New Polo Beats Owner - Dashcam Question

[IanSmith]

Hi,

I’m a new VW owner having previously owned a Skoda Citigo for 3 years.

I take delivery of my new 2019 Polo Beats 1.0 TSI on Friday and have been given a demo SE model in the meantime as there was nobody available over the Christmas break to register the vehicle I’ve bought.

Needed something quickly to avoid hiring and wanted something with better than average audio so Beats model seemed a sensible choice, but already regretting it as I once bought Beats headphones at £300 and they were essentially £20 plastic phones with bass turned way up that killed music and made any spoken word podcasts sound like they’d been recorded under a pillow. Reading some forum posts here it seems the Beats car system suffers similar issues in the bass department and in fact the audio in the demo SE model I’ve been leant is good enough for me. Too late now and I guess I’ll find out how adjustable the ridiculous bass is on Friday when I take delivery.

In the meantime I’m wondering what to get for a dashcam. The car model available that I bought has the light kit, front arm rest and front and rear sensors and that’s about it. Would I be better getting an after-market dashcam (most of which seem to need a 12v connector which I’m not sure the Polo has) or should I look at one of the Kenwood models that seem to be VW approved. Is this something VW need to fit ot is it simply something I can buy anywhere and just plug in myself? Interested to hear what other folks are using and likening as a dashcam.

Also curious to know difference between 2018 and 2019 models. Dealer said it was just software and firmware updates. Mine is 2019 model.

Ian

[Dark_cze]

beats - way to much bass, if you like natural sound you will have to play with EQ.
2018 vs 2019 - usb at rear of armrest, OPF for GTI, dont know about anything else

[Leif]

I have some beats headphones, cost £100, sound quality £15 with excessive bass and muddy kids. I never npbeen able to listen them for more than 10 seconds. However, recent Beats headphones are much much better albeit with exaggerated bass, cos that’s kool innit. The sound system in my Polo is okay, poor recordings sound better than in my hifi which is too revealing.

I have a Nextbase 512 GW. IMO quad HD is pointless, just get HD, the lens isn’t good enough. It’s no better than an Ambarella I bought 5 years ago, so I think sensors are near the limit, they’re tiny anyway. Unfortunately tests seem to be very unscientific. I just have the cord hanging down and plugged into the power socket, not tidy but works. I didn’t trust Halfords to fit it correctly, which is just as well given the woes of one forum member.

[monkeyhanger]

You can pay a wide variety of amounts for a dashcam - by and large you get what you pay for. If you pay £50-£100 for a front dashcam that's powered by a cigarette lighter plug it'll almost certainly be adequate for daytime use, but chances are, night-time use will be too poor to pick up number plates. Like regular cameras - the good ones are decent at night as well as day.

The big 3 things on a dashcam are the picture processor, main processor and lens. Sony picture processing is among the best, but if the lens is crap, the footage will be crap.

The big 3 names that all offer great quality are Thinkware, Blackvue and Lukas.

I would steer clear of Blackvue, they overheat easily (mine fried in a week of use - the tiny form factor of the main unit (650 and 750) doesn't allow heat dissipation).

I have a Thinkware F770 front and back system hardwired in each of my 2 cars. They've each done 3 years service and the one in the Polo was in the A1 it replaced. Night vision is as good as it gets - you're asking a lot of a dashcam at night - poor overall light with a few high intensity light sources, 30fps at speed - hard to keep focussed. A cheapo one is next to useless at night.

If you know what you're doing and are handy, you can hardwire it yourself in under 2 hours (about 45 mins for a front only system, the rear cam is fiddly for cabling and dismantling the tailgate trim).

[Leif]

You can pay a wide variety of amounts for a dashcam - by and large you get what you pay for. If you pay £50-£100 for a front dashcam that's powered by a cigarette lighter plug it'll almost certainly be adequate for daytime use, but chances are, night-time use will be too poor to pick up number plates. Like regular cameras - the good ones are decent at night as well as day.

The big 3 things on a dashcam are the picture processor, main processor and lens. Sony picture processing is among the best, but if the lens is crap, the footage will be crap.

The big 3 names that all offer great quality are Thinkware, Blackvue and Lukas.

I would steer clear of Blackvue, they overheat easily (mine fried in a week of use - the tiny form factor of the main unit (650 and 750) doesn't allow heat dissipation).

I have a Thinkware F770 front and back system hardwired in each of my 2 cars. They've each done 3 years service and the one in the Polo was in the A1 it replaced. Night vision is as good as it gets - you're asking a lot of a dashcam at night - poor overall light with a few high intensity light sources, 30fps at speed - hard to keep focussed. A cheapo one is next to useless at night.

