Seeing riders with action cameras strapped to either themselves or their bikes isn’t uncommon these days, but with the proliferation of dash cam technology, it seems odd that more haven’t made an attempt to hook into the motorcycle market.
In a complete surprise, the team at Navman have announced that they are bringing a motorcycle-specific dash cam to market with a host of useful features for Kiwi motorcyclists.
The Navman MiVueM820D features industry-first features including protection while parked, easy creation of trip timelapse videos, the ability to share footage from the side of the road, safety camera alerts, and more.
Priced at $679, the M820D positions a 1080p camera at both ends of the bike to capture footage at 60 frames per second
Navman says too often motorcyclists are often unfairly blamed for road accidents but the ability to hand over unequivocal proof with video footage puts an end to this once and for all.
Navman’s system has Sony’s premium STARVIS sensors front and rear which mean it can capture detail in low light, superb contrast and rich colours, and with its built-in GPS and 3-Axis G-Sensor, the footage is tagged with precise location, along with direction of impact and speed. This footage can be accessed, downloaded and shared instantly from the MiVue Pro app, even when out on a ride.
However, where you can fill most of those functions with an action camera, Navman has a trick up their sleeve where the M820D keeps watch even when your bike is parked.
With parked bikes often getting damaged, dented or even knocked over, Navman has introduced “parking mode” on a motorbike dash cam. With front and rear motion detection, any movement around or knock to the motorbike will trigger a recording so riders have the proof they need to hand to their insurer to enable them to chase down the person who damaged their bike. With ‘smart parking’ mode enabled, the dash cam automatically monitors the bike’s battery voltage and power usage whilst protecting your bike and will switch off once a threshold is reached to stop excess draining of the battery.
There are also premium safety camera audible alerts included with fixed speed and safety
cameras and school zones, which can be updated via the MiVue Pro app as often as
every month.
All serious business, yes, but there are also fun features. Riders can easily create ‘trip lapse’ videos, condensing their best long rides into short, shareable clips from both front and rear weatherproof cameras and motorcyclists can save their best rides and share them as GPX route files with fellow riders.
It is the rider who is in charge, with the control box fitted to the handlebar but the MiVue™
M820D will hard save footage from any impact to the included 64GB endurance microSD card
with ‘event recording’ always on.
The device is hard-mounted and hardwired to the bike, so it never needs to be
disconnected to charge. This is much safer than cameras mounted to a helmet. Not only do
these cameras risk damaging your helmet as the epoxy glues used may compromise its
performance and warrant a fine, they also risk injuring the rider if it gets snagged on
something in an accident.
It is suitable for a wide range of types of motorbikes with front and rear cameras IP67
weatherproof rated, each with a 140-degree field of view. The MiVue™ M820D can support
up to 256GB microSD card and uses more efficient H.265 HEVC video compression to
capture and store more footage for longer.