AUTO-VOX A118C Dash Cam Car Dashboard Camera

I rarely comment or review purchases, but in this case, I thought this information might be useful to others. I was not paid nor provided with any discount in order to write this review. I have had the Auto-Vox A118-C/B40-C dashboard camera for about a month and a half now, and it is working very well so far. The camera is very small and not very noticeable. Nice device design overall. I placed it in the black dots area of the windshield, to one side of the rear view mirror, with the lens protruding just below the black dots area. The camera is very light so it sticks well, even in the dotted area. With a settings of 5 minutes per video segment, it writes a segment to the SD card every five minutes, and overwrites the oldest segments when the SD card gets full. Each 5 minute segment of video is written as a .MOV file, which takes approximately 400,000 KBs, when recording at 1080P. That allows about 6 hours of recording on a 32GB SD card. The SD card has a folder named MOVIE, where all video segments are normally saved. Under the MOVIE folder, there is also a folder called RO (for ReadOnly), where the video segments are stored when the G-Sensor (a collision, or bump in the road) is activated, or when the OK button on the device is pushed. The content of the RO folder is never overwritten. The unit has a small screen thru which configuration can be done, which eliminates the need to connect the unit to a computer in order to configure it. The middle white LED indicates power is on, the left red LED blinks when recording, and the right hand red LED blinks when recording audio. The easy way to view the files on the SD card is to remove the device from the car and use the supplied USB cable to connect the device to a computer. When the device powers on after plugging it into the computer, the screen on the device shows a choice of Mass Storage or PC Camera. Select Mass Storage (which is the default) and press OK on the device. The device is then recognized by the computer and is accessible as just another drive where you can view the contents of the MOVIE and RO folders. I am not an expert in video quality, but the captured videos look very good, certainly good enough to capture any activity leading to a car accident. Even night videos appear good enough for that purpose. In summary, I am so far very satisfied with this product as it does exactly what it is designed to do. I am waiting to see if it will still function well in the above 100 oF, or 110 oF summer heat with high humidity. By the way, I have had to contact Auto-Vox's customer support ([email protected]) because the car charger cable end was a bit flaky and needed replacing. To my pleasant surprise, I got an immediate reply the very same day, telling me that a replacement car charger cable was being shipped from China. Got it about 15 days later. Wow! Great Service. Update May 2017: After a little over a year, this unit still works well, but with one exception. It has a thermal cut off switch which turns the unit off when the temperature inside the car is too high. In northern states of the US, you may seldom encounter this problem,but if you live in southern states, you may experience many situations where the unit simply does not come on until you have driven for a while and the temperature inside the car has come back down to a reasonable level. Unfortunately, the unit does not come back on automatically when the temperature has come down, so power to it must be turned off and on to have it become active again. (I just unplug at the unit and plug it back in).

UPDATE: So after less than 5 months of owning the camera it has stopped booting. It just gets stuck in the boot screen which says "auto vox". I have tried multiple memory cards which work in other cameras and resetting the device but nothing has worked. I am currently in contact with their support which is fairly responsive, but they keep telling me to try basically the same thing (reformat sd card, try another sd card, reset device) in different ways. I have changed my review to one star for now. ------------------- I had been researching for the best dash cam for the money and ultimately I ended up with this one. It has a small form factor and is fairly cheap compared to the others. I think it is ok except for a few things which others haven't really mentioned, and one really big one which is kind of a deal breaker. Bottom line I would look elsewhere. 1. The camera will miss seconds of recording between writing files! I didn't realize this until I needed it but it completely missed some reckless driving. I assume because it was busy writing one of its many files. The gap between the two files was a few seconds but that was enough to miss what I needed. 2. The capacitor models seem to need a few minutes of being powered before they can reliably write the video file after getting turned off. At first while testing I was plugging the camera in, taking a few seconds of video and then unplugging it. I ended up with corrupted videos every time until I realized it had to be on for longer, guess for the capacitors to charge up enough to give the unit enough time to write files after being powered off. 3. The camera writes a lot of files. Each file is limited to 3 minutes by default if I recall correctly and you can increase that to 10 minutes. This means it is kind of a pain to back track in your day to find a specific event since you will have a lot of separate files and not one continuous video. I haven't played with much of the other options yet besides turning off the g-shock sensing. This feature basically saves video files when a shock is detected so that they won't be overwritten by new footage. In practice bumps in the road would randomly save files and take up space on the default sensitivity. I have a 32GB card and I get 150 minutes of videos.

