CarCam sounds good, but probably won’t get used

I’m sure I’m not alone when I admit that I’ve been in an accident or two in my life. Two such accidents were not my fault, and I was fortunate enough to have witnesses around to inform the police that it was so. I’ve always been worried that I would find myself in a fender-bender where it was nothing more than my word against theirs. I’ve long pondered the idea of keeping a small camera in my car to record any such collisions. It never seemed like a logical option though. When I saw this CarCam Voyager, it rekindled such ideas.

The CarCam seems like a great idea, you just pop the cradle onto the dashboard and plug in the power adapter to your cigarette lighter. Then just set the camera in the cradle and press record. The video footage is stored on a 2GB SD card, which you can easily remove and plug into your PC.

Unfortunately, as good as this product sounds at first, I don’t recommend it at all. Sure, you’ll tell yourself that you’ll be a good driver and turn on the camera every time you get in, and off every time you get out (unless it automatically shuts off when you turn off the car). However, since you can only store 8 hours of footage, you’ll start slacking off because you don’t feel like filling up the card, then actually taking it out and popping it into your PC just to erase it. Then when you do actually get into a wreck, there’s not a great chance that it’ll actually be recording.

I think that if they could have implemented something like perhaps an accelerometer that detects sudden braking, thus triggering the camera to begin rolling, it would be a much better product. As it is now, people will get tired of messing with it after a month or two tops. If you’re still interested, you can pick one up for $79.95.

Source: Redferret

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6 Comments on “CarCam sounds good, but probably won’t get used”

steve sanchez Says:

the easiest fix for that problem is to continuously record over the memory. so if you do get into a car accident all you have to do is stop the camera from recording and you’ll always have 15 minutes of recording prior to the accident continuously.

Keith Harrison Says:

Not to mention the somewhat obvious flaw that the camera may not be pointed in the right direction at the time. If an impact occurs to the rear of the vehicle, you’re out of luck. To be really sure you capture everything, you’d have to keep at least two cameras running. Now that’s a pain!

ravaldes Says:

I think it is a great item. It can be switched when a “Peace Officer” approaches the vehicle. Recording the conversation would be enough to keep a over bearing officer from getting out of hand
A good example of this is crossing the border. Most border Patrol officers are totally out of control.

kent Says:

(to another reponse) I would expect that rear accidents happen much less than front end collisions. And also, it’s usually “quite” clear who is at fault in a rear end collision. Thus, I think the statement about needing two of these is inaccurate.

As far as obvious flaws, I would think that pointing the camera in the correct direction would be inherit with ANY camera, so I don’t quite get that thinking either.

I agree with Steve. As the manager of a transportation department, this is extremely helpful in determine what happened at an accident. Since it’s (in our case) wired to the cigarette lighter fuse, which is tied to the ignition, then it will always be valuable during an accident. If the drive is able to return to the dock, we have him turn on the cam when he informs of of the accident. Otherwise, if there is not a accident, or a complaint, we simply write over the old data.

james Says:

I was so excited to get this a day early.

But now, I am fustrated and dissappointed by this. I’ve had it for five hours now, and have yet to record a single second of video.

It took me two hours to get the “work LED” to start flashing (supposedly recording). I was excited to drive to the gas station and back. Got home, put the SD card into my pc. Nothing!

It’s been five hours now, and that was the first, last, and only time I got the “work LED” to flash.

I’ve tried with AAA batteries, and with the dc adapter, and with two differend SD cards. I’ve tried so many times at hooking it up, that this last time I dropped the screw down my defrost vent.

I can’t express how dissappointed in this I am, and the fustration encountered.

james Says:

Update,

Well the folks at Brickhouse quickly sent out a replacement camera.

BUT, the sent the wrong camera. So, instead of having to return one camera, I now have to RETURN two.

The credited my original cost, but have thus far refused to pay the $11.00 that it cost me to send the cameras back in.

To recap, I ordered a CarCam Voyager. Waited 15 days and never got a working CarCam Voyager, and the entire process cost me about six hours of my time and $11.00 for nothing.

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