Can you use a GoPro as a dashcam? What I learnt from 10 months testing

All thru the last 10 months I’ve been the usage of a GoPro Hero 10 as a dashcam in the electrical cars that I check and to assist me learn how to make fast time lapse movies.

Over thousands of kilometres of driving I’ve well-known down the professionals and cons of the usage of a GoPro as a dashcam as well as how well the official Suction Cup mount works.

A upright dashcam attaches to a car windshield the usage of 3M adhesive stickers.

These stickers are really steady at staying stuck to glass regardless of how hot or chilly it’s for many years, in convey that they’re no longer one thing you want to stay on anyone else’s car and attempt to eliminate a week later when the car is returned.

So let’s speak about the Suction Cup mount. It’s far the main reason I have been the usage of a GoPro as my dashcam in media loan evaluate electrical cars.

According to GoPro, folks have used this Suction Cup mount to attach interior and exterior cars, boats, bikes and more and it’s is confirmed at speeds of as a lot as 240km/hr! Adjustable arms allow for ultra compact mounting. It entails a standard base and a fast release base for transferring very easily between shots and locations.

As you can examine below I have came upon the GoPro Hero 10 and Suction Cup mount are most efficient located for doing double responsibility as a dashcam and time lapse road day stride back and forth recorder apt to the left of the rear examine explain about.

That way they score a clear broad examine of the road ahead but don’t intrude with my line of examine as a driver. The fast release base works perfectly for rapidly installing and casting off the GoPro Hero 10 when I have to use it or pack it away while the car is parked.

Pros of the usage of GoPro as dashcam

Suction Cup Mount – is rock stable reliable. I’ve been stunned that it holds fast to the windshield glass even when driving all day in 40C+ heat.

Accurate for swapping between cars – as explained sooner than if you usually have to swap between cars usually admire me as a reviewer or more repeatedly perhaps you borrow anyone else’s car so you can use it for rideshare earnings earning, then installing your gain upright dashcam with 3M decal is now not any longer conceivable. Then again a GoPro plus suction cup mount can be attached and removed in seconds with out leaving a trace.

Great day time video quality – in the midst of the day except it’s very dark and cloudy a GoPro has to be able to yarn great 4K video of your driving. Accurate make definite you use “GoPro Start Recording” so you’re taking steady video. Time lapse mode is varied, taking images at most usually each 1/2 2d and stitching them together to make a video.

Reliable Drawl Retain watch over – GoPro helps a lot of insist commands and I have successfully used them usually eg: GoPro Start Recording, GoPro Halt Recording, GoPro Take a Photograph, GoPro Shoot Burst, GoPro Start Time Lapse, GoPro Halt Time Lapse.

With or Without Battery – you can use a GoPro as a car dashcam either for transient drives with a battery slotted in and no vitality cable.

Or with battery in and vitality cable plugged in, I’ve used this usually for drives of many hours.

In both these cases the GoPro can be knowledgeable to start recording sooner than you start the car and cease recording after you park.

Or you can no longer have a battery and apt use the car vitality via USB cable to vitality the GoPro but your video may per chance score corrupted if you haven’t stopped recording sooner than turning the car off.

GoPro Quik app – this app is terribly useful as it can be used to easily extract hidden GoPro information in the video metadata and display your accelerate, GPS driving path, Elevation, G Power and more in movies admire below. Quik app can also take hours and hours of driving movies and automatically make a fast time lapse video highlighting attention-grabbing bits of the force.

Cons of the usage of GoPro as dashcam

No Auto Start – a normal dashcam can be living to start recording as soon as you vitality on the car. With a GoPro you have to be aware to manually start recording via a finger press or insist command. If you put out of your mind then you won’t yarn anything. GoPro Labs personalized firmware can be able to enact this reliably (untested).

No Parking Mode – Some (but no longer all) dashcams have a parking mode that starts recording if your car gets bumped while parked. GoPro can’t enact that.

May attract thieves – folks know that GoPro’s are value several hundred dollars and are easy to detach from a mount so don’t leave it visible while parked or your glass may per chance score smashed to steal it.

Overheating – unfortunately while this doesn’t happen usually, on a few occasions (perhaps much less than 5% of the time) in the midst of hot weather prolonged drives I’ve appeared over at the GoPro and noticed it has shut down with an overheating error.

Wretched Evening Imaginative and prescient – although GoPros have excessive determination for day time video recording and are steady at detached timelapses of the evening sky while on the floor, a GoPro imaging sensor is now not any longer that ample so it struggles to capture excessive quality, clearly visible transferring video at evening.

Vast Angle – while great for time lapse movies the default broad angle examine of a GoPro means you may per chance no longer be able to examine car licence plates that are no longer end to your car. You can resolve a much less broad angle for video recordings if you want.

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