Bought 2 of them and like them because of shape and mount. It is easy to mount/connect and forget. Due to mount directly to window, video is less shacky and better quality. That is main reason I bought it. Somebody saying that display is small. I'm ok with that. This is camera to record but not to watch video. To get 64Gb sd card support, you have to format it to FAT32 (not extFAT). Video qality is acceptable as for evidence and as for money I paid. At night video is worse and you cannot see license plate number at motion. There is almost zero manual and some settings do nothing (China product:( ). Video is playing great on VLC player. Do not see any missings.

Nelle istruzioni (solo in inglese) bisognerebbe dire che è preferibile installarlo subito a sinistra dello specchietto retrovisore, altrimenti si ha difficoltà a comandare accensione, registrazione, microfono, reset, ecc.. Le immagini scaricate sono molto nitide e la luminosità anche di notte, si autoregola. Ottimo rapporto qualità prezzo.

La plus grande surprise quand on ouvre la boite, c’est que cette caméra est vraiment toute petite Elle est facile à installer et à configurer, et pour moi la qualité vidéo est vraiment au top J'ai attaché une vidéo détaillée, car rien ne vaut une vidéo pour bien se rendre compte des performances d'une caméra en toute honnêteté. Comme la résolution de la vidéo attachée est faible, je vous suggère de retrouver la version full HD sur Youtube ➡️➡️➡️ (h**ps://youtu.be/pl7y7w3_KR8) ⬅️⬅️⬅️ ➖➖➖➖➖ CE QUE J'AI AIMÉ ➖➖➖➖➖ 💚 La taille minuscule de la caméra 💚 La facilité d'installation 💚 Très discrète 💚 Super qualité, de jour comme de nuit 💚 Pas de voyants tapageurs face au pare brise 💚 L’écran (quand on fait la bonne configuration) s’éteint automatiquement au bout d’une minute (ça ne gène pas pour la conduite) 💚 Objectif orientable verticalement pour s’adapter à toutes les inclinaisons de pare-brise 💚 Le cache-câble adhésif pour une installation propre (même si je n’en ai pas eu besoin dans mon cas) 💚 Le câble de raccordement d'environ 3m, suffisamment long pour se connecter facilement en passant le câble autour du pare-brise en toute discrétion 💚 Je n’ai pas eu de problème de température même en plein soleil du mois d'Aout (+50°C) 💚 Enregistrement audio de bonne qualité (pour ce type d'application): enregistre tous les sons dans la voiture (en plus, c’est désactivable) 💚 Taille des fichiers vidéo de maximum à 1 :00, 3:00 ou 5 :00 (configurable) 💚 Les fichiers de la carte SD sont lisibles depuis n'importe quel PC 💚 On peut connecter la dashcam au PC et lire directement la carte SD sans sortir celle-ci de la caméra ➖➖➖➖➖ A BIEN NOTER ➖➖➖➖➖ ⚠️ Le GPS est sous forme d'un module externe optionel, donc pas de base (pas de géolocalisation, ni d'enregistrement de la vitesse) ⚠️ Comme c'est un produit d'entrée de gamme, il n'y a ni Bluetooth ni Wifi. ⚠️ L’écran est bien pour une simple vérification de base, rien d’autre (vu la taille on ne pouvait pas s'attendre à des miracles non plus) ⚠️ Pas de filtre polarisant, donc on peut avoir des reflets du pare brise par beau temps ➖➖➖➖➖ CE QUE J'AI REGRETTÉ ➖➖➖➖➖ 🔴 Les boutons ont des fonctions qui ne sont pas sérigraphiées sur la caméra. Ils sont multifonctions (contextuels). Par exemple, il n’y a pas de touche « play », il faut bien lire le manuel pour comprendre comment faire. ➖➖➖➖➖ EN CONCLUSION ➖➖➖➖➖ ✔️ Une dashcam d’entrée de gamme super compacte, avec une excellente qualité vidéo Full HD 30fps,même si le look est assez basique. ✔️ Le prix à environ 50€ est dans la moyenne basse des prix du marché pour ce type de qualité. ✔️ J’ai acheté cette caméra pour la voiture de ma femme, sur la mienne j’en avais installé auparavant une autre du même fabricant. ✔️ Pour un produit d'entrée de gamme, celle-ci est très bien. ✔️ Pour 20€ de plus, je vous recommande celle-ci Auto-Vox Wifi Caméra Embarquée 300° ✔️ Pour plus de détails, vous pouvez lire mon commentaire ici ✔️ Les 2 sont très bien pour leur budget respectif…Je recommande 👍👍 Mon avis est sincère, personnel et honnête, et seulement le reflet de ma propre expérience. J'espère qu'il vous sera utile dans vos choix. Merci d’avoir pris le temps de me lire 😊