If you know what you're doing and are handy, you can hardwire it yourself in under 2 hours (about 45 mins for a front only system, the rear cam is fiddly for cabling and dismantling the tailgate trim).

My NextBase 512GW is no better than my Ambarella at night, and the latter is now available, albeit slightly more recent versions, for much less money than the NextBase. The Next base was well over £100. The key element in image quality is the sensor, and these days the technology is mature so the size is the determining factor. I am not sure if they are all the same size these days, the spec will tell you. Yes the processing makes some difference, but it's not light and day, if you'll excuse the unintentional pun. As for lens, mine is supposed to be good, but definition drops off lots. I chose mine on the basis of many reviews, but I was disappointed.

Incidentally one of the biggest determinants of whether or not you will register a plate is the relative speed. These cameras take N frames per second, with a short exposure for each, and the NextBase and Ambarella are comparable. Neither will pick up a plate when cars are approaching each other at a decent speed in part due to motion blur. It's really quite disappointing. The NextBase is very well reviewed too. I once reported a van that overtook someone then emergency braked, resulting in a rear ending. The van's reg was not readable as a) it was off centre and b) the van overtook me at speed and c) it was night.

Only when we see larger sensors will we get really good IQ.

I'll have a look at the makes you mention and see if they are noticeably better than mine. I'll be miffed if they are.

[monkeyhanger]

I'd hope they are considerably better - when new out, mine was pushing £300 in most places, I dived in on a black Friday deal for £205 each. Mine is about £215 most places now as it has been superseded by the F800 which doesn't seem to be appreciably better.

I'm happy enough with the night-time performance on mine, but I'd always opt for a front/back set up as most non-fault incidents are probably going to come from behind (or the side, with no camera coverage). In almost all circumstances, if you rear-end someone the insurance company will assign fault to you.

[Andy Beats]

You're able to turn the bass down in the Beats car to perfectly acceptable levels.
I'm happy with the sound on anything other than apple play.
It's the least acceptable sound source, much muddier and less stereo seperation than bluetooth.
I've no idea why this would be, I'd have expected a cabled connection to be better than bluetooth.
The sound has also improved with use.
I'd also question your assessment of Beats headphones.
I have at least 6 pairs of headphones at home, ranging from £20 through to over £200, as I tend to forget to take headphones when I'm going on a flight and just buy 'yet another' pair at the airport.
Sony/Sennheiser/Bose etc.
My daughter's +£200 bluetooth Beats headphones absolutely do sound significantly better than the cheap ones, that's for sure.

[IanSmith]

My headphones were purchased about 10 years ago for around £300 so things MAY have improved but they really were total junk. I listened to a lot of audio podcasts at the time and they were just unlistenable. I soon junked them. I now use Bose QuietComfort 35 and at home I use Audio Technica DT770 Pro. For DJing I use Pioneer's top of the range headphones. All are superlative and light years ahead of the Beats plastic junk. Trust me the Beats are known amongst all the DJs I know to be utter junk. Whenever Craig David appears on TV wearing Beats headphones pretending he's a DJ the DJ forums become awash with mickey-taking about how awful the headphones are and that no real DJ would touch them with a bargepole.

I pick up the car this evening so will find out how the sound system compares. Just wish VW had gone Bose - never had any complaints about any of their products.

I've been using CarLink in the loan car (an SE) which is not a Beats system but more than happy with the sound. Mind you, I steer clear of crappy MP3 files and use FLAC player and FLAC recordings from my phone. So maybe that makes a difference?

[Andy Beats]

I've had several Audis fitted with Bose, I rate the beats better than those.
They tended to be overpowered by the subwoofer and there wasn't much you could do to combat it.
I'd also rate it better than the JBL system in my wife's Sportage.
Incidentally, if I hadn't gone for the Polo my next call was the Nissan garage to see about a Bose edition Micra.
The speakers are headrest mounted.

[Leif]

My Beats headphones are also about ten years old, complete junk. As I understand it, they are now perfectly okay, but marketed by personalities, and lifestyle. However, I had great difficulty buying headphones recently as most of them have copied the heavy Beats bass, even Sennheiser went that way years ago, apart from their more ‘audiophile’ models e.g. HD650. I tried many B&W models, awful. The Bose were nice, oddly enough, by which I mean natural sounding. Obviously Bluetooth means a loss of audio quality, but if you want wireless, you pay that price. Yes the Nissan Micra looked nice, but no CarPlay I think. Nice looking!