I’ve been running this in my Cupra for the last week and thought I’d share my thoughts. Turns out I have quite a lot to say!
It’s a front and rear setup and I also have the power magic pro (PMP) hardwire kit that enables the camera to run in parking mode with the ignition off. I paid £230 for the cameras, £40 for the PMP and £50 for the fitting.
In summary I’m disappointed. I bought it as a premium option, and though the image quality is good the extra functionality that helps justify the price is buggy, poor quality or non-appropriate for my needs. The default privacy options for the cloud service are shocking.
I’m still considering returning it for something smaller, cheaper and simpler.
Unboxing
First impressions are good, quality packaging and it comes with spare sticky mounts, some little sticky cable mounts, trim lifter, lens caps, SD card USB adaptor as well as a 32gig micro SD. The cameras have a quality look and materials, good button feel. The front camera is a little bigger than I expected and quite deep.
Fitting
I paid Halfords to hardwire the kit. They did a tidy job of routing the cables.
They put the rear camera about 10cm down from the top of the glass, central, right in my eyeline which was distracting. I moved it up and to the side when I got home, but still in the swept area. They didn’t route the cable through the hatch grommets but for £50 I wouldn’t expect them to. The field of view takes in several heating elements which can’t really be avoided - they are not too distracting.
The front camera is hard to position because the large sensor housing pretty much prevents the camera going behind the mirror without being quite obtrusive. That’s not the fault of the camera, but a smaller unit would have been easier to site. We settled for high on the passenger side as the best bet, though it fouls the sun visor slightly (because of the camera depth) and the field of view isn’t as good as it would have been centrally mounted. I may move it.
The PMP was sticky mounted next to the bonnet release and set to a threshold of 12.5v (below which it will turn off parking mode to prevent drain). I found this meant parking mode cutoff after a few minutes, so I had to change it to 12v using dip switches. I also discovered I needed to cycle the power switch for the new setting to take effect. No big deal but would have been nice if the fitter had sorted it from the off.
I haven’t experienced any radio//DAB interference.
Configuration
All configuration is done via an app connected over direct wifi, or optionally via the cloud (of which more later). I used the iOS version of the app. Every change to the camera settings requires the camera to reboot, and you to re-establish a direct wifi connection which is tiresome.
There’s a windows app, but it doesn’t allow a direct WiFi connection, only Cloud or from a card reader.
Auto Reboot
The default is to automatically reboot the camera at 3am “to prevent issues”. This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence especially at this price point.
Parking Mode
There are options for time lapse (1FPS) or impact and motion activated recording, for which sensitivity levels can be set. The motion detection was useless to me as even at low sensitivity it activated for every tree branch moving in the wind and every person, pet or car that passed the end of the drive. The impact detection was also flawed as it will activate every time you get back in the car. And as it only comes out of parking mode a couple of minutes after you start the car it will also activate when you drive off. I wouldn’t trust it to capture a small knock, let alone vandalism, so went with time lapse mode.
Brightness
The front camera was fine at the default setting but I had to turn the rear camera up to maximum brightness to compensate for the tinted glass.
Enhanced Night Mode
This is meant to increase camera sensitivity in the dark but resulted in very grainy and indistinct video so turned it off.
Cloud Service
This connected to my home WiFi easily and let me configure and review files over the net rather than using a direct connection to the camera. However there are some major issues:
Privacy: by default your camera is public and anyone can view you live feed, as well as location even when parked. According to the app this is to allow the whole world to 'experience the vicarious pleasure' of your driving. That and see where you've parked unattended. Shocking.
Reconnection: returning after a short drive the camera reconnected to my home WiFi, but after a longer absence it would not reconnect. Nor would it allow a direct WiFi connection. The only option was to manually turn WiFi off and on using the button on the camera. I hope this must be a firmware bug which will be rectified.
Cost: the free version gives you 100 views per month and one camera, 300 views is $10 per month.
I turned off cloud services. It could work if you have an in car WAN I guess.
Event Detection
You can configure the three axis accelerometer to flag events and optionally retain those files to prevent overwriting. Even on the lowest sensitivity settings this triggered whenever I went over a speed bump, or drove in anything approaching a spirited manner. I turned it off altogether in the end. I can use manual recording mode to flag any events.
Voice prompts
The camera can tell you when it turns on, off or changes mode as well as guiding you through SD reformatting etc. But the speaker is so small it is inaudible with the engine on. I turned off voice prompts.
Video Quality
Very good at the default Full HD 60FPS front 30FPS rear. Good in the dark too, though testing limited.
The app provides very little functionality to help you identify the file you need to view. There’s no filtering or grouping on date or time, no way to select from a map, no thumbnails until you select a file. The files are named with a sortable date, 20180822 081002 for instance, so while they are in descending date order it’s not really that clear what time or date they relate to. Surely this basic functionality should be better in a premium product?
