[rajeshsundaram]

The Car Dash camera I used earlier
For the past 2 years, I was using a car dash camera similar to the one shown below. It cost me Rs.1200 and it was bought from a seller in Amazon India.

Two months ago, this generic car dash camera went kaput. It simply did not work no matter how many times I tried. When it worked, that camera served me well and it shot 720P videos in okay quality. No hangups, no errors. In broad daylight - the vehicles, the roads, the people were captured fine. But to read out a number plate, it puts in tremendous eye strain to figure out even a single number.

Despite the fact that it featured night-vision, the 6 IR diodes NEVER helped in shooting a decent night vision video. I think the IR diodes are just dummies. So much for a night-vision dash cam.

ANYTEK AT66A Full HD Dash Camera
Searching through Flipkart, Amazon and ebay yielded non interesting results. Either there was the generic dash cams, or some fake chinese dash cams, which actually extrapolate 640x360 video into 1920x1080 video and claim they are Full-HD dash cams.

I came across this Anytek AT66A model in Aliexpress, and found the seller to be Anytek Official. Not believing, I took the risk and ordered it for USD 51.00 including shipping.

https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Anyt...608.0.0.VmWZLH

(Right now, the same Model is sold along with a ELM 327 OBD port scanner. But when I purchased the port scanner was not advertised.)

To my surprise I received the package after 3 weeks, and I thanked god that my USD 51 did not go waste with some fake seller. Quickly opened the package and found the packing to be really good in terms with Mobile Phone packaging.

Here are the photos. Click to view it bigger.

Review of the Dash Camera
Anytek AT66A is a fair sized dash cam(somewhat similar to the Nokia 3310 in dimensions) and even weighs half of a nokia 3310. The body panels are ABS plastic and has a thin chrome lining in the rear. The 6 command buttons are UP & DOWN navigation, Power ON/OFF, Menu, Choice and OK actions. It features a fixed-focus, WIDE ANGLE lens, which fairly covers 90% of the front point-of-view in my Xylo. I fixed this camera to the corner of the IRVM and not on the windshield.

AT66A does claim to be a night vision camera. There are no IR diodes featured in the front. But the equipped Novatek image sensor is pretty good in low light video, and thus fairly compensating for night time videos. As long as there is some light AT66A shoots good videos. You can take a look at the youtube video that I compiled using my test video footage.

This dashcamera does not feature any inbuilt GPS sensor and Wifi. But it does have a socket to connect external GPS sensors. My requirements do not mandate GPS or WiFi. So I am okay with the lack of GPS and WiFi. Anytek has other models which feature GPS and WiFI sensors as well.


Operation
The operation is pretty straight forward. Fix the dash cam to the suction mount, connect the power cable and voila - it starts recording in loop. You can set the clip duration. I find 2 min clips are pretty okay. When the ignition is turned off, the camera runs for a few seconds and then shuts off. In case if you want to turn off the camera manually, there is a power ON/OFF button.

The 2.7 inch display is a TFT matrix display (most likely a low-res basic TN panel) which shifts color in different angles. But the display is ok for occasional look ups and searching through clips.

Setting up the dash cam requires the help of the supplied User Guide. The menu is English, but the organisation of options is little cumbersome. Adding to the fact that you have to press LEFT and RIGHT arrows to move options UP and DOWN offers a typical chinese-product experience. But nevertheless one can setup the settings fairly easily with the help of the user guide. After setting the default timer and date, I set the settings to shoot 1920x1080 full HD videos, and clip length to 2 mins. Also AT66A has an option to enter your car number too. In the video clip shown below, you can see a "3033" being displayed in lower left corner, which is my car number.

The dashcam has the following inputs and output sockets
1. Mini HDMI
2. MicroSD card slot (upto 32GB)
3. USB Power source
4. GPS Plugin socket (to external GPS adaptor)
5. AV Plug socket (to connect to TV)
6. Reset & Speaker at the bottom
7. Mic in the front.

Oh, btw the lens housing is static, and one cannot rotate the lens ring. And this camera can also shoot photos.

Here is my test video footage compilation. I've upload the actual 1920x1080 video clips. So try to watch it in full HD + full screen when streaming from YouTube. The video clips contains the videos shot at outdoors with Overhead sun, Mall parking, Evening sun and night driving in remote roads.

https://youtu.be/tN529CAI0y0

Pros
1. Excellent Video quality (with good audio capture). True 1920x1080 @ 30 fps.
2. Sensor is fairly quick to adjust exposure when entering dark areas.
3. Has memory and inbuilt power to store all your settings and date.
4. Daylight videos are really great, and night time videos are fairly good with decently controlled noise levels.
5. Value for money

Cons
1. Not a IR based true night-vision dash cam.
2. Slightly confusing navigation buttons and menu structure.


Conclusion
I'd say you can go for this Anytek AT66A without any questions in mind. It is a great entry level dash camera that offers true FullHD videos and pretty decent night time low light videos (though no IR sensors on board).

[Aditya]

Thread moved out from the Assembly Line. Thanks for sharing!

[Makin Rulesz]

Very detailed review and much helpful for people like me who are in the market looking to buy a DVR.

Originally Posted by Makin Rulesz

First is VIOFO A119, which is selling at around 6K in Aliexpress/Gearbest. It is being widely discussed in the forum, so nothing much to say about it.
Second in my list is Anytek AT66A, costing around 4K. I could not find any reference in the forum about anyone bought or using it. It has some decent online reviews and seems to be selling is more numbers compared to A119. Except for the cost, both seems to have similar specs and performance levels.

Any expert advice is appreciated.

Unfortunately for me, your review came just out of time. I had searched the forum and asked for a expert comment on AT66 in the dashcam thread. Since there was no response I went ahead and placed the order for A119. I might consider AT66 as a secondary camera for using on rear windshield.