I've had the cam 2 weeks now, and love it more than my $200 cam in my car.
– The night vision is great! I have video of us on a two lane road in pitch black in the mountains, and I with the 1080p video you can see all the details
– The wide angle lens is also great, you can see all the details out the front window to even cars beside you.
– The parking feature! My expensive dash cam doesn't have this, but any time the car is bumped while off and parked, the Vava goes into "emergency" mode and records a clip. I want to get a second one out the back of the car, and I took it out to see how long the battery lasts – it's been a few days so that's really good.
– Installation with this one is also great. They include plenty of stickies, a super long cord, and a tool to help you embed the cord into your car paneling to hide it so it's seamless. Again, my camera thats twice the price didn't come with any of this.
– The app for my iphone has been flawless. It linked easily, and links back up every time I start the app. The settings were very easy to adjust and the app looks very polished, this again surprised me.
– The snapshot button is worth mentioning, it's kinda cool. I don't think I'll use it a ton, but it's easy to use and could be good in an emergency. Another surprise bonus I like that it came with.
– The windshield mount – If you've never bought a dash cam, read the reviews on the mount!! My other cam falls probably once a week, it's heavier than the Vava and I thought it had a good system, but somehow the Vava is suction + sticky, and they included mounting tape and extra stuff to get it mounted well. The actual cam holds to the mount via magnet, which magnets are like magic I really like how easy it is – and in two weeks from the heat of sunny days in Denver to -10° nights up in the mountains, it hasn't fallen and feels very sturdy.
– Service + Packaging – their packaging and support have been great. I reached out to them to ask "what type of memory card is preferred for this device" and they were quick to reply. I also dork out over packaging, and the Vava is like an Apple iPhone level of packaging, very cool. (ps. The Samsung 64gb is recommended)
All in all, I think I'm going to give my wife my other cam and put this one in my car. The parking feature alone is worth having this, it's very sensitive yet also has a "sensitivity setting" if you want to adjust it. Years ago, I had an alarm system that had sensors all around my car, and a cart at a grocery hit my car and dented it. I went in with a witness and my sensor data and got the grocery to pay the $600 to fit the dent + repaint required – thankfully I had a witness when I grabbed him as I ran out of the restaurant next door when my alarm went off. Catching it on video with this makes me want to get a second one for the back window too, but then checking the other features and videos here I can definitely say this is a better cam than the other one that I paid twice as much for. I'll update this review in a couple months if anything changes!
Pros: I liked the design of the cam, and it's one of the reasons why I ended up buying this one, and it looks good in person. Packaging feels premium, and on first sight, I felt like I got what I paid for. Setting it up was super smooth and easy, the only real step I did for setting it up was just formatting the MicroSD card (Samsung 128GB U3) on startup, and that was it. I have tested the parking mode, and the motion detection is very sensitive, I decided later to change the sensitivity of the camera to be a bit higher, but it works, and it doesn't need any additional power supply or direct connection with car batteries as other dash cams do for parking mode.
Cons: The lens is not as wide as expected, I've seen reviews of other dash cams with wider angle lenses. The other con, which is a minor one, is the need to pull up your phone if you needed to interact with the dash cam, which as I said is a minor thing, considering the rare interactions between the driver and the dash cam after setting it up.
Feature Product
- 【1080P@60fps Dash cam & 360° Swivel Angel】Based on powerful Novatek NT96663 CPU and Sony IMX291 sensor, the 1080P dash cam captures road front in crystal details at 1920x1080P@60fps, capturing license plates clear. 360°Rotatable lens swivel in any direction, enable capture any special footage in front, outside and inside as well.
- 【Wifi dash cam & VAVA Dash APP】With built-in 2.4GHz Wi-Fi transmitter, enable connect the dash cam to your smartphone for not only stream photos, but also stream videos; The VAVA Dash APP (on Google or APP store), easily access to the configure, live stream, download and save the videos or photos to smartphone, allows view the photos and videos on Smartphone without take out the SD Card and seamlessly share the photos and videos to social Media.
- 【Night Vision w/Sony Sensor & GPS Dash Cam】Advanced Sony IMX291 sensor, F1.8 6-glass lens rear facing cam plus 1 IR LED lights greatly enhances night vision inside car at low light environment, making your driving more safer at night; Built-in GPS can accurately track the driving route, location and speed in either KM/H or MP/H.
- 【Seamless Loop Recording, G-Sensor & Parking mode】Seamless Loop recording will record the video on 1 /2 /3 minutes clips and automatically overwrites the oldest clips with the newest videos; When the built-in gravity sensor detects a sudden shake or collision, the video will not be overwritten; Auto switch the dashcam to Parking Mode, triggered by the collision sensor, the dash cam will automatically record when people hits your car.
- 【Compact Design & Super Easy Installation】Low-profile design allows the VAVA Dash cam to be a well-hidden witness to the road ahead; Equipped with strong suction cup, enables install the dash cam to normal windshield. Works with 12V and 24V vehicles such as car, suv and trucks. Full 18m Warranty, email replies within 24 hours.
Description
Nicely packaged, arrived on time, Easy to install. Recording is perfect
study, compact
1. The Dash cam based on powerful Novatek NT96663 CPU and Sony IMX291 sensor, captures road front in crystal details at 1920x1080P@60fps, 360 Degree Rotable lens swivel in any direction, enable capture any special footage in front, outside and inside as well.
