70mai Dash Cam Omni Review: Ambitious And Full Of Personality

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EDITORS’ RATING : 7 / 10

Dash cams are a tough buy. There are a variety of choices accessible, but only a few are well worth the funding. Dash cams aren’t actually sophisticated when it comes to {hardware} or performance, however they have to be very dependable since they’re meant to remain operational repeatedly, particularly in case of a mishap.

Of course, you need to use your outdated iPhone as a splash cam, however investing in a devoted sprint cam is a good suggestion. There are some manufacturers on the market which have some nice choices on this house, and 70mai is one in all them. The firm’s newest providing, the 70mai Dash Cam Omni, is kind of a bit totally different from its different choices.

The 70mai Dash Cam Omni is a 360-degree sprint cam, making it one of many only a few such choices in the marketplace. It has the sprint cam fundamentals covers and provides a ton of additional options, which make for a really compelling buy. The query is, is it price your cash — or is it the perfect 70mai sprint digicam on your wants?

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The 70mai Dash Cam Omni is a 360-degree rotating sprint cam. It began off as a Kickstarter marketing campaign, which is one thing 70mai has efficiently executed a number of occasions earlier than. This digicam is simply the most recent in a line of cameras from Omni, promising just a few additional security and way of life options to distinguish from what’s been accessible earlier than.

The 70mai Dash Cam Omni is available in three storage choices — 32GB at $139.99, 64GB at $149.99, and 128GB at $159.99, on the 70mai retailer. It is available in two colours: Black, and Red/White — making it look lots like a Poké Ball from Pokémon. You get a 1.2-inch show on the higher half of the sprint cam, whereas the underside half holds the 140-degree field-of-view digicam that data as much as Full HD video and rotates 360 levels.

When we see the time period “360-degree camera coverage” in a automobile, normally this implies the automobile’s driver help parking cameras give a full view of the environment, however this is not that. This is a 140-degree FOV digicam that may rotate 360 levels to seize footage from all sides. You additionally get parking monitoring, route monitoring utilizing in-built GPS, movement detection, collision detection, voice management, vlogging options (letting you are taking clips, selfies, and timelapse movies), and ADAS options whereas driving.

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As far as set up goes, there are two methods to go about it. 70mai features a USB-A to USB-C cable within the field, together with a automobile charger and a wiring crowbar. This is not essentially the most elegant answer, but it surely will get the job carried out, and you need to use the crowbar to tuck the unfastened wire.

The different manner is to purchase a $20 hardwire package from 70mai and open up a few panels in your automobile to entry the fusebox and wire it up. This is a cleaner answer and likewise needed if you wish to use the parking monitoring options when the ignition of your automobile is turned off. You get an electrostatic sticker to use onto your windshield earlier than attaching the digicam’s adhesive finish to it.

There’s additionally a $70 (at the moment discounted to $42) 4G hardwire package which is on the market in most of Europe and a few South Asian international locations, which may allow you to entry the digicam remotely.

70mai supplied us with the 70mai Dash Cam Omni (Black, 64GB) together with an everyday hardwire package for the needs of this evaluate. While this digicam was made to be easy to put in with the {hardware} included with the machine, we opted to have our unit hardwired with the assistance of an expert. The electrostatic sticker was not used upon suggestion of the skilled since it’s recognized to peel off in hotter climates.

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The 70mai Dash Cam Omni might be one of many best-looking sprint cams in the marketplace proper now. I had the black model in for evaluate, which is much less jazzy than the attractive red-and-white model, which makes you, the driving force, seem like you are looking down Pokémon and is totally the colour to get except you personal a totally blacked-out automobile like me, and do not wish to deviate from the colour scheme.

You get a mounting disc on the high with an adhesive strip utilized and a hinge that ensures you get a point of adjustment after mounting it onto your windshield. There are a few buttons on the left of the sprint cam for navigating the in-built menu. The 1.2-inch show is not actually all that helpful, however it may present a tiny video feed preview, and the MaiX emoji and scenario-based animations you see on the display are fairly lovable, humanizing a normally ignorable class of gadgets.

The 360-degree rotating digicam is moderately fast and easy, too. It does not have sufficient motor whine to note it whereas it strikes, which is a superb factor. You may also calibrate the motor to maintain the default place of the digicam as per your liking, which is nice. There’s an LED ring proper on the separation between the higher half and the underside half, which modifications colours to point occasions. There’s a pleasant large perforated space on the backside for the microphone.

Overall, utilizing the Omni is way from boring. It seems to be fairly glossy and is a breath of recent air out of your common sprint cam.

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There are some things to contemplate right here with regards to video high quality with this digicam. To start with, that is solely a 1080p digicam, which is not the neatest thing on the earth, but it surely is not the worst, both. With the video high quality set to 1080p at 60fps with excessive compression fee enabled, and audio recording disabled, I observed that my 64GB evaluate unit was filling up with a few week’s price of footage, and I anticipate most people to get related mileage out of this digicam.

The digicam does not document steady footage however brief clips that may be set to as much as 3 minutes in size. This is appropriate, given the processing and information switch constraints of a tool like this. The sprint cam claims to have HDR video help — however solely when the body fee is ready to 30fps.

