Redtiger F17 Plus Dashcam - review from a real person

[BimmerDriver]

First, let me clarfiy that Redtiger provided the camera to me for this review, although it has no influence on my opinions, I do feel that it should be clearly stated.

Second, many years ago I had a bad accident driving to work, t-boned a moron who turned left on red in front of me, totalled both my car (a gorgeous BMW M5) and his POS Expedition. If not for a another commuter who was kind enough to stop and wait with us for the police to give his statement, it would have been a he said/he said claim, and I would have had to file a claim with my insurance company. Since the other guy stuck around, fault was assigned to the moron and it didn't cost me any points. I did, however, have to buy another car and drive some nasty Nissan for two weeks. Ick. So, ever since then, I've had a dash cam in my cars. It's cheap insurance.

This Redtiger 17 Plus has 4 channels, which means that the front unit has a camera pointing toward traffic and another pointing in the car, probably excellent for Uber drivers and such. Since I'm the kind of person who doesn't want pictures of me swearing at the other drivers moments before a crash, I confirmed that yes, you can turn off the inside camera! Easy to do with their menu system. The other channels are for the rear unit, which has two cameras that can be rotated to capture both inside and outside (rear view) of the car. All of this is recorded in high definition. See this thread for a sample of actual video.

Because I'm so wordy and pedantic, this review will take up several posts in this thread. Apologies in advance.

First, the packaging is very nice, it's all well protected and very complete.

I requested and received the hardwire kit, which I believe comes along free when you order the camera on their web site. I was quite impressed with all that it came with - multiple taps for different fuse sizes, plenty of wire, a trim removal tool, and the transformer.

If you want to just plug it into your accessory power port, that adapter is included in the box that has the cameras. Super easy.

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[BimmerDriver]

It uses USB-C connectors, both for the power and for the connection to the rear unit. This is really my only criticism of the camera, that the plugs are in the front of the mount, where they are quite visible, instead of the rear. Now, they probably did that because if they were in the rear, you may have issues with wires falling in front of the camera lens if they aren't properly secured, plus it would be much more difficult if you want to unplug them later after it was mounted to the windshield. So, all-in-all, a petty critique.

The menu system is easy to use, you can either use the touch screen to select options or the buttons on the bottom of the unit. Plenty of options to change just about anything and it's all quite easy to understand. There is an actual printed user manual, quite well written and fairly complete. They don't go into every single option and setting, but to be fair, that would end up being a very large and complex manual. Plus, it's instantly out of date if you ever update the firmware. And yes, even the hardwire kit has its own user manual and installation guide!

Don't let me forget to mention all of the extra mounting tape, trim removal tool, the included SD card, (128Gb IIRC) and spare electrostatic stickers for mounting. So if you later move the unit to another car, there's plenty of stuff there to do it.

 

[Snowflee17]

Ok I'm not as much as a talker as BimmerDriver, Thanks for posting so much, it makes my review a little bit easier! I did a quick install to get the requirements meet, it is easy to use, if you do use Android Auto or Apple Play, you will need to disable them to be able to use the app. which makes it easier to save videos and screenshots. Video quality is good, but for these older eyes it's definitely better to view the videos in the app., the screen is small and sometimes difficult to see everything clearly. The 4 channels do seem to be a little bit of overkill, but it does give different views. It's a good product out of the box, will update after a long-term study has been conducted! Enjoy the videos!

 

[Garcia172]

can you quickly delete footage if you are doing something stupid (like testing to verify that the factory launch control system works properly :-) ???

 

[Snowflee17]

can you quickly delete footage if you are doing something stupid (like testing to verify that the factory launch control system works properly :-) ???

Yes you can delete any or all video

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