VIOFODash Cam A119 Mini 2, STARVIS 2 Sensor, 2K 60fps/HDR 30fps Voice Control Car Dash Camera with 5GHz Wi-Fi GPS, Night Vision 2.0, 24H Parking Mode, Supercapacitor, Support 512GB Max

Deciding on what to buy:I slaved over trying to find a quality dash cam without breaking the bank. Hours of reading reviews, I finally decided to pull the trigger on VIOFO. The Mini 2 seemed the best solution for what I was looking for. Bought a 128GB San Disk Max Endurance (only because there was a reasonable price differenced than the VIOFO equivalent), and the polarizing lens.Installation:Watched several videos on installation, I thought I needed to wire it directly into the fuse box, but after a last minute decision, I decided to use my cigarette lighter adapter (which comes with the dash cam). Recording during parking wasn't a need I had so it made sense. Installing on a 2017 Honda Pilot the lighter plugin was perfectly placed to wrap the wire around the passenger side and directly behind the dash. The cord was easily hidden, behind the dash and behind all the panels, it literally took less than 10 minutes to install. I placed the dash cam directly behind the rear view mirror so it was hidden from normal view. But if I needed to get to the dash cam I could look from below or simply move my mirror slightly to gain access to the cam. Very content with the placement. The only thing that wasn't to my liking was how it stuck to the windshield. After placing as per the installation guide, I looked from the outside and noticed there was a reasonably large bubble in the center of the glue pad. I was able to easily pull it off so I retried to stick it on again. Similar results. However after almost a month of use, I have had no issues with it falling off. Time will tell. They do provide a second glue pad in the kit so if it falls off, I'll probably use the new pad.Daily Use:Most of the settings were great out of the box. I think I increased the resolution a little, didn't max that in fear of issues or exceptionally large files. Also set the wifi to 5.8 (I guess that's equivalent to wifi6?). I turned recording audio off as I didn't see that as a need we had. I think that's all I changed. Every time I start up the car, within a few seconds it makes the start up noise and then proceeds to tell me it is recording. Felt like the start up time was very reasonable. After turning off the car, it makes a shutoff noise. No issues in usage. We did go over some rough patch on the interstate through a construction zone and it indicated it was going to lock the recording. Has only happened through that stretch of road so I didn't reduce the accident sensitivity. Felt like that's a good option.Mobile App:Many reviews of other products indicated poor mobile app quality. I must say that I have found the app to be very stable. To connect your phone to the dash cam, hold down the wifi button and it will enable the wifi. I think recording has to be stopped for that to work. Use your phone to connect and you can now make configuration settings to the cam as well as select videos/images to download. My settings save a file every 3 minutes. And with my higher resolution setting, the video files are around 553MB each. Downloading files seemed very fast, consistent, with no issues. I believe you can watch the videos directly streaming from the cam or when you download them you can watch them from the app even if you are not connected to the cam. So far, no issues. One surprising fact was when playing back a recording in the app, at the bottom of the screen it shows the movement of the car on a map. Thought that was a nice little feature.Quality of the video:I'm very content with the quality of the video. The video is crisp, clear both day and night. No issues.Overall:Installation was fast and easy. Daily usage I've had zero issues. Mobile app is easy to use and have no issues. A great buy! Definitely recommend the the Mini 2. Will be buying more for the rest of my families cars.

The media could not be loaded. I have one video uploaded, but I cropped out my own screen data that includes my license plate (plate data can be added in the app). You’ll get the idea of the image quality, but I believe that Amazon compresses this. It looks better than what is uploaded. I had a thinkware F50 from 2017 that I am upgrading because I burnt it out by accidentally connecting it to 12 V directly. My bad. As I looked to replace my old dash cam, I came across Viofo and the new a119mini 2 with GPS, Sony starvis2 and capacitor (a must in Florida) vs cam with an internal battery. The quality for both daytime driving and nighttime exceeds my old cam. Huge difference, but we are also talking a model from 2017 to 2024 release date, in all fairness. I want to note that I am not using the viofo polarizer and the image is still really good. I am certain I could benefit a little bit from the polarizer by getting rid of some windshield glare and reflection. But for me, having no polarizer does not hurt the image quality. It is difficult to quantify, but in my opinion, a big part of capturing an image is to get a license plate number if needed for identifying a vehicle. My old cam would sometimes fail to resolve plates in high contrast situations, which are often with bright days in Florida and was too grainy at night or in rain. It may have been the frame rate, too, that caused the old cam issues. I am using this new camera with the higher frame rate and middle resolution, based on some car gear review I saw. Bottom line, I’m getting way better images with this camera than the older camera. Customer service is also great. I had an issue that others were reporting, too, that I could not see the GPS data in the ios app. I heard back from customer service in a few days with detailed instructions. There was a misunderstanding on my part on how to obtain the GPS tracking data. It is not visible while viewing the camera footage in the first gallery. It must be downloaded and then viewed within the app in the downloaded My Media menu area (pancake menu in upper left gets you there as of Oct 2024 app release). That is where the GPS tracking data attaches, and shows the map. You just have to get to it a different way it appears than from what users say was available in an older version of the app. Also, the little gaps between video review that people complain about is by design. You aren’t missing any data. It’s just ending on one file and starting a new file. This is just part of the looping structure of the video clips that are taken. Any good dash cam should do this. But, I suggest also allowing the camera to do smaller sized video clips. This can be done right in the camera settings. This makes them easier to download. Having the little 2 minute clips is much easier to download. Even the small clips at high resolution can be upwards of 500 MB. That is a big file to share. Imagine trying to share a clip of the entire duration of your drive. These settings can be done while connected to the camera via wifi. Yes Wi-Fi, not Bluetooth. There are many complaints in iOS app reviews about connecting the phone to the camera. The camera does not connect via Bluetooth to the iphone. It connects via Wi-Fi. Think of it as its own little Wi-Fi hotspot. Based on some of the comments I am reading, it seems like people think that they should have their home Wi-Fi and also be able to connect to the camera. Or they keep thinking that the dash cam should be a Bluetooth device. This is not the case when the camera and the phone are connected. I do get my phone service data simultaneously (I don’t know if this is specific to carriers, but I can’t connect to the phone and still browse using my LTE or 5G on iPhone 14). To connect, turn wifi on (right lower button under camera screen). Open phone and join the new hotspot (camera will speak a wifi connected confirmation). Then open app and connect to camera. App now can control camera, review video, download and see GPS data and offer ability to share images and video to others. I was not provided a dash cam nor was I paid or rewarded to write this review.

It's a nice camera and the mounting hardware is strong and easy to use. Video quality is really good. Size is nice.My only complaint is that the automatic stuff is FAR too sensitive. For example, it detects incidents and protects the video. Sounds great until you see that the 2 inch bump at the end of the driveway at less than 5mph triggers it.Turn all that off and it's a nice little dashcam.