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The video high quality is respectable. The 140-degree area of view is great, and the footage is obvious and crisp sufficient. 70mai has 4K sprint cams too, however these are costlier and wish extra storage per clip. In comparability, the Omni is a fairly strong compromise. You can see license plates clearly within the daytime, however the 1080p decision means they are not readable except you are inside just a few toes of the opposite car.

Night video efficiency is appropriate, however it may be inadequate if quick movement is concerned. I say this solely from the attitude of studying license plates. For instance, a hit-and-run scenario at excessive speeds in low mild can be a tough one for this sprint cam, because it struggles to seize license plates. I attempted this with each 30fps and 60fps modes, with HDR enabled and disabled, and the outcomes weren’t the perfect for this explicit use case.

At the identical time, this sprint cam captures most particulars fairly properly, even at evening time, and is usually inside expectations at its value. The low-light, fast-motion efficiency will seemingly have an effect on solely a really small share of your utilization.

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As identified earlier, the 70mai Dash Cam Omni packs in a bunch of additional options, which make this machine a extra tempting possibility than most sprint cams on this funds vary. All of those options work moderately properly, which is not what I anticipated getting into.

To start with, the ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems) options are fairly strong. The sprint cam will notify you of pedestrians, riders, and vehicles on the highway, and it will get it proper about 9 out of ten occasions. Lane self-discipline options had been fairly dependable as properly.

Motion detection labored fairly properly, too, which supplies me good hopes for the collision detection characteristic, which I, fortuitously, wasn’t capable of take a look at. You’ll have to regulate the sensitivity settings to your liking, however these options are an incredible addition to older vehicles with no ADAS capabilities. While I would not use these myself, I see these being nice for the much less road-aware drivers. You do not fairly anticipate a splash cam to excel at this stuff, however the 70mai Dash Cam Omni does.

My favourite characteristic is the parking monitoring. This requires hardwiring, and it has movement detection, which triggers the digicam to document a clip when there’s suspicious exercise round your automobile. It’s wonderful for some like me, paranoid about parking in a less-than-ideal spot, and it makes use of 360-degree rotation to hint the movement. While it did not fairly assist me get a clip of the lovable cat that sleeps on my automobile in a single day, it detected virtually all human-sized movement across the car.

Route monitoring is one other nice-to-have characteristic. GPS is built-in and means that you can do some easy monitoring of journeys. Mind you, that is totally different from turn-by-turn instructions — that is extra like a recording of your GPS location that you would be able to acquire after you’ve got parked.

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There are two major benefits of voice management, as I see it. The first one considerations the vlogging options, that are completely paired with voice instructions. You can ask the sprint cam to take a selfie, to document proper, to document proper, or to shoot a vlog, and it fortunately obliges. The document proper and document left choices are self-explanatory, in fact, and the vlog possibility data a clip with the digicam doing a 360-degree flip with a pause on the cabin of the automobile.

The second half of the voice command characteristic that got here in actually helpful is the hotspot toggle command. The 70mai Dash Cam Omni makes use of a hotspot to determine a reference to the 70mai app in your telephone for media syncing and for altering the superior settings of the sprint cam, and the voice command is a significantly better method to entry that, compared to fidgeting with the buttons positioned on the sprint cam.

The app itself is fairly well-made. You get granular management over a variety of the options, and whereas the hotspot connection methodology is a bit convoluted, it does not hinder the consumer expertise all that a lot. My solely concern was that the video clips can take a very long time to switch, and I discovered it lower than superb to make use of the app for that. Thankfully, you possibly can simply use a USB-C information cable to plug the sprint cam instantly into your PC, and information switch works like the typical flash drive. It’s a bit inconvenient, but it surely’s the easiest way to switch the dashcam movies.

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70mai is commonly my suggestion for people in search of a value-for-money dashcam, and the Omni simply reinforces that additional.

To start with, this can be a one-piece sprint cam, which suggests you do not get a rear digicam. This is a notable draw back. The sprint cam has a premium price ticket that matches the corporate’s greatest mannequin, the A800S, which has 4K recording and a front-and-rear sprint cam system.

My different concern, as famous, is the generally less-than-ideal video efficiency in low-light, fast-motion situations. Both of those points are nonetheless acceptable in case you worth all the extra options you get on this sprint cam. If you are strictly in search of a splash cam with good video efficiency, one in all 70mai’s different choices could also be higher price your time.

The 70mai Dash Cam Omni can be a significantly better deal at a value of $80-$100, but it surely at the moment feels a tad overpriced. This is primarily because of the sheer worth for cash that the corporate’s different choices have, one in all which even made it onto our latest listing of the perfect vacation presents for automobile lovers. The novelty of the 360-degree rotation and the opposite sensible options, that are fairly properly built-in, might woo consumers, but when I had been out there for a splash cam, I might decide the 70mai A800S or watch for a value drop on the Omni.

That doesn’t suggest the Omni is a flawed buy for everyone, although. The 70mai Dash Cam Omni is for people in search of one thing greater than a splash cam. It will jazz up your automobile and add a little bit of a contemporary vibe to it with each its seems to be and its distinctive options.