[IsleOfMs]

Hi yall. I've spent weeks reading posts here and watching reviews on YT and it feels like I still don't know what to buy.

Here are the features that are important to me. Hoping you guys have some wisdom to share about it.

- I do want parking mode but every full-time-power option makes me uneasy. The OBD cables are supposedly bad for the car. The mirror connection isn't actually always-on. The fusebox can work if done right but people have issues there bc some people can't be trusted to do it right. I think my plan is to just get going with driving coverage at first and work my way up to a hard-wire install a future date.

- A lovely feature with parking mode is something that sends alerts via a sim card. AFAIK this is unique to Blackvue.

- I don't mind a camera that alerts for motion detection but I definitely need to be able to disable that bc I park outside. If I get an alert every time someone walks past my car, I will ignore the alert that actually tells me of an impact. I'd love a camera that could alert me to light vandalism in addition to hard car-car impacts.

- If I'm going to start running a camera all the time, I'd love one that is convenient to copy clips to my phone and upload to YT. I use wifi for CarPlay so I'm not sure if any cameras fit this criteria but if any of you have one that makes it easy to upload, please share.

- I'd also like one that's 4 channels. I don't care about interior but I do want one that can see both sides, not just front wide and rear wide. I want to see things coming from the t-bone direction.

Thanks for any feedback here.

[Propulsion]

I have a 2 channel BlackVue set up in my G22. Parking mode is powered by the BlackVue external battery tucked away in the trunk. I get up to 24hrs of parking mode using just the front facing camera, or up to 12-16hrs using both cameras (depending on the activity in the area).

- BlackVue supplies its own SIM card but I purchased one from AT&T because it’s cheaper with my existing lines.

- The settings for personalization are abundant. You can turn motion sensors on/off or set how sensitive you want the trigger point.

I like BlackVue cams because of the stealth design along with its features. If you have any detailed questions feel free to ask.

Model -DR970X LTE

[IsleOfMs]

Thanks! I went with that one too. BTW, how low did you have to set the sensitivity so that bumps in the road didn't cause driving-events?

Did you go with the battery because of reputation BMWs have for having finicky batteries? I had never heard about that until getting ready to hard-wire my kit.

Which fuse did you connect your battery to?

Edit: The way your broke down your battery life suggests that you're using the motion detection. I wonder how much more time you'd get if using the timelapse mode. I park outside full time and expect a lot of pedestrian traffic so I think I'll be in timelapse and just wake up to record if there's an impact.

[Propulsion]

The sensitivity settings will have to be adjusted based on your driving preferences. Because of BMW’s firm ride I’m having to readjust the trigger point to ignore minor bumps on roads but it’s not really an issue for me as I’ve silenced all in cabin alerts. The video footage will be there if I need it but I won’t get constant trigger alerts each time I drive over a speed bump. I’ve also turned off all LED lights on the camera as a more stealthy security measure. Voice alerts are also silenced for when the valet or BWM technician decides to do or say something unexpected ;-)

As for the external battery pack (B-124x), it’s hidden away in the trunk and the wires are hidden as well. The only wires you see is the 12v socket in the trunk that connects to the battery. I made the choice not to hardwire anything to BMW’s complicated fuse/battery network. So the power is being fed directly to the external battery via the 12 volt outlet in the trunk. It takes my B-124x approximately 35-40 minutes or less to fully charge to 100% capacity when the car is running.

the install is clean and stealth.

Parking Mode/ Time Lapse - now that you’ve mentioned it I don’t think I’ve ever tried the Time Lapse option in parking mode. When parked my area doesn’t get pedestrian foot traffic but it does pick up 2-4 cars each hour in video events. I want to catch as much as possible in parking mode so I have the setting adjusted to maximum sensitivity. Had to zone off a few trees moving in the wind but beyond that it’s working out wonderfully.

[IsleOfMs]

I assume yours came with a BlackVue SIM right? Did you have trouble getting it to connect to the cloud? I get to "step 2/2, connect to cloud", enter my info and it says "congratulations, you can now use the cloud" but when I click "done" to leave that screen, I'm still back at "step 2/2, connect to cloud". I've repeated this a million times.