[crbalch]

I recently had two occasions where someone put up one of my windshield wiper blades (two vastly different locations), so it got me thinking about grabbing a dashcam. To be fair, I did take up one and a half spots in a huge garage, and potentially a zipcar spot, but the zipcar signage was not clear.

I did a fair amount of research and decided upon the Thinkware F770. This is Thinkware's flagship model that just came out in July of 2016. I got it on Amazon via Blackboxmycar for $450 shipped. This included the following: Dashcam, Rear Camera, and hardwire kit.

Hardware

Overall, the dashcam is extremely well built, and very sleek. When mounted on the windshield, you can barely tell its there.

Installation

The install was pretty easy, as long as you have a few trim tools handy. I ended up routing the rear camera micro USB cable along the left side of the car, and the power to the camera on the right side of the car.

Quick Note: the USB cable is extremely long, so you will need to find a lot of space to tuck the cable in. I found the best place to do this was the left rear pillar right above where the seatbelt is (pictures to come).

Another note: The hardwire kit that gets sent is meant for cars that have the fuse box located in the front of the car. For BMW, you need to wire into the trunk, so the hardwire kit will need to be extended. You can do this yourself by splicing in ground, accessory, and battery cables, or by taking it to a car audio place and have them do it. I extended mine by around 2-2.5ft just to be safe, but a bit more couldn't hurt either.

Once routed all the way back to the fuse box, the install was pretty easy, but I did get tripped up on one thing. When looking at another thread, I read the yellow and red wires needed to be hooked up to certain fuses, but that was for a Multi Safer unit, not straight cables. It turns out the cables are switched on the kit that I have. So for the install, I did the following:

Red Wire (Battery): Wrap wire (or add a fuse) around fuse #150 (5amp fuse).
Yellow Wire (Accessory): Wrap wire (or add a fuse) around fuse #147 (5amp fuse).
KEEP IN MIND: The camera has a built in battery management system, so you do not need to get a multi safer, or power pro unit. You can set your battery cutoff voltage and more in the app itself.

From here, its pretty simple to setup the dashcam to your liking by following the quickstart guide that comes with the camera.

Features

The F770 has a lot of features packed into it. I don't plan on using most, but they are there if needed. Things like Forward Collision Warning, Lane Departure Warning, Speed Camera, Red Light Camera, are all included in the package.

For me, the best features are the continuous recording while driving, incident recording while driving (in case of impact), parking mode (motion detection), and incident detection in parking mode. I park in a building garage, but occasionally need to street park in Chicago, which can be a bit worrisome with all the bad drivers in the city. It will be really nice to have peace of mind if someone decides to hit my car and run off.

Some other nice features:
- Time Lapse parking mode recording: This takes 1 picture per minute in order to save memory card space. I will probably just use the motion detection parking, but its a nice thing to have.
- Super Night Vision: enhances the vision at night (works really well)

Overall

I am very satisfied with my purchase even if it is the most expensive setup you can currently buy. I view it as a $450 investment that could potentially save me thousands in the event of an accident. In addition, it will be a really good way of capturing video while doing events, driving through cool scenery, or just catching some interesting things along the way (bad drivers).

I would recommend everyone at least think about getting a dashcam. They are a great security/safety tool, and a very small investment in the grand scheme of what could occur.






Quick Video Quality Test:

PICTURES/VIDEO COMING ASAP

[crbalch]

Added pics

[Joe240]

Thanks for the review and pics. I have a Thinkware F770 sitting at home waiting for my m240i to get delivered. I was wondering about the wiring situation and how I needed to hardware it. Some people were saying they wired into the mirror's connection? Not sure if that's possible with this or not. I figured that I'd have to wire it into the fuse box, but wasn't sure what hardware I'd need to do this (I'd like to use the parking mode since people like to dink cars with their doors).

Pictures or links of what you used to connect to the fuses would be very helpful for me

[crbalch]

Originally Posted by Joe240

Thanks for the review and pics. I have a Thinkware F770 sitting at home waiting for my m240i to get delivered. I was wondering about the wiring situation and how I needed to hardware it. Some people were saying they wired into the mirror's connection? Not sure if that's possible with this or not. I figured that I'd have to wire it into the fuse box, but wasn't sure what hardware I'd need to do this (I'd like to use the parking mode since people like to dink cars with their doors).

Pictures or links of what you used to connect to the fuses would be very helpful for me

I hardwired my radar detector into the mirror so I didn't have the option to do the dashcam there as well. I would suggest just going into the trunk, it has worked flawless for me, and its very easy to snake the cable there.

I would call Blackbox My Car and tell them you have a BMW...they have their own brand hardwire cable which is what I used. Unfortunately I had to extend my wires on my own, but if you call and order from them they can do it for you. The F770 does battery management within the camera, so you should use just a straight hardwire cable kit (cheaper too).

I can snag photos at some point of the fuses, but in the trunk fuse box there is a diagram which shows you the numbers. If you use the Blackbox hardwire cables it will be Yellow to #147 and Red to #150.

[Joe240]

I bought the thinkware wiring kit for it. Has a red yellow and black wire as well. About 9ft9inches long from end to end. The red and yellow wire have 3amp fuses already on them.

I'd like to wire it to the mirror if I could. Don't wanna rub cable if I can avoid it. I plan on putting the rear camera up front next to the main unit so I can see people on the side of the car as well when parked.

[Sinkhole]

You gotta love companies that don't use wire color standards. Those are backwards but at least they are clearly marked.
I've installed many of Thinkware's products and they all seem to function perfectly. The F750HD is probably the most popular one I do.

[crbalch]

Originally Posted by Sinkhole

You gotta love companies that don't use wire color standards. Those are backwards but at least they are clearly marked.
I've installed many of Thinkware's products and they all seem to function perfectly. The F750HD is probably the most popular one I do.

Yeah it was pretty annoying because I was going based on the standard which ended up being incorrect haha. Oh well, got it figured out now!

[crbalch]

Joe240 I don't know if the mirror has a constant battery connection so you may want to do some more research on that.

[Sinkhole]

Speaking cameras. I need to "engineer" a way to mount a camera in the rear of our new F23.

[Joe240]

Originally Posted by Sinkhole

Speaking cameras. I need to "engineer" a way to mount a camera in the rear of our new F23.

Back of your headrest? Or if you have that wind screen for when the top is down, mount it there and run the cable along the center console

[Joe240]

Originally Posted by crbalch

Joe240 I don't know if the mirror has a constant battery connection so you may want to do some more research on that.

Gotcha. So I'm assuming it's the standard fuses not minis. Would these work you think? https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B00SU...rch&th=1&psc=1