Review: Xiaomi MiJia Car DVR
Pic credit
After my previous post I decided against a dual channel DVR and was on the lookout for a front facing unit alone. While browsing Gearbest I came across the Xiaomi MiJia Car DVR. Now this a dash cam made only by Xiaomi without bringing Yi into the picture. This is a camera made only for the Chinese market and there is no global version. The entire camera UI is in Mandarin or Cantonese (dunno which one it is). But after reading and watching tons of reviews I bit the bullet. It costs $72.99 but it was on sale on Gearbest for $47.99(INR 3280 including paypal fees) with free shipping by India Express priority line. I ordered the dash cam on 29 August and received it on 9 September without any custom duty to be paid.
The Cam:
The reason I went for this unit is for its simplicity and the awesome Xiaomi build quality. It is available only in black colour. This is a WiFi dashcam, meaning you can use an app on your phone to download clips. It only records in 1080p Full HD at 30fps. You cannot change the quality or set the duration for loop recording or stop recording. If it turns on it keeps recording constantly. It has loop recording and each loop is 2 minutes long and about 220mb in size.
The dash cam has a Mediastar MSC8328P chip-set with a Sony IMX323 sensor. It has a 240mAh battery, no capacitor. It has a f/1.8 six glass element lens with a 160 degree field of view. There is only one physical button for power and to wake-up the screen. There are also four touch sensitive buttons.
The dash cam is pretty easy to setup, it can take a maximum of 64gb memory card. You need to format the memory card for the first time before using it. It comes with an adhesive mount, 2 electrostatic films, a spare two-side adhesive pad, a USB car charger, a pry tool to remove plastic trim and a super long micro USB cable.
To install the cam you first need to stick one of the electrostatic films to the windshield and then stick the mount on the guide lines printed on the film. It sticks very firmly.
Also below I have attached some images that have the translation of the Chinese menu for potential future buyers.
It was all taken from this source - PICTURE CREDITS Hit the flag icon and it saves a minute of current footage and minute of previous footage as one file.
It separates the available space into a 80-20 split for emergency recording and current recording.
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These are the clips from a short drive after installation, the little vibrations in the video is because of the resonance in the windshield and also because of a cold 2.5 liter engine.
But overall I am super happy with the video quality, you can easily read out the registration number, I do feel there is a slight color variation, but am unable to spot frame drops. Will add night time footage soon. It records videos in .MOV format and the audio ADPMC format. Audio does not play unless you use VLC player or similar. Audio quality was crystal clear but because of this format it was not recognised on Youtube.
To access the video file through WiFi, download the MiHome app from your respective stores and the save the Car DVR as a WiFi device. You can get the password to pair from the menu shown above. Once done open the app and
set the location to China otherwise it will not pair with the DVR easily. Now it will detect the DVR and will ask you to sign in or sign up with Mi do that and then it will start downloading the plugin for the DVR, at about 50% it will ask you to tap ok on the DVR, press the left side chinese option on the DVR and you should be able to access the app as below. Downloading the video clips is a breeze and takes about 15 seconds to download per 220-240mb file.
That's it for now. Overall this a much better camera than my Blaupunkt BP2.0 and for the same price as what it retails for even now. Will update on this camera's durability as it ages more. This camera will definitely not appeal to people that like to tweak even the minutest setting. This is a fit it and forget it unit.
I am in no way affiliated to Xiaomi, just felt it is a good cam for the first time buyer.