Toguard 8" Rearview mirror dashcam review

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sotal
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Toguard 8" Rearview mirror dashcam review

Post by sotal » Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:21 am

Just a quick initial review that I will add pictures to later and more detail once I've used it a bit.

The Toguard 8" mirror is a front dashcam which fits over the top of the existing mirror. It also has a wired rear camera which can be used as a reversing camera or rear dashcam (or a mix of both).

The mirror itself is touchscreen and responds well enough for the task. When the mirror switches off it acts like a regular mirror although it is slightly darker than the original mirror.

Installation is easy enough. The mirror fits over the original by using two rubber ladder bands. It then just needs a microsd card inserting and two cables plugging in (one for power and one for the rear camera).

The cables plug in to the top so are fairly discrete but I'm sure they could have made a tidier job. The plugs are right angle plugs, to me it would have been nearer to have had a single write coming straight out with connectors splitting off from that a few inches up in the headlining.

The power cable it comes with is a cigarette lighter socket on a wire. I've currently fed this through the headlining, down the drivers pillar and round to the cigarette lighter socket. There was ample cable for this and this would provide the easiest route for most. A hardwire kit is available (the instructions say I can order it for free if I leave a review on Amazon but I bought the mirror from eBay!). I will either use the hardwire kit or will wire in a hidden cigarette lighter socket to plug it into.

The other wire, for the rear view camera, I fed in the headlining, then round the drivers side trim all the way to the rear corner. This was the hardest part. The camera pulls off to leave a thinner round 4 pin camera connector. This pushes through the hole in the top, then I was able to push this through the rubber hinge that is already full of wires. It was quite difficult to push it through, I used Vaseline to help it. Once through the I fed a different piece of wire through the tailgate to behind the big piece of tailgate trim. I removed the trim and pulled the plastic liner down from the horrible black gunk. Once I had fed the stiffer wire through, I taped the camera wire to it and pulled it through. The 4 pin connector ended up just behind the trim which left the red wire to connect to the reversing wire just inside the roof of the bongo.

I then removed the rear light cluster on the drivers side and connected a wire to the reversing wire in the and fed that up through the pillar and connected it to the red cable on the camera wire. This activates reversing mode when reverse is engaged. (Just puts the screen on, with rear camera only and some guide lines to follow).

Finally I just needed to position and connect the camera. I decided to take the drivers side number plate light out and feed the wire through the hole and underneath the rubber. This ended up neat. I then decided I would fit the bracket behind the number plate with the camera just over the top. To do this I had to cut the top of the bracket off with a hacksaw and cut a couple of notches out of the top of the number plate. The notches keep the camera in place and I needed them to still fit the cut down bracket in place!

My only worry with the positioning of the camera is if it shadows the number plate too much for the MOT. If it does I'll have to remove the camera for the MOT.

Oops, I seem to have veered from a review to an installation guide!

Back to the review...

The camera quality looks great, I'll upload some footage when I get a minute. Both cameras are 1080p. You can lower the resolution to store more but I can't see why you would. I have used a 32gb microsd. I've set it to dual record so both cameras record from the moment it gets power. It also has a parking guard feature which allows it to detect something bumping in to the car when it is off. It uses some built in charge to activate both cameras and record. This has a chance then of recording the culprit if they drive off. Obviously they could be out of shot of they bit the side, it they could have damaged the rear camera if they hit the rear. It works on a g sensor and the sensitivity can be altered. I've left the default for now.

Video that is recorded from the parking guard or if the camera thinks the car has been in a crash (again uses the g sensor) is locked and won't be overwritten on the loop. The manual notes that if you have the sensitivity too high then the card will fill up with locked files and the loop recording will stop working.

The interface is typical Chinese, it is functional but not the most user friendly. All the settings give you the option of 'open' or 'close' when really they should be 'on' or 'off'. It is easy enough to work out. You can set different time is for the screen to go off, it is quite nice to see it come in at the beginning and let's you check that the cameras are pointing the right way etc.

The rear camera has 4 LEDs around it which I presume are infrared for night vision. I've not tested these yet. Nor have I tested the front camera in night conditions.

