What is everyone using for a dash cam on their S class vehicles? Any recommendations, want front and rear coverage, wifi and hi res. Probably don't need 5G.

 

I have used Thinkware, front and rear cameras, and an external battery on my last four vehicles and love their products. On the expensive side, but I have never had a problem in 8 years of use.

 

Do you prefer to have them hardwired?

When picking a dashcam, pick at least 1080P so you can tell what the plate of a car says within a certain distance of the video, best is go 2K or 4K.

A high capacity SD card is also recommended unless you don't want to keep the footage for more than a few days as they get full quick especially for 4K cameras. Get something high quality, you don't want a card to fail during recording and preferably something with a high read/write rate or very least something that meets minimum requirements of the camera.

Get a dashcam that has bump sensors so it turns on to record an accident that happens in a parking lot when the car is off and then turns off to conserve battery power, unless you want to hardwire it so it is always on that way.

It will be helpful if you have the mic enabled as well, you don't necessary need a dashcam that has a built-in GPS but it may be helpful, another nice feature is wifi-direct that you can download an app to view the footage and download the footage to your phone without removing the SD card from the dashcam, this is especially useful if your phone doesn't support Micro-SD card which include most phones nowadays.

It is up to you if you want to get two separate cameras for front and back but I think it is a good idea to do that incase one fails, you still have footage from another perspective while-as if you only have a main camera in the front and a secondary lens connecting to the main camera, if the whole thing fails, you lose both footage.

It is up to you if you want a dashcam with a built-in screen, it is useful if you want to view the footage on the spot (especially if you don't get one with wifi direct, although the built-in screen is usually tiny and low resolution). Make sure to test the two cameras front and back in different lighting conditions, you can also rotate them to the angle of your liking, you want the rear camera to be above the trunk but still low enough to see part of the floor as you want to record people's plate when they get uncomfortably close and especially if something happens (although honestly, as long as you get a high resolution camera, this step can be omitted) The front camera on the other hand, you can be flexible. Make sure your rear window is wiped periodically if you have a sedan since it doesn't have a wiper, the last thing you want is blurry footage. You can set the ISO and white balance of the camera manually, just configure it to a value that works for you in both night and bright conditions, try not to set it so it is over or under exposed and you are golden.

 

I had a Thinkware unit that I had in my LS460 and transferred to my S560, worked great. Hardwired In the S580 I just use the built in one.

 

I've got one of these style Dash Cams: https://fitcamx.com/collections/merc...w222-2021-2024

I've put them in all of our cars, a couple are the AliExpress version, and a couple are from FitCamX, I prefer the FitCamX application.

When running the cable for the rear, whichever camera that you choose, carefully run the wire, from front to back, and make sure that it's placement is appropriate for the side curtain airbags.

 

I have two of these, very happy with them.
VANTRUE N4 3 Channel Dash Cam, 4K+1080P Dual Channel, 1440P+1440P+1080P Front Inside Rear Three Way Triple Car Dash Camera, IR Night Vision, Capacitor, 24 Hours Parking Mode, Support 256GB Max

 

Thanks for reigniting this conversation. Being tall so you need something small so it doesn't block your line of sight. Form factor is as important as anything else. I bought one for my wife for Christmas last year. She didn't like it so I put it in my car. It was too bulky and blocked my line of sight.

 

I have the fitcam in my 2015 S Class and 2018 GLS. Love the way it looks factory and you can't tell it's there.

https://fitcamx.com/collections/merc...w222-2021-2024

 

Thank you for bringing this up too
That's the cam I would love to have if I ever want to buy

 

Interesting...their website is pretty bad, and the voiceover on their video is terrible, much better AI voices to use now. If i were to buy one I'd only use Amazon: https://a.co/d/fRNtY4a