Dashcam

BlackVue 750 2 Channel here. Been reliable. Reasonable battery drain -- and no issues vs. a ICE car, because of the _huge_ Tesla main battery. Its about the best camera you can buy right now. There are 4K versions, maybe you'll hear from those owners... and see if 4K is really worth it.

 

BlackVue Dash Cameras - List of BlackVue Products and Services

I had one of the two camera systems (one facing forward out the front windshield and one facing aft out the back) installed in my S.

The system records all the time, has negligible battery drain and you can access the system via wifi or via the cloud.

Front camera has higher resolution than the rear so I've seen where some have bought two systems and then placed the two high resolution cameras facing fore and aft and the two low resolution cameras facing left and right.

Of course there long has been speculation that eventually Tesla will allow user access to all of the cars' cameras making all of some of them into dash cams.

 

A shop installed the BlackVue DR750 2ch dascham set a few days ago. It's been great. The dashcam broadcasts its own SSID so that you can hook up your phone/laptop to it and download the videos. You can also connect to the cloud if you have access to a wifi connection for the dashcam to connect to as well and view your car in real time. BlackVue offers 5 GB of cloud space for free.

The cams were $420 and the labour was another $320.

 

Thinkware F800 pro and Blackvue 750 are the two premier dual channel dashcams.

I went with the Thinkware after watching youtube videos. The video quality for the Thinkware seemed a little bit higher to me. I also grabbed it on an Amazon flash deal for $329.

 

I bought a Topfit dashcam made specifically for the MS from Amazon. It fits right on the back of your mirror and shares the power of the mirror. It requires no wiring and installs in 5 minutes or so. The video seems pretty good but the app isn't the best. It looks factory when it's installed an no one even knows it's there. It ran about $230.

 

Newbie question - how often do dashcam images come in handy? I can see the value for documenting a car accident for insurance/legal purposes. If they record all the time, I'm sure they'd be useful for theft and vandalism as well. Are there other common situations that people use them for?

 

Yes. You can remotely monitor your car in real time from anywhere, anytime with the cloud. I've had my Blackvue 750 for 6 months now and it's been working great even in extreme cold!

 

As long as it has wifi yes.


You can also set a geo fence so if the car moves out of a set area it'll notify you. Something I think Teslas should have. You have the ability to track the car by the dashcam if it is stolen if the thief doesn't unplug it.

 

Is this model for any AP model or pre? I'd like to get some cams for security..

 

The cameraa that wire into the mirror will turn off with the car.

You don't want to get those if you want a security camera or will need to worry it to a different source.

 

Thanks for the reply, while its mostly for driving if something happens while parked it would be nice to have it recorded.. I'll stick with one of the 2 mentioned above..

 

There are versions for both on amazon. Neither records when the car is off.

 

I'm holding out for the Blackvue 4k. In the meantime, ordered an Owl Cam. I'll let you know how it is when I get it.

 

Mine was for the 2.0 but I’m pretty sure they have 1.0

 

I got an Owl cam. Their PR guys are friends of mine, so I got a Friends & Family discount... having never had a dash cam before, I'm not sure what I think just yet.

If anyone has any questions about it, let me know (or PM me).

 

I have been able to use the video to find the guy that hit my car while it was parked and he took off. Another time I was able to help someone else. They got hit and the other person tried to spin the story in their favor. I caught a few fun moments and close calls in traffic.

My dashcam is fairly visible. I think that's a good thing. People tend to behave better when they know they are on camera.

 

After pondering a decision this week over whether to buy Owl or the new Blackvue DR900S, I decided to start with the Owl. There are a handful of youtube reviews of it, and the App Store average rating of 4.3 is pretty impressive for a new app. Leo Laporte said it works in his Model X. Owl is 1440 vs 4k for the 900, and I really wanted 4k resolution. But after seeing interior examples of the Owl, I wanted to get security coverage for the interior, whereas the 900 is meant for exterior facing use. Then I saw some Blackvue videos of rear end accidents caught on cam, so having that view is also important. So I'm probably going to do both. Just ordered the Owl the other day, and will have to make an appointment to install the 900 after release. I'm looking forward to the easy self installation of the Owl into the OBD port.