I currently have the camera pointing down from the top of the number plate, this lets me just see the tip of the towbar, then the road behind. As a reversing camera it is great but from this angle it isn't much use as a rear dashcam. I might try shifting it up a little and going for a compromise between the two.

The mirror allows different viewing modes, the default that comes on to start with is a full screen view of the front with a picture in picture view of the rear on the right. Tapping the screen cycles through different views. You can have front only, rear only, half and half or the default. The rear only and front only are nice and clear but with it being wide-screen they cut the top and bottom of the picture off. The half and half gives a good view of both.

The biggest drawback I can see is the positioning of the front camera. It is on the left which would be better for left hand drive vehicles. All of the mirror cams seem to have it in this position. The camera is adjustable left and right but not far enough. I have it positioned all the way to the right but would prefer it to be further. I can get it there by rotating the mirror a little but then I don't have a natural view through the mirror and have to move my head to the middle of the bongo a bit too see through the mirror.

All in all, I'm very happy with the purchase. The setup cost £50 including postage. I purchased from eBay using a best offer listing. The buy it now price was £56 I think, it was automatically accepted instantly with my offer of £50. The current Amazon price was £69.99.

You can get a slightly cheaper 7" model which was the previous model. The 8" obviously had a slightly larger screen but also the 8" has both cameras at 1080p. The older model has a 720p rear camera. I don't know if any other differences.

I hope this helps someone, I'll add photos when I get chance.
wwaveydave
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Re: Toguard 8" Rearview mirror dashcam review

Post by wwaveydave » Thu Apr 25, 2019 9:42 am

Nice review. I amy pick one up. Just FYI, you can log a review on Amazon even without purchasing from them.
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mikeonb4c
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Re: Toguard 8" Rearview mirror dashcam review

Post by mikeonb4c » Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:53 am

Was something like this being discussed on another thread and someone had had a problem with the unit shutting down when overheated by sitting in strong sunlight. Might be something to watch out for and keep us posted if it does. But it sounds like a great device!
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sotal
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Re: Toguard 8" Rearview mirror dashcam review

Post by sotal » Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:58 pm

mikeonb4c wrote: Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:53 am Was something like this being discussed on another thread and someone had had a problem with the unit shutting down when overheated by sitting in strong sunlight. Might be something to watch out for and keep us posted if it does. But it sounds like a great device!
I did read something about someone struggling with heat, I've not seen anything about heat in the reviews for this particular model. The only shutting down problem I'd seen for this one was when the card is full, it realises that it can't record so switches off after a minute to save power. If the g sensor setting is too sensitive then the card fills with protected recordings which don't get overwritten and hence the card gets full and people think it is shutting down because it is faulty. Formatting the card and setting the sensitivity to a lower setting fixes this.

One extra bad point that I found today was that I noticed I'd left the protective cover over the mirror, it had the little plastic pull tab sticking out at the bottom so I pulled it off and it has left a sticky residue all over the mirror which I now need to clean off :( - might as well have left the film on!
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Re: Toguard 8" Rearview mirror dashcam review

Post by BongoBongo123 » Fri Apr 26, 2019 2:54 pm

I read about heat being an issue with the stick on cams, it was a good heads up. I had a freeze up once and the cam was hot. However it was most likely because the screen saver was not on. (i.e. auto screen off after X mins setting waas not set up, thus LCD was on permanently and producing internal CPU heat in the cam.) Since setting that up and boistering the front of the cam with some super glued on heatsinks it has been fine since.

I can appreciate some won't want to jump through those hoops (gluing on heatsinks). I probably would have gone for a mirror one but could not quite understand how the unit could be a both a real interal mirror and a camera/LCD screen at the same time so went for the standard suction cup jobby.

I am guessing the mirror one gets better airflow (and is more shaded by the roof line) if you have the aircon/blowers directed as they naturally would be towards your torso when driving.
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Re: Toguard 8" Rearview mirror dashcam review

Post by sotal » Fri Apr 26, 2019 3:21 pm

The mirror is a mirror when the screen turns off. When the LCD screen activates you can't see in the mirror at all. As soon as it turns off it is just like a regular mirror, although I'd say slightly darker.
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