Dashcam recommendations

Weaselinsuit

Weaselinsuit

Joined
Jul 11, 2020
Messages
282
Age
62
Location
North Saanich, British Columbia
Bike
2014 ST1300
With Xmas and my birthday fast approaching, I was asked what I would like for gifts. I have been contemplating getting a dashcam for the bike for a while and have narrowed it down to possibly the Thinkware M1 or the Innovv K5 or K6.

Anyone have any experience or thoughts re either? Or any other recommendations? I'd welcome those as well.

Thanks in advance!
 
Mellow said:
I have the K6. I like it well enough. I like that the brains are in the front camera so pretty easy to install.

A couple videos.


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Which is better a helmet cam or a dash cam. While the dash cam is fixed to the dash a helmet cam can be move around with the movement of the neck and take in views that the dash cam may not.
 
etalors said:
Which is better a helmet cam or a dash cam. While the dash cam is fixed to the dash a helmet cam can be move around with the movement of the neck and take in views that the dash cam may not.
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Purpose.. do you want something to document in case there's an accident or do you want something to use in a ride report/blog in which case other options likely provide better quality but less battery life vs permanently installed.
 
Mellow said:
Purpose.. do you want something to document in case there's an accident or do you want something to use in a ride report/blog in which case other options likely provide better quality but less battery life vs permanently installed.
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that was my question as well.
lots of good camera choices, but a dashcam fore-and-aft will be better for accident proof. like, proof of the accident, not as in protection from accident.
for scenic photos / ride-recording video, the newer 360 cameras are getting close in price to the small action cams.
 
Deciding between a helmet cam and a dash cam really means you need to decide whether you want an "install and forget" camera to document an accident. Or, an action camera. A helmet camera is only recording what you're looking at. If you're looking at someone walking down the street on the right and a truck hits you from the left, you lost the whole encounter.

FWIW, I found my INNOVV camera to be a bit unreliable. Actually, more than a bit unreliable. The biggest thing I have a problem with is it won't loop record reliably. I went through several trips and I counted on the dash cam recording what I was passing through without stopping to take a picture. When I got home, I found it had quit recording 6 weeks earlier. Okay, so the missed scenic shots were a disappointment, but what if I had an accident in those six weeks when I thought it was recording and it wasn't? That's not a disappointment. That's a crisis.

And when I've contacted customer service, the response has been poor.

Chris
 
I have a Sony on my helmet and Daboo is correct that you see what you turn your head to see. I have found that with it mounted on the right side I don't get much on the left recorded.
I did mount it on the top of my helmet for a very short time, it became a wing. I did move it to the side after that. The Sony has great light and dark recording abilities. only problem with the one I have is I doubt it is still available. It is about 10 years or more old. Been flawless in operation though. Battery life and capacity shows its age.
One thing it did show me is what I was looking at, I was surprised at how much my head moved around in both directions, over the shoulder and both mirrors. I did not realized I was looking around that much.
I will say the Sony has been rock solid with a clear picture, I do not know if it will work with a smart phone since I don't have one.
 
I've been out of the action camera / dash camera research for awhile. I found what worked for me and stepped off the wagon. (Is that a correct analogy....expression...whatever? )

Anyway, when I was deep into it, one thing I found was most action cameras at the time only had about a 3 hr charge. My Sena 10C was that way as well. When used as a BT headset, the battery lasted about 26 hrs. But when recording...it went down to 3 hrs like all the others.

The great thing about the Sena was you could plug it in and continue to use it, even in rain. Technically, it wasn't waterproof, but the power socket was on the bottom rear and it never seemed to mind. I thought all action cameras would be that way...but I was wrong. Many worked for 3 hrs and that was it. They wouldn't record while charging. Some didn't even have interchangeable batteries.

If things have changed from that situation, that's great for all of us.

I'll say this for the INNOVV K6. The front camera records at 2K, 30 fps. If you want a picture from the bike's perspective that is high quality, it has it. (Assuming it is recording.)

Chris
 
If there can be only one It would be a bike mounted cam for me. Who knows the odds since the Hurt Report. But I think a cam always facing forward with a wide field of view is the best bet for collision documentation. I think there's a pretty dramatic video floating around here demonstrating that very thing. Or there was. I don't know if it's still here.

A helmet cam means you have to be facing the threat which won't always be the case. Then there's general videography. I've seen a lot of helmet cam video and until someone gets the hang of knowing that it's going to be viewed by others - head movements can get annoying.

One other thing. Seeing a lot of footage over time I think frame rate is more important than high-resolution for anything other than casual touring. 4K at 60fps would be my ideal especially if the cam supported 256G of storage. Those specs are few and far between. But I'll take 1080p at 60fps over 4K at 30fps. Take a phone and do a pan at both res/fps and include some traffic. Go with the one that looks best to you. I'd want the best odds of getting a legible cap of a license plate. The "punch in and clean it up" and "Enhance!" are the stuff TV shows are made of. Or NSA satellites.
 
Sadlsor said:
lots of good camera choices, but a dashcam fore-and-aft will be better for accident proof. like, proof of the accident, not as in protection from accident.
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Yeah, but for that it'll also needs to record some GPS telemetry like date, time, location, heading, speed...

And observing those with a helmet cam is always worrying... improper, stiff posture, not looking into the corners, lack of/wrong leaning angle, slow/blocking the road, running wide, etc...

