You're basically paying for a simple recording device which has a few year's lifespan (unless the Malaysian Sun kills it prematurely when you park outdoors, whichever comes first.)
But for me, I just want a simple video recorder and nothing fancy. Unless I go nuts and go for those 'Industrial' and programmable vehicle DVRs.
My criteria
-Clear image recording even at night
-Reverse cam
-Collision sensor to lock the recording
OOTB REVIEW
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| Basically, what you'd get would be the DVR itself, the cigarette lighter plug, the reverse cam and two rubber bands |
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| This is a unique way for the DVR to attach itself to the rear-view mirror but like all rubber products, it's going to fail soon. Therefore, I would need to make sure the car is always parked under a shade. |
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| I don't have to worry about if the DVR is placed a little out and I can still adjust the camera. This is not so critical as you don't really need the camera to be right in the middle of the car's windscreen |
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| Well, yeah, the reverse cam. I just wonder how well it will see in the dark since the four LEDs are white and not infra-red as I was expecting it to be. |
FIRST TRIAL
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| The screen does not whut off until after three minutes, which was the minimum time. Not only was it distracting, sometimes, you'd be confused thinking there was an oncoming traffic. I had to turn down the DVR's exposure setting as even at night, the details were washed out. |
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| Ahem. Yeah, finally figured out why the screen was so blurry... |
INSTALLING THE REVERSE CAM
The cable for the reverse cam looked worryingly short at first. For a small hatch, it would be OK but I would start to worry if this was for a large sedan. After a rough measuring exercise, I realised I would have a lot of 'excess' wires. In the end, I made the cable go through a longer route (pillars and roof) so that I would not end up with a bunch of unsightly coil on either ends.
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| Essentially, there are two connectors to the DVR. The Left is the Micro-USB for power and the right is a 3.5mm audio jack for the reverse cam. |
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| So, I started with pushing the wiring into the windscreen gap, then onto the space hidden by the rubber seals. For this moment, I have not hidden the wires inside the pillar as I'm worried the tight fit might crimp on the wires. The can go into the gaps but right now, I can't wait to test the whole setup! |
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| I unscrewed the metal part, reversed it to fit into my car's Third Brake Light housing but I know that later on, I would be fiddling more with it. |
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| At the reverse camera's end, the wire splits into two where the red would be required to tap into the reverse light. In the case of my car, I temporarily removed some parts, slipped the wire though the boot's rubber seal. |
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| My car is very dirty and I attributed this to not being able to drive it for more than one and a half years, parked in front of a tree which sheds leave a lot. These are the stuff/gunk that accumulated from the Malaysian weather, more so, if there are trees nearby. |
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| This is a T-tap connector as I do not know what else to call it. There are no sticky electrical tapes involved and that's how I liked it. However, if there was the gel filled version, I would love it even more since this would prevent long term expose to the environment or on the rare occasion, arcing. |
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| So, you just line the cable up, use a pair of pliers to squeeze it close. And for the MyVi, the Brake Light's signal cable here is blue. Do not tap to the Black cable as it is a Ground cable. It's very easy to figure it out since the black cable were connected to both lamps. |
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| Then crimp the red cable and push it into the T-Tap and you're done! Sorry for the slightly crimped cable as I did not have a proper Crimper. Heh |
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| Turn the keys on Stand-by and put the gear on Reverse. Once the DVR gets the signal from the reverse light, the screen would change to the reverse Cam. If this does not work, you will have to check your wiring and connections again. Luckily you did not close everything up, right? Right? |
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| This is the Normal view when you're driving and after 3 minutes, the screen would turn itself off. Unfortunately, there is no 1 minute option and so, it's kinda distracting when you're driving at night. And oh, the screen would not help you if there are bright glares from the car behind you. |
TESTING
After a few days road, I can say that having a screen that double up as a rear-view mirror which turns off after 3 minutes is a very, very bad idea. It is very obvious in the evenings or at night where momentarily, you'd get confused with the moving images of 'rushing' roads or lights, thinking there are cars trying to pass you from behind.
Recognising a max capacity of 32GB makes this model quite limited. I haven't done any calculations but when 32GB yields 40 5-minute files, this means I have about 100 minutes of recording, which is slightly less than my daily trip to the office. Bear in mind, the device is recording both front and rear cameras.
I really hate microSD cards. If I am not accidentally destroying them, I am not getting any data. When the card was first inserted, I formatted it with the DVR. At first, I could view the files through the PC and now, it refused to even be recognised. Thinking it was burnt, I put it back to the DVR and it worked. Just that I could not view the files anymore.
FINE-TUNING [25.01.2019]
OK, after more than a month, I guess the DVR is working as it should be AFTER I got a new microSD card. The card was a 16GB version which allowed me to store about a set of 10 front and rear recordings at 5 minute intervals on a compromised resolution. Initially, the first card I had was a 32GB but out of all 40-50 or so recordings (eventually it;s storage capacity degraded), only a small number can be played while the rest were just enormous files of.. unrecognisable nothings. Either the microSD card was too slow to be written or, the system could not recognise the capacity.
I had to set the g-sensor to a minimum as it was so sensitive, all the 20 video files were locked and it could not perform any continuous loop recording.
THINGS YET TO BE DONE
1. Reposition the rear camera
- It's bright white lights keep shining on the rear glass's dried up water stains
- Final location might be slightly above the rear license plate ala Peugeot cars but I'm worried it might be blurred due to the water back-spray thrown up by the rear tires during the rain
- OK, maybe it's time to have another set of rally mud-flaps too....
2. IR LEDS
- Once the they are in, I might want to experiment with them as well, to create some IR lamps for reversing.
- Digital Cameras are very sensitive to them but they give you a black and white images
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