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Any installed windshield photos of Blackvue DR650S-2ch & Thinkware F770?

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SMAlset

Well-Known Member
Mar 4, 2017
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10,378
SF Bay Area
Been doing research on the Blackvue DR650S-2ch and Thinkware F770 dash cams and aside from the spec difference of the cameras was wondering if you could post photos of your windshields (front and back) with the installs done? Interior and exterior of the car windshield install would be great. We like the discreet footprint of the Blackvue and its cloud feature a lot but also like the 1080 rear camera, dynamic range and low light capabilities of the Thinkware on the other hand. Hoping your photos of the cameras on windows will help make our minds up. Thanks. I'm sure Blackvue will upgrade their cameras to add more of the features that Thinkware has but who knows when that will be...probably after we do our install LOL.
 
not sure if this helps you, but here's one old pic I have of my DR650GW-2CH front camera (same form factor as 650S) mounted in my MS. - it's quite discreet, most passengers don't notice it and it's not really visible from the driving position. Don't have a photo handy of the rear camera, it's mounted top centre of the rear window - from inside the car you can't see the rear camera and from outside it's barely noticeable
Blackvue mounting DSC07818.JPG
 
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I really think that is the best unit on the market, just wish I had the know-how and guts to self-install.

Can you share the cost of install and the highlights of the power taps and front-rear cable pathway?

Thanks
 
I really think that is the best unit on the market, just wish I had the know-how and guts to self-install.

Can you share the cost of install and the highlights of the power taps and front-rear cable pathway?
are you asking about the 650?
There are lots of self-install instructions here on TMC, but I had mine professionally installed at a place I heard installed the 650 in lots of Model S. The constant-on 12V power they got from behind the microphone grill near the rear view mirror.

One other thing I'll note - in lots of the self-install instructions there's mention of what a huge pain it is to push the rear cable through a grommet/opening to get to the trunk, because the rear camera end of that cable has a right-angled connector that's too big to fit through easily.

However it turned out mine has a straight-ended connector going to the rear cam, as you can see in the photo above. So at some point they must have changed the connector style, I don't know when (I bought my 650GW-2ch in May 2016). The point is, if all the latest versions of the 650 including th 650S have a straight connector to the rear, then self-install might be more straightforward compared to some of the older instructions?
 
Merci David! We decided despite not getting full HD on the rear camera with Blackvue that we're going to go with the Blackvue. Still have to order it and decide on the memory card capacity but plan installation in the next few weeks at an installer.

While no one posted photos of their Thinkware windshields, we did watch some Thinkware install videos and got an idea from those. In the end we liked the much smaller footprint area where the unit gets applied to the windshield on the Blackview best, and the Blackview camera profile itself is just so much more minimal looking than the Thinkware. Even the installation on David's MX looks great.

I guess for us it came down to not caring for the Thinkware's rectangular box mounted directly on the windshield. We just hope that by buying and installing our Blackvue now that we don't see Pittasoft come out with an updated rear camera after purchase LOL. If they do, it would be really nice if they made the rear camera something that could be purchased separately so just the back camera could be swapped out in that event. Looks like that would be easy as you could slip it out of the windshield mounted holder. Or does the rear camera not slide out like the front? I'd bet there might be a lot of owners of the 650S and some 650GWs that would be interested in updating just their rear cameras. Guess time will tell. Thanks everyone who responded.
 
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