It’s a front and rear setup and I also have the power magic pro (PMP) hardwire kit that enables the camera to run in parking mode with the ignition off. I paid £230 for the cameras, £40 for the PMP and £50 for the fitting.
In summary I’m disappointed. I bought it as a premium option, and though the image quality is good the extra functionality that helps justify the price is buggy, poor quality or non-appropriate for my needs. The default privacy options for the cloud service are shocking.
I’m still considering returning it for something smaller, cheaper and simpler.
Unboxing
First impressions are good, quality packaging and it comes with spare sticky mounts, some little sticky cable mounts, trim lifter, lens caps, SD card USB adaptor as well as a 32gig micro SD. The cameras have a quality look and materials, good button feel. The front camera is a little bigger than I expected and quite deep.
Fitting
I paid Halfords to hardwire the kit. They did a tidy job of routing the cables.
They put the rear camera about 10cm down from the top of the glass, central, right in my eyeline which was distracting. I moved it up and to the side when I got home, but still in the swept area. They didn’t route the cable through the hatch grommets but for £50 I wouldn’t expect them to. The field of view takes in several heating elements which can’t really be avoided - they are not too distracting.
The front camera is hard to position because the large sensor housing pretty much prevents the camera going behind the mirror without being quite obtrusive. That’s not the fault of the camera, but a smaller unit would have been easier to site. We settled for high on the passenger side as the best bet, though it fouls the sun visor slightly (because of the camera depth) and the field of view isn’t as good as it would have been centrally mounted. I may move it.
The PMP was sticky mounted next to the bonnet release and set to a threshold of 12.5v (below which it will turn off parking mode to prevent drain). I found this meant parking mode cutoff after a few minutes, so I had to change it to 12v using dip switches. I also discovered I needed to cycle the power switch for the new setting to take effect. No big deal but would have been nice if the fitter had sorted it from the off.
I haven’t experienced any radio//DAB interference.
Configuration
All configuration is done via an app connected over direct wifi, or optionally via the cloud (of which more later). I used the iOS version of the app. Every change to the camera settings requires the camera to reboot, and you to re-establish a direct wifi connection which is tiresome.
There’s a windows app, but it doesn’t allow a direct WiFi connection, only Cloud or from a card reader.
Auto Reboot
The default is to automatically reboot the camera at 3am “to prevent issues”. This doesn’t exactly inspire confidence especially at this price point.
Parking Mode
There are options for time lapse (1FPS) or impact and motion activated recording, for which sensitivity levels can be set. The motion detection was useless to me as even at low sensitivity it activated for every tree branch moving in the wind and every person, pet or car that passed the end of the drive. The impact detection was also flawed as it will activate every time you get back in the car. And as it only comes out of parking mode a couple of minutes after you start the car it will also activate when you drive off. I wouldn’t trust it to capture a small knock, let alone vandalism, so went with time lapse mode.
Brightness
The front camera was fine at the default setting but I had to turn the rear camera up to maximum brightness to compensate for the tinted glass.
Enhanced Night Mode
This is meant to increase camera sensitivity in the dark but resulted in very grainy and indistinct video so turned it off.
Cloud Service
This connected to my home WiFi easily and let me configure and review files over the net rather than using a direct connection to the camera. However there are some major issues:
Privacy: by default your camera is public and anyone can view you live feed, as well as location even when parked. According to the app this is to allow the whole world to 'experience the vicarious pleasure' of your driving. That and see where you've parked unattended. Shocking.
Reconnection: returning after a short drive the camera reconnected to my home WiFi, but after a longer absence it would not reconnect. Nor would it allow a direct WiFi connection. The only option was to manually turn WiFi off and on using the button on the camera. I hope this must be a firmware bug which will be rectified.
Cost: the free version gives you 100 views per month and one camera, 300 views is $10 per month.
I turned off cloud services. It could work if you have an in car WAN I guess.
Event Detection
You can configure the three axis accelerometer to flag events and optionally retain those files to prevent overwriting. Even on the lowest sensitivity settings this triggered whenever I went over a speed bump, or drove in anything approaching a spirited manner. I turned it off altogether in the end. I can use manual recording mode to flag any events.
Voice prompts
The camera can tell you when it turns on, off or changes mode as well as guiding you through SD reformatting etc. But the speaker is so small it is inaudible with the engine on. I turned off voice prompts.
Video Quality
Very good at the default Full HD 60FPS front 30FPS rear. Good in the dark too, though testing limited.
The app provides very little functionality to help you identify the file you need to view. There’s no filtering or grouping on date or time, no way to select from a map, no thumbnails until you select a file. The files are named with a sortable date, 20180822 081002 for instance, so while they are in descending date order it’s not really that clear what time or date they relate to. Surely this basic functionality should be better in a premium product?
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