2. With built-in Wifi and VAVA Dash App, easily access to the configure, live stream, playback, download and share incredible HD video to the social media.
3. The dash cam adopted advanced Sony IMX291 sensor, F1.8 6-glass lens rear facing cam plus 1 IR LED lights greatly enhances night vision inside car at low light environment.
4. Built-in GPS can accurately track the driving route, location and speed
5. Low-profile design allows the Dash cam to be a well-hidden witness to the road ahead, also has the Loop recording, G-sensor and parking mode features.
I wanted a quality product with a known good quality camera sensor chip and this thing delivers! This is an amazing high quality product, am VERY happy with wide screen image quality with a real Sony camera sensor! Since it uses a nice strong magnetic mount on a very secure combination of sticky and suction mount, you can easily rotate to face front, rear or in between towards you. All very stable and sturdy! Very professionally packaged and supported.
They include all the long cords, a car interior trim pry tool to tuck the cord cleanly in the gaps of your interior trim. Also, plenty of wire holders to run this super clean around your window and glove box and still have plenty of cord length to plug into your own USB or included 2 port 12v adapter that supplies a full 3A of power so you can use the web cam and charge a phone fairly quickly. I plugged mine straight into my cars built in USB as it does supply plenty of power, so it's nice to have a separate USB power adapter so it's your choice and not forced to find it's own 12v socket in your car. Very nice touch!
Nice app options to turn down sensitivity for the "crash" sensor for those of us who drive sports cars so it doesn't trigger and record too much just for driving "spirited". :) Also, nice options to easily share to social media or save to your phone memory so you don't need a large capacity and expensive Micro SD card, I used a 32GB that was only seven bucks.
Also, for this same item, this is the best link to order from as you get a better price and the snapshot button for free compared to the direct manufacturer listing! I'm glad I found this item for less here! :)
As mentioned in title, this is great with an iPhone or iPad but unfortunately ALL WiFi dash cams will only connect on Android if device internet is disabled COMPLETELY, even background mobile data. So no streaming or navigation available while app is connected to the camera. If you have an Android phone, I'd recommend at least having a separate cheapo Android tablet that doesn't have mobile data anyway or iPad if you want to use any WiFi dash cam. It is NOT this products fault, which is awesome quality, but a known issue with all of Android.
I'm a fan of dash cams, especially after they have saved me in 2 incidents where other drivers lied about the events. I already have a Vantrue N2, but was looking for another dash cam for another vehicle. Depending on what you need, this VAVA one may or may not be a good fit.
PROs:
- Includes absolutely everything to help get this kit installed, wish more vendors included trim tools and cable fasteners
- Solid suction/base, this thing will not pop off easily
- Very simple to use and setup (once you have the settings configured via the VAVA App). Almost a set-it & forget-it type thing. Date and Time are automatically pulled from the phone/app, so you don't need to mess with any of that. Though I couldn't figure out how to change km to miles for speed, maybe I missed it.
- Image and audio quality are really good, on par with other dash cams in the price range. I set all my dash cams to 1080P, regardless if they go higher or not. SD storage space is limited and I don't plan on watching these clips on a 4K TV. And some insurance agencies won't even accept video attachments, instead, you have to upload to some video service, which invariable downgrades the video anyways. The VAVA gives you the option to loop video in 1,2 , or 3 minute chunks. The resulting files are in MP4 format and each clip contains an "S" copy which is the smaller thumbnail and the full-size copy. "Night Vision" is decent in that there are less artifacts in the video compared to others. The "fishbowl" effect/distortion is slight around the edges of the video.
Meh:
-The shutter button isn't something I found useful.
-360° swivel isn't something I think I would use much simply because I won't have the phone paired up with it, so I wouldn't really know if I'm capturing what I want after moving it from it's front position.
CONs:
- There's a little 1 inch block on the USB/power cable that makes it impossible to do a 100% clean install. Wish they had built it into the base or ends of the cable instead. The USB cable can't be completely tucked away in the headliner or A-pillar with that bulky block there.
- While the VAVA App is simple to use and clean, your Android device has to be in Airplane Mode in order to connect to the dash cam. I mean, once you have the settings set, you really won't need to use the app anymore. If I ever need to pull video off of it, I would simply pull out the SD card. However, for those that want to have more control of the camera while driving or to use the GPS features, it's pretty much a non-starter. GPS coordinates don't do much good when your phone can't load the actual map diagrams to go with it.
Basically, this is a solid dash cam. But the various features of it require the VAVA App. If it was paired via bluetooth instead of WiFi, maybe those functions would be more useful? However, if you don't need to see the video frame or GPS or snap pictures and only need a sturdy dash cam with good picture quality, this may work for you.
I have driven 300-400 miles per day, Mon-Fri, for the past 10 years, and have used many different Dash Cams. This is the Best Value Camera that I have ever used.
Sure, I've had Cams with slightly better video quality, but they cost twice as much, or more! I bought a Street Guardian SGGCX2PRO at the time time as this camera. The video quality of the Street Guardian is marginally better.. but cost $200. Not worth the price difference.
What is very important any time you purchase a product, is Customer Service and support! The distributor for Vava provides exceptional support. I had a few issues initially, but they were addressed in such a manner, that I've already forgotten what they were to begin with! Compare that to a $350 VicoVation Marcus 4 cam that I purchased a few years ago, and has ceased functioning... there is no way to even contact them via their website!
Take it from someone with years of experience. This is a dashcam well worth the modest investment.
0 comments:
Post a Comment