
got a nine inch touchscreen mirror and the actual camera is built into site
here and I can slide outwards to get a better view or to go around the mirror
actually behind the rear camera I'll show you in a second and both cameras
are 1080p resolution which is perfectly fine for dash cams
I'm using a 64 gigabyte card a micro SD and that should give around eight to
nine hours on 1080p for both front and rear you can reduce the resolution to
get a longer record time but then it won't be as clear so I'm happy with that
like any other normal dashcam as soon as we start the car the unit boots up
automatically and starts recording both cameras onto the single memory card in
the main unit there is a red light to confirm everything is recording
correctly the screen is very bright and gives a great view behind the car the
rear camera gives a much wider view than a normal mirror but this is a good thing
as it reduces the blind spots behind the car
following traffic does look smaller than normal but we got used to it quite
quickly of course since we are now watching a
direct feed from the rear camera it doesn't matter if we have passengers in
the rear of the car or boot full of luggage
nothing will block our rear view unlike with a normal mirror the rear camera is
waterproof so it can be mounted inside or outside the car to make the wiring
easier we chose to mount it inside the car at the top of the rear window this
car already has a rear-view camera but if we were fitting this to a car that
hasn't got one we might mount it outside near the registration plate to give a
better view close behind the car the rear camera can even be wired to the
car's reversing light so that when reverse is selected the unit will
automatically show reversing guidelines a GPS receiver is supplied in the box
and this will record the position and speed of the car as you drive unusually
it doesn't record anything on to the actual video but instead auto Vox
supply software so the GPS data can be viewed on a computer if you choose to
wire the camera into a permanent power feed then the unit has the option to
switch on a parking mode this will keep the cameras recording after you leave
the car in case anyone causes any damage the camera has an internal backup power
reserve to allow the last recording to be saved in the event of an accident
most cheaper cameras use a small battery for this but instead this unit has a
super capacitor which is more resistant to overheating and should have a longer
life let's take a look at some footage that the camera has recorded with its
cameras the first clip from the front camera is shot in strong sunlight and it
is okay quality the unit has sony image sensors in both
cameras and uses glass lenses of course it can't compare with the output from a
gopro or other proper camera but as a dashcam it is fine it would certainly be
good enough to show who was to blame in the event of an accident switching to
the rear camera shows that the image is very similar some dual dash cams use a
lower resolution for the rear camera but this also records in 1080p the same as
the front camera perhaps we should have angled the camera a little higher but
this would be easy to adjust after fitting
next we went for a drive in the early evening the Setting Sun is more of a
challenge for the cameras but we are still happy enough with the results
here is how the rear camera looks
finally we went for a night drive to really test the system out the auto
brightness setting on the monitor works well and we didn't need to adjust
anything manually we could see following traffic but since it was through a
monitor rather than a mirror it wasn't blinding at all and we didn't
need to dip the mirror switching to the camera recordings once more the footage
is still clear despite the very low light levels the camera deals with other
car lights and doesn't over expose the image here is the rear camera once more
there are a few extra benefits for us as driving instructors when driving since
the rearview is being shown on a monitor rather than a mirror it can be seen
equally well by the passenger and the driver so we don't need to use an extra
mirror anymore this cuts down the clutter on the windscreen especially as
there is no need for separate dashcam as well much neater we found that the best
position for the unit was to angle it parallel to the windscreen and down a
little as it reduced any extra reflections from the cars windows of
course the unit's position doesn't need to be adjusted for each driver as a
mirror normally would so that's a small benefit as well if we need to replay a
clip during the lesson it is easy to do with the large touchscreen and it even
has sound playback too to conclude this unit is two devices in one an electric
rear-view system and a twin - can both work very well considering the very
reasonable cost of the unit the installation is neat and easy to do and
the unit's monitor is large clear and has good brightness the wide-angle view
does make following traffic look smaller than normal but it didn't take long to
get used to we rarely have rear seat passengers or much luggage in this car
but if we did it wouldn't affect our rear view at all unlike with a normal
rear view mirror we did notice that we needed to use the rear wash wipe more
often than normal to keep our view clear as any dirt on the screen was quite
noticeable however since this would ensure that the rear cameras recordings
were as clear as possible this isn't a problem
the actual recordings from both cameras were good quality and we will probably
install the unit into this car permanently to replace the existing
dashcam if you are interested in buying this unit yourself we have placed a link
to the unit on Amazon in the video description below and we have arranged a
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