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Category Archives: Pumpkin New Products
Amazon Customer Review About Car Rear View Mirror Dash Cam 5 Inch IPS Touch Screen 1080P + 720P
This review from Amazon customer Allan on October 20, 2018
Title: Good Value for the Money
I like the sense of security this system gives me when driving.
I installed it in my 1992 Ford Ranger PIckup Truck with a Camper Shell. For convenience, I placed the rear camera inside the rear glass window of the shell. It remains hidden but gives excellent wide angle visibility that is much superior to a rear view mirror.
It was relatively easy to install. You have to be careful to route the two supplied wires under the headliner other trim pieces for it to be hidden. The supplied power cord is meant to plug into a 12 Volt power source that in new cars turns on and off with the ignition. My old truck keeps the power on all the time. So I purchased separately a fuse tap that switches with the ignition
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00K17M2IU/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o03_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
I also bought the proper cord with a mini USB plug to provide the power from the fuse tap
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00U2DGJOQ/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1
Now the system powers on and off with my ignition.
The user interface is quite easy to operate. In addition to the hard buttons, a row of visible controls appear on the screen when powered on. These are easier for me to operate while driving. They allow turning on or off recording of video and audio as well as taking an immediate photo and locking the current video file in a separate folder where it can’t be erased during loop recording. The setup menu can also be accessed by a touch control. Also, you can select which image to view on the screen. By default it is a picture-in-picture view of the front camera (large) and rear camera (small). Those two can be reversed. Then it can display only the front camera or only the rear camera. I like the rear camera view because I can see if it is safe to change lanes better than just using my mirrors or turning my head. The camera views only stay on for a user defined amount of time. Right now I have them stay on 30 seconds. If off, all you have to do it touch the mirror and they come right back on when needed. The rest of the time I just let it record away.
While in the Playback mode, all the various folders are accessible for front and rear recordings. These include loop recording, locked files due to impact, files due to motion close to the vehicle when parked. Only front view photos can be accessed in the Playback mode. If you take the TF card to a computer, there is also a photo from the rear camera.
Image quality on a computer is as expected for a 1080P front camera and 720P rear camera. License plate numbers can be easily read from the front. Cars need to be closer at the back to read numbers clearly. But the rest of the image is fine. At night the images are very sharp and appear to be enhanced somewhat. Even in low light when the sun just goes down the images look like daytime.
My only issue is when reversing at night. The backup camera has 4 very bright LEDs that come on when shifting into reverse (you have to hook a red wire to the backup light circuit). The glass on my camper is flat, so the light from the LEDs reflects right back into the image. Once I shift out of reverse and the LEDs go out, the image comes back very good. Since these LEDs are visible and not infrared this is a minor issue for me. I will try and cover the LEDs with a bit of tape to see if that works better for me. Perhaps on a curved rear window, this would not be a problem.
I had a minor issue with my first backup camera. Tiffany at Customer Service was immediately responsive. After some discussions with a Pumpkin Engineer, they sent me a replacement. Now after several weeks everything is fine.
I am very satisfied with the Pumpkin 5″ display rear view mirror and camera system. I think for the typical user it provides excellent recording and thus far is reliable. I am pleased with the system.
The car rear view mirror been reviewed: https://www.autopumpkin.com/car-electronics/backup-camera/pumpkin-car-rear-view-mirror-with-5-inch-ips-touch-screen-front-camera-hd1080p-and-backup-reverse-camera-hd720p.html