- Seat belts? Check. Mirrors? Check. Dash cam? Double check.
It seems like everywhere you go there are drivers
who make creative choices, so why not protect yourself
with a dash cam on board with the rest
of your vehicle safety gear?
Dash cams like this Nexar Beam aren't just for
cab confessions or car karaoke.
Having a camera rolling with you can be a valuable tool
for insurance claims, theft prevention and accountability.
So while there are a ton of uses for dash cams like
this one, what makes Nexar so special?
The Nexar Beam dash cam costs around $130
and has a single outward facing 1080P camera.
Once it's set up, it sends a live stream to your phone
every time your car turns on.
It's built in GPS also sends your car's location to the app
in case you lose it in a giant parking lot, or worse.
All of that footage goes to the Nexar cloud or you can use
local storage up to 256 gigabytes.
And of course all of this is adjustable.
From the app you can tweak the settings to stream every time
you take a ride or whenever you just need it.
With the clips you record, you can send them to any of
your contacts, yourself or straight to your
insurance provider or ride share service.
So with that I'll show you how I set up mine and a few of
my first impressions.
So full transparency here, this was my first time to install
a dash cam so I wasn't totally sure what I was getting into
but it turned out to be pretty quick and it followed
a lot of the same steps as most IP cameras.
I started with the app, the camera, it's included power cord
and of course my car.
From there, the app walked me through all the steps
to connect the camera to my Nexar account.
Once it was all set up on my phone I snapped the camera
onto the mounting piece.
From there, I connected it to the power bank which was wired
to my car's outlet.
The camera uses power from your car's battery
so make sure your vehicle is on during this process.
It piggybacks off of the Wi-Fi network your phone is using
so it's best to set it up at home or somewhere
you are already connected.
After it's on, you can connect it to Bluetooth so it can
work outside of the network.
The sticky windshield mount can go anywhere
on your car's windshield so I popped mine just behind
the rear view mirror and used the app to angle it
upward towards the road.
Now when I start my car and hit the road the camera
automatically begins a stream.
Here's a taste of what my driving footage looked like.
The Nexar Beam's recordings show up clearly night and day
and I can isolate parts of each trip through the app
if I don't want to save the entire trip.
Like most cameras, the Nexar app is where you'll find
any settings, past videos, or extra features.
While I kept automatic recording on during my testing
you can turn this off and only stream for select trips.
You can turn on and off audio recording too.
(What's Up by 4 Non Blondes plays on the radio)
Nexar also works with Siri for anyone with iOS.
With the shortcuts feature you can program Nexar to turn on
and off with your voice.
And if you want to view, save, or share past rides
that's also in the app.
All of these are shareable with any of your contacts,
insurance provider or the ride share service you work for.
There's also family groups, a feature that sends automatic
emergency alerts to selected contacts if you're in
a collision or a scary situation.
The Nexar Beam delivers clear reliable video, settings to
make it all your own and safety features like family groups
all within a compact app that is really easy to navigate.
Considering that I'm a newbie to dash cams, it's worth
mentioning how easy it was to install this camera
but there are a few things I wish it was better at.
First, the camera gets power from your car's battery
so your vehicle needs to be on for anything to record.
And it may not capture parking lot fender benders
or damage done to your car while it's stationary.
Next, it's Bluetooth connection is really handy
for finding your car in a parking lot, but you need to be
within range for the dash cam to reach your phone
and it's a pretty limited range.
Similarly, your phone needs to be connected to Wi-Fi to get
any of the camera's videos into the app so they may not be
readily available everywhere you need them.
And finally, the info you get from the dash cam outside
of location and video recordings is minimal.
Without a connection to your vehicle's OBD II port,
you can't see things like speed, hard braking,
or other features devices like GPS trackers do show.
So while the Nexar Beam gives you a second pair of eyes
on the road, it's certainly not perfect but if you're
a ride share driver, parent to teenagers or someone
who's just driving a lot, this will make insurance claims
and traffic stops so much better.
I'd like to thank Nexar for sending us this camera too.
We unboxed it a couple months ago and I was really excited
to give it a try and I wasn't disappointed.
Check out the description to see our list of the best
dash cams on SafeWise along with a ton of other
vehicle safety resources.
We come out with new videos like this one every week
so like, and subscribe for more from us on YouTube.
Thanks for watching and stay safe.
Thanks for watching, and if you want more safety, head over
to safewise.com and you can find reviews and our lineups
of best home security systems best, wireless cameras
and more, stay safe.
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