The magnetic mount, which makes removal quick and easy, is pure joy for me with my unlocked convertible parked here in the city. The Tandem’s ease of installation and use are so painless, and the profile so elegantly small, that I don’t really care about any fisheye or minor color issues. That’s good enough that I won’t complain, though 10 seconds would be better. It also will power the camera for five seconds if the 12-volt should fail in an accident. The Tandem features a supercapacitor, which means a huge number of power cycles and an effective temperature operating range of -4 to 172 degrees Fahrenheit. From a practical and legal point of view, they’re respectable and then some. If there are some limitations to the Tandem’s video captures, that’s only from an videographer’s perspective (I’m not one, but I work with them). The Garmin Dash Cam Tandem’s infrared-aided interior camera achieves bright interior captures. If something happens inside or to the sides of your vehicle at night, the Tandem will capture it. Night interior captures are exceptionally well lit, considering that there’s only one infrared light alongside the interior camera. The Dash Cam Tandem’s Brillnics BRV0500 sensor is new to me, and it captures detail with decent color and little headlight flare. Note that this was with my headlights on, though I was parked. Pumping up the brightness in post-production will reveal even more detail. They differ from the Sony sensors we most often see, and are somewhat closer to the Omnivision sensors we sometimes come upon, in that they capture detail with decent color and little headlight flare. I’ve never seen the captures of a Brillnics BRV0500 sensor before. The night capture shown below is on a par with the day captures. The Tandem’s interior captures during the day were a bit color-skewed (nothing I’m wearing is purple), but detail is what you want. There’s also fisheye in the interior capture, whose color palette is a little skewed (likely because of the infrared or tuning of the sensor) however, seeing both what’s going on in the interior and out the side windows is well worth it. There’s fisheye, but it’s not overwhelming. Given that the field of view is 180 degrees and captures lots of side action, the fisheye is more than acceptable.ĭetail is good in the day capture shown above, though not great. There’s some fisheye here to be sure, but overall the detail and color are great. At such close range, 720p is more than up to the task of capturng the cockpit action. Weighing mild fisheye versus coverage, I’ll accept the latter over the former any day. Interior night captures are infrared-aided and cover the entire interior nicely. Saturation is good, and fisheye is handled as well as you can expect given the 180-degree field of view. Details such as license plates are visible at a decent distance both day and night. In truth, for most users, 1080p remains the sweet spot, as it generally provides adequate detail (given good optics and sensors) and uses one-quarter the space of 4K, while reducing wear on your SD cards.ĤK UHD concerns aside, the Tandem’s captures are excellent from a practical and legal perspective. But there’s also the matter of storage: 4K UHD takes three times what the Tandem’s 1440p requires. Now that I’ve seen the Aukey DRS2’s 4K UHD captures, there’s a new bar to clear in terms of quality. I even saw one with the 90-degree angle connector that’s used on the Tandem’s auxiliary/cigarette lighter power cable. OBD-II to micro-USB cables are available on Amazon or less than $15. A hard-wire kit is available so you can utilize the camera’s parking mode surveillance, but OBD-II is easier. It works so well that I didn’t even think about my previous experiences with Garmin heat until I started to write this review.Ībout the only area where I think Garmin missed the mark slightly is in not including, or at least offering, an OBD-II power cable. However, the Dash Cam Tandem has an honest-to-goodness fan behind the right-side vent to suck air through from the left side vent. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, as many designs use the case itself as a heat sink. If you perused any of my other Garmin dash cam reviews, you’ll know that the last two generations ran noticeably warm, bordering on hot, to the touch. The Garmin Drive phone app lets you adjust settings and view the output from the cameras.
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