Feedback on Garmin Dashcams?

[nickswhip24]

Hey all-picked up a garmin mini 3 and am reading up on all brands-may be doing 3 -4 vehicles with 2 channel setups and am looking for input.

I watched lots of you tube vids and kinda came to garmin ...i used their gps for years with no issue...

Here is what i have so far...
- garmin is made in Taiwan, they have good support network, they actually work at the time needed most, they seem to refresh every 2 years or so
they have a subscription based product to store and access footage-but i see it is $100 a year for each device -that is a no-go for 8 devices.

Thanks for any input!

 

[theblooms]

I run Viofo because they're inexpensive and use Sony Starvis 2 sensors, and the sensor is the only thing that matters.

Paying a subscription service for a dash cam is wild. Why would anyone actually do that? Just get some big like 256 or even 512 memory cards, and you're good to go.

 

[stickerbush]

I wouldn't want my dashcam to be connected to the internet.

 

[sm1ke]

My only previous dashcam was a Viofo A129 Duo setup, which lasted me 7 years. Well worth it in my opinion - never skipped a beat until one of the internals died one day. The only thing I didn't like about it was file transfer. I didn't like the app and the wifi was slow, so I would bring the microSD card or the whole camera in and connect it to my laptop to transfer clips.

Both of my current vehicles are running Redtiger dashcams (F17 Elite and ViewClear 70). The app is really easy to use and the wifi is fast, allowing for quick downloads. Both of my cams use Starvis 2 sensors, except for the VC70's rear cam, which uses an Omnivision sensor. We'll see how they handle really cold weather, but so far I'm happy with both of my dashcams.

EDIT: A cloud-based subscription service can be very useful. Presumably, you wouldn't need to power on the dashcam, turn on it's wifi, then connect to the wifi to transfer clips. You'd just log in to the cloud server and download what you need. Additionally, if someone were to break in and damage or steal the camera, the footage would be saved to the cloud instead of being lost with the camera/microSD.

 

[zjwffff]

Either 70mai 800 series (ensure take a supercapacitor one) and Viofo A229 Pro or A329