Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

** Feel free to read my whole review, but I've just taken it down to one star because the system has completely stopped working. Sometimes I can get the screen on, but it doesn't recognize the memory card and won't record even if I can get it powered up, so... ** Note: I include power consumption/current draw info at the end of my review. I wrote this review two hours ago as a three star. Then I went and tried to install the rear view camera. Now it's a two star review. I'll explain below. So, I'm six months into owning my dash cam. I like it, but it has recently caused me problems. The install of the basic camera was very simple, but I only plugged in the device/front cam itself, not the rear cameras or GPS. I really like having it, and have even provided video of a car hitting a motorcycle thanks to having this guy in my truck, BUT there are some problems. 1) In the last month and a half the screen has started turning itself on while the truck is parked, which increases the power consumption considerably and has killed my new $250 battery several times already, and left me without the use of my truck several times. Not happy. I just had to go spend $55 on jumper cables to get my truck going today because I really needed to get across town and pick something up. This wasn't a problem the first 4.5 months of ownership, but now if I leave my truck sitting for a few days, it's dead. Totally dead. ** Update: during the colder seasons the screen would turn itself on almost constantly, within one to ten seconds of me pushing the button to turn it off, independent of if the vehicle is parked or driving ** 2) Many may wonder, why not use the power saving mode of parking monitor? Well, you have to buy a different accessory for that to work, item B081TY3H7T. It's a device that plugs into the fuse slots inside your fuse panel, grabbing one battery power source and one ignition switch powered source. Since nobody can tell me how this device communicates to the camera that the vehicle is off rather than just being a power adapter, and the product description itself doesn't even tell me what makes it any different than using the power source provided with the camera, then I'm not buying it. If I spend that $20 and the feature still doesn't work, then I'm just out another $20 and more time. I also don't want to increase the amount of wiring needed in the truck to make this product work. Parking mode seems like a feature that should have been build into the device functionality anyway, just like the GPS functionality should have been. 3) The GPS feature fails, like all the time. About a third of the time the GPS shows as speed of 0 shown in red text, as you can see in the pictures ** update, the gps function fails almost all the time now, working only about 5% of the time **. The second photo you can see my speedometer not at zero, but the camera has the red error rather than an actual vehicle speed. So, if I get a ticket there's a very high chance my speedometer feature won't be captured accurately on the camera so I cannot defend myself in court. Also, you have to mount an external GPS device to get any feedback of vehicle speed and direction, and to my understanding this also sets the power off feature so the camera knows when you park and doesn't run 24/7 with the vehicle off. Again, it is unclear if the GPS device or the $20 additional accessory from item 2 actually creates the power off functionality. This should be more clear. I also can't find any instructions online about how to orient the GPS unit, or if it needs to be mounted upside down, like some do. 4) The rear view camera installation.... In concept, simple, right? Plug and play? Almost. The device does not have the ability to flip the rearview camera image, so you HAVE to mount the camera with the sticky base pointing up. No option otherwise. There are zero provisions for having to install the camera with the sticky side down, which is required for installation on a truck, because there's no body panel hanging over the truck bed to stick this thing to. There are two mounting brackets included, but they are poorly designed in the sense that you can't actually functionally use them. One is a two-piece design, hinged in the middle, and it could be used to mount the camera under a vertical panel of some kind, but you'd have to have the bracket at a 90 degree angle to do so, sticking out from the truck body, meaning the panel you're mounting to has a black metal square stuck to it just over the camera as well, all of which looks terrible and will likely vibrate loose. They could have designed the bracket to be hidden behind the camera, but the mounting screw tabs on the bracket define exactly how you have to use it. The other single piece bracket is like that, hidden behind the camera, but the mounting screw tabs are too close to the flat portion of the bracket, so the cord coming out of the back of the camera pushes the camera up, making the view from the cameras perspective not useful. Additionally, the included cable for the camera/backup light is 20 ft long, but it's not long enough to reach the rear bumper on my truck (2001 silverado extended cab). If you plan to route the cable under the trim and around the cab to do a proper installation, the cable is about 15 feet too short. 33 ft extension cable is B082RZNJFY, $15, and the 50 ft extension cable is B0814ZHHST, $17. All of this to say, I have to find a way to make a custom mount for this to work on my truck. The only place I can see that will actually work and look halfway decent is if I actually screw one of these brackets into my tailgate handle so I can hang the camera below it, giving up about a 1/3 of my tailgate handle, looking ridiculous, and having to route this cable through the moving action of my tailgate hinges. Down to two star review because of this lack of design and functional quality. They offer the ability to mirror the image, just not flip it to mount the camera the other way. How ridiculous. 5) The navigation of saved files is not intuitive, at all. You also cannot fast forward or rewind in a given video file, you have to watch it start to finish without interruption, so you'll want to make certain that your files are configured to be 1 minute long, not two or three. I set the cameras and GPS unit up on my bench to test the power consumption and even after giving the device time to recognize no movement, it did not power off and continued to consume as much power as it did before. 6) The G-sensor, which is advertised as being built into the camera, doesn't seem very effective. I set the camera on a washing machine and jolted the machine pretty aggressively without getting a response from the camera or any notification. I'm not sure what the parameters are for this feature to work, but the GPS unit was plugged in as well, and the camera had been sitting idle for several minutes with the screen off. 7) With a 32GB card and just using the single front camera set to 1080P, you only get about five hours of record time. That may seem like a lot, but think about if your camera runs while your vehicle is off, or you forget to save the file after an accident, or you hit the lock button, but the file with the recorded incident actually had just ended before you pushed the button, but you didn't know that until more than five hours later and now the file is overwritten? All of these have happened in my time using this camera. I had someone break into my shed and steal my generator while the truck cam was pointing that direction, but it was overwritten before I woke up the next morning. I would suggest getting a larger card, or a camera that actually works in parking mode or motion detection mode (if your future camera has this feature). Parking mode does not work on this product. The good: Screen resolution is pretty good. Audio is pretty good. The ability to review on the screen is handy, though honestly it would be easier to use and navigate if it paired with your phone like some other dash cams on the market. The bad: Aside from being a simple camera and microphone setup it fails in literally every single feature. Every one of them. Power consumption from 13.5v power supply: Unable to test in powered down mode or parking mode, because I can't get them to work - Front cam only, no GPS, screen off - 185 mA Front cam only, no GPS, screen on bright/dim - 405 mA/268 mA Front cam only, GPS plugged in, screen off - 200 mA Front cam only, GPS plugged in, screen on bright/dim - 435 mA/285 mA Both cams, no GPS, screen off - 305 mA Both cams, no GPS, screen on bright/dim - 550 mA/400 mA Both cams, GPS plugged in, screen off - 325 mA Both cams, GPS plugged in, screen on bright/dim - 640 mA/450 mA