Thinkware U1000 Dash Cam - 4K UHD 2160p Front & 2K QHD Rear Dash Camera with Built-in Wi-Fi & Hardwire Lead for Battery Safe Parking Mode - Includes 64GB SD Card - Android/iOS Cloud App, black

Having my Roadhawk dash cam finally kick the bucket, after approx 4 years, I decided to upgrade. After a lot of research I chose the Thinkware U1000 4K Dashcam with rear camera. So far I am very impressed. It is very low profile and hides almost totally behind my rearview mirror. It comes with a UV lens for clearer footage in the sunlights (other cameras sell these separately). Videos record in MP4 format which is ideal. There are many options for the recording function, such as overwrite oldest footage when card is full, overwrite incident when in continuous record mode, overwrite manual incident record etc. There are also many customisable settings such as how sensitive the camera is to detect incidents; What record mode the camera goes to when ignition is turned off; What resolution to record in for the front and back and what frame rate. All these can be customised from your smartphone whilst linked to your camera in the car.The rearview camera is so small I hardly notice it's there, and the quality of the footage is great. The USB cable that links the two cameras together is more than long enough. The power cable which I hardwired in is not long enough for BMW's which have the car battery in the boot.They recommend hardwired cameras use their team of installers to install the camera, therefore they supply no instructions on how to do it yourself. But anyone with electrical experience will have no problem installing it yourself, it's all self explanatory.I wanted to make sure it's works 100% before ordering the Radar attachment Thinkware sell. All seems fine so i'll be ordering that now.I've researched every camera on the market, and this seemed to tick all my boxes. So far I am 100% happy with my purchase, all be it on the expensive side.

I specifically went for this because of the vertical design. This is my 8th Thinkware camera and the quality/construction does not let you down.The vertical design means it can fit snuggly next to my feature filled mirror mount and is easily removable from it's mount.Wifi is easy to connect to - I am still trying to find out more into how the wifi bits work in regards to when the car is off because I assumed it could switch to a hotspot and be remotely accessible but its been a bit flakey.Feature packed and for a change, in a UK English voice too.I've got it connected to the Thinkware battery pack which gives me a nice amount of footage when the car is off without draining the car battery.Connections also work great in that I've not had to change wiring for a while as it can re-use previous model wiring. What this also means is everytime a new model comes out, I keep changing which is not nice to the wallet.I will say, this is my 2nd unit - the first had a fair bit of scratching on the body underside. It's a characteristic of the gloss black but I would not expect this from a new unit. Box was sealed and so it's probably shipping where the camera has been rubbing against the plastic + box its in.2nd unit had it too but no way near as many as the first.

Bought the U1000 with a rear camera for what I think is a reasonable price and fitted it myself. This was fairly straightforward. I originally also purchased the OBD connector to power the camera but the connector didn’t fit the cutout in my car so I returned the connector. The front camera sits nicely behind the rear view mirror, from the driver’s perspective, and the rear camera is not noticeable.Having fitted the cameras and powered up the system, I found the system volume pretty loud… and it can get somewhat annoying after a time. I went to the settings and discovered the volume was at 1 from a choice of 0, 1, 2, 3, 4. What must 4 sound like?!? Tip: don’t turn off the sound until you are completely happy with the setup otherwise you’ll have no idea what the system is doing. This is because changing anything involves connecting your mobile to the system’s wi-fi, making a change, then using your mobile to connect the camera system to your car’s hotspot. This is confusing and it took a while to get my head around what it was doing.I also found that the system was reporting that it was connected to the internet when it was only connected to the hotspot’s login page. Consequently, the camera would not connect to the Thinkware Cloud. I ended up buying a USB dongle and SIM to setup my own hotspot in the car, wired behind the dash.I eventually turned the system volume to 0 and occasionally check that the camera is still working by viewing it live via the Thinkware Cloud. I also get notifications on my mobile when a door or the boot is slammed shut. The video quality is very good however, to download this, you have to connect to the camera via wi-fi, tricky to do with the volume at zero LOL.Oh yes, I upped the memory to 128GB and this is working OK.Should the Thinkware team look at these reviews, I’d ask for a firmware update to reduce the volume levels so the new 1 to 4 range sits in between the current 0 to 1 level i.e. the current 1 level is the maximum volume.