Then you need additional equipment... spare batteries, cables, chargers, a netbook, external data storage (i.e. a 2TB disk)... and time... lots off...
Suddenly you find yourself 'performing' your rides according to a 'story-book' and a lot less for actual touring, adventure, fun and R&R...
... for that road the camera should be placed here, for zis road the camera ought to be over there... battery low... CF card almost full... lens needs another cleaning... pfffff...
BTDT, still have the various mounting points for my Sony FDR-X3000RFDI 4K on the ST, dragged it along all over Sweden and Norway... in 2018...
You know what? Wearing proper socks I don't get itchy feet, thus still haven't found the mojo, nor the time to edit all that footage together to a home/travel video... :biggrin:
So its a bit of 'consider wisely before choosing that bound for life'... ;)
 
To me dashcams are more about looping and have documentation in case of a crash.
Action cameras - like a GoPro, are more about recording videos for enjoyment.
Either can do both at the end of the day.
I put my GoPro at the top of my windshield, hit the button and go if I want to capture a particular road.
But editing and dealing with videos can be really time consuming and disk consuming. ;)
 
I ended up grabbing an Innovv K7 on a Black Friday deal. I had stopped in at a local car radio, dashcam etc store yesterday to see what they had and what they would charge for install. They had the Thinkware M1 and Kenwood model for sale, starting at $500 in CDN pretty money. Then install was going to be at least another $500 based on approximately 3 hours of labour, because they had to remove the seat and run the wires through tubes etc.

I'll likely be back here asking for assistance when I get stuck trying to install the thing once it comes :tongue:.

I'll provide a review once I have it up and running....if I get it up and running.....
 
I have used several "video" cameras on my bikes. Started with using a Contour Roam camera on my ST1300 and also mounted it on my 2015 Goldwing when I got that bike.

On the Goldwing, as I said, I did use the Contour Roam camera but they went out of business and I wanted to shift from the 1K video to 4k video. I did try and purchase a 4k Roam from Ebay but it failed to work. So, I have have a Gropro 12 on my Goldwing. The camera is mounted on the windscreen using a Mount developed by Yoda who was a member of the Goldwing Forum I follow (GL1800Riders). I also mounted a full time, front and rear view video camera on the wing. It's VSYVSO B6 dash camera system. One camera is mounted under the nose of the bike. The second camera is mounted on a metal plate that I did use for my Sirius/XM radio antenna when my GPS supported that.

Some videos and pictures below;

Video from 2015 riding on Big Horn - Contour Roam Camera. (in Rumble you have to click on the "Gear" icon to select the highest playback resolution).
Riding on Top of Big Horn - June 8, 2015

A video from the VSYVSO B6 Dash Cam with combined front and rear views on BRP
Combined Front/Rear BRP April 2023

A video from the VSYBSO B6 Dash Cam front view only.
Traveling Hinton Creed Rd N Boiling Springs, NC

A video from the GoPro 12
Traveling South on Florida 121 Spring of 2025

Mounting for Contour Roam (before Yoda's Mount was avaialble). The forward facing VYSTO Dash Cam is mounted there now.
DSCF0029.jpg

Contour Roam mounted using Yoda's Mount on windscreen. The GoPro is mounted there now
IMG_0503.JPG
 
Since its "showtime"...
my very first test of the mentioned Sony FDR-X3000RFDI 4K, also mounted below the headlight... (not an ideal location BTW...)

Tweak the video quality to HD and volume to medium as this still was with the build-in mike...


IMO brilliant stabilizer, no artificially colorizing (like with GoPro), well in low light conditions, slight struggles with light changes though...
 
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The image quality is very good. I'm wondering how much of that is the IS. Resolution/FPS? 1080/50? Not a subtle device. Does it have some sort of quick release mount?

4K seems limited to 30fps. Could you compare it to the Sony's 1080p at 60fps? Does IS level the 30/60fps difference? Whatever res/fps you were using I was able to read plates on vehicles you overtook. Not so much for opposing traffic at speed.

The audio was very impressive. The wind noise wasn't at all objectionable until you got onto the highway. Even then the mic broke up occasionally. That is not the constant raspy noise I hear on so many other videos at slower speeds than you were at. Though some of that may be the IS. Is it optical or digital?

Good demo video.
 
gunsmoker said:
Although I always look in my rearview mirrors when I'm sitting at an intersection and there are no cars parked behind me, I don't look constantly . I had not been looking to my rear for several seconds prior to the sudden impact from behind.
I didn't see this guy coming!
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You can't look everywhere all the time. It isn't possible and it isn't normal. You could end up actually paranoid and not in the blithe forum speak way.

gunsmoker said:
If I had, I probably could have accelerated through the intersection to at least less than the impact when he hit me , or swerved to the right to avoid the crash.
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Maybe. Hindsight is 20/20. Maybe you would have had time to recognize the threat and make an escape. Dwelling on "maybe I coulda/shoulda/woulda" when maybe it just wasn't possible to escape to safety will shake your confidence even more than the actual impact. It wasn't your fault.

Sure- review what happened to see if there was anything you reasonably realistcally could have done to prevent/avoid/escape. Then be prepared to accept the best you can do won't always be good enough because there are just some things we can't control

I'd like to hear more about The Other Guy in this. That's if you're of a mind and when you're up to it.

It's an interesting question. No question a rear-facing dash cam would have documented the crash. Would it have shown the driver's face weather conditions permitting. Seeing the driver with his/her head turned to a passenger or looking down possibly at a phone... All an opportunity to combat the "I'd didn't see him 'defense' strategy. As though it's somehow a rider's fault.
 
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