Bin mit dem Artikel sehr zufrieden. Schade nur das eine sog. Netzkabel (Batterie&Endgerät) mit ACC Anschluss nicht vorhanden ist. Einwandfreie Aufnahmen. Die beigelegte Anleitung ist leider nur in englisch. Kurz geschrieben kann das Gerät nur empfehlen.

*** Update November 2017*** Still working and will be ordering a third one as a give for my daughter's car. Remember that if a file locks (protected) because of hard braking depending on your G sensor it may cause your SD card to fill up and stop overwriting. Format the SD and all will be good if that happens. *** update October 3, 2016*** We own two of these now and it is by far the best of the dash cams I have owned. One item I like is that you can turn on sound recording at a push of a button so you can have your privacy but be able to turn it on if it appears that you will need it. Has been very reliable. I would buy another one if needed. ********end of update***** I will write more as I experience this product more. Took off one star for the inadequate manual. A manual should explain what each setting does and/or is for. I had issues with it on the first day but it would seem the sd card was faulty. I replaced it with another brand and, once formatted on the dash cam, appears to be working well. I checked out the quality of the clips at night and they appear decent given the low light levels. Love the way it mounts. Very discreet if placed near /behind the mirror. I opted not to use the cable hiding piece. Cable is just long enough for routing under the mat and up along side of window in a Ford Escape. Order long regular USB charging cable so that it can plug into a usb outlet rather than having a clunky lighter plug that sticks out, especially if you are using a splitter for the cigarette lighter power outlet.

4 months on and it's still working fine. A small unobtrusive unit, easy to use, and a nice wide-angle lens. Daylight video is smooth and good quality. Sufficient to read numberplates on passing cars on freeze-frame. Night video away from streetlit areas is poor, showing only other lights, plus whatever is immediately within your headlights up to a couple of car lengths away. This is to be expected though at this price. The supplied wire was a bit too short to be hidden behind trim and reach my lighter socket, which is right next to the handbrake (why would they put it there??!), so connected it with a longer wire to a cheap in-car USB twin adapter (I use a satnav through it too), and added an in-line switch to the camera wire. This setup interfered badly with the FM radio, so I added 2 clip-on ferrite cores to the wire. Now it is fine. You can wire the camera to the fuse-box so that it automatically comes on with the ignition, but it's fiddly and didn't bother. Also, my USB socket is always powered, so with my current setup I can leave the camera running while the car is parked and switched off if I want to. The camera overwrites old files after about 6 hours with a 32 Gb card on my settings, so I leave the card in until I want to review or keep something, then I take it out and put it in a card reader on the PC. You'll need a fingernail on your index finger to get the card out! The mount works well and it's easy to slide the camera off if you want to remove it. I haven't used the screen on the unit -too small. The tiny leds on the camera are bright but small, so they don't catch your eye at night. I'm generally very pleased with it so far.