Dash Cam G55W Review

The G55W (aka LD500) is a cute little HD cam dash with Wi-Fi connectivity for an affordable price. It deserves a closer look...

I must admit that buying this camera was more impulsive than an educated decision.
First, I really liked its general design.
Then I was curious about the benefits of WI-FI.

For the price of a G90, around 65€ (Dealextreme, Gearbest, ...), having Wi-Fi probably means that other components won't be of the same class, as it usually happens with those other cheap dash cams with GPS.

Chipset and sensor. 

The OV2715 is a CMOS sensor also found in some high end IP Cameras. It offers a resolution of 2MP and it is unclear why this model is wrongly advertised as 5MP in many shops.
The LD6188 chipset is completely unknown (LD probably just stands for LingDu, the Chinese name of BlackView). So, no Ambarella or even a Novatek here. 

Seeing a LED ring around the lens is not a good news to me. It suggests that the sensor is not up to the job in low light.

A rare view of a chipset with no marking: Let's call it LD6188

Firmware:
The firmware version is 00.01.11. It's confirmed to be the latest one and the BlackView website only holds an older v.00.01.07 probably only in Chinese.

The first time it is turned on, the camera is in Russian. The alternatives are Chinese and English.
To change the language from Russian: Press the "return" key on the bottom left to bring the menu, then press the "M" (menu) key on the side to change to the "system, *" menu, then 5 times the Down arrow (next to Return), until you see a line with "RU".
Press OK and make your language selection from there.






Video Quality:
Video samples for this model are currently rare but there's one posted by Gearbest:

The video is better than expected under normal daylight conditions and at moderate speed,
with readable license plates like below.

A runway on a pitch dark night at 100kph is more challenging, but not only for this model in fact.

On a bright morning, the camera shows its limits and goes blind. 

 An Ambarella chipset does better in such situation.

The OV2715 does best in 1080px30fps. Lower 720px30fps and 720px60fps resolutions look quite bad and should be avoided. The examples above also show the fish eye effect of the 170 degree view, slightly more pronounced than with G90 which gets a better "de-warping"

Loop recording (seamless), beware of gaps...

As recommended, I've been using a Kingston Class 10 micro-SD card and I formatted it with the G55W.

I've been experiencing gaps in my recordings early in my tests. Some of them could be of several seconds.

This has been mostly solved by bringing the "Seamless" value down to 1 minute. My understanding is that the device needs time to save the previous file before being ready for recording a new one. The bigger the file, the longer the gap.

I also suspect the "Motion Detect" to affect the continuity of the recording. It is usually only useful if car lighter remains powered when the engine is off, so start/stop recording needs to be done on motion detection instead. So, better keep this one Off if possible.

The G-sensor will detect shocks from a potential accident and lock the related files. Pressing the "Down arrow" button also protects the current recording for deletion.

In Parking Mode, the camera will start recording incident while the car is parked 

Photo mode:

There are many resolutions to choose from in the still picture camera mode: 10, 8,6,3,2, and VGA.Given the sensor capacity, there's no point choosing anything else than 2MP.

This mode is very complete with Photo burst, delayed snapshot, date stamp and white balance selection.

PC Webcam mode:

When the camera is plugged via USB to a PC, it first starts as a storage drive (MSDC). When pressing twice on the OK button, the mode changes to PCCAM and the G55W becomes a full HD webcam with audio support.

WIFI:

A long press on the OK button starts the Wi-Fi mode

The AP name appears as "view-0001", and the fixed password is: 1234567890

The G55W is meant to work mainly with "smart" devices. The companion app for iPhones can be obtained from the AppStore, while it is not listed in the Google Play store. So here is a link to get the apk file: iSmartCAM 2.6

The Route 66 logo on the splash screen can be confusing as there's no relation whatsoever with the Route66 app. Ismart CAM actually installs OsmAnd for its navigation part (which is surprisingly not bad at all).

The main feature offered by WI-FI connectivity is for your co-pilot to start video recording and take snapshots directly from the phone. But there's also the "Lane track" option in the app which records your trip to a GPS log file. The "track" could to the video to view in Registrator Viewer for instance.

Now for something that is not in the manual...

In addition, the G55W has some undocumented potential: 

A port scan reveals that 3 services are available: 

FTP: accessible as "anonymous" from which you could retrieve your records.

rtsp: used to transmit the video stream to IsmartCam. The G55W uses the live555 libraries and their doc should help finding the right url and port to use in VLC for instance and use this device like a true IP camera...

telnet: potentially risky but the best place to learn more from the G55W guts!

Video output:
An HDMI output and AV (3.5mm jack) can be used to watch the videos on a big screen. The playback controls are ideally located and complete with Pause, FF, ...






Conclusion
Overall, the casing, the battery and the user interface is better than the current G90. The G55W is a well built and feature-rich device that would have deserved a better chipset/sensor pair. While you have a decent full HD rendering (1080p is good, 720p is terrible), the OV2715 sensor shows its limits in darkness and bright daylight alike. It turns out that the strongly advertised "8 Pieces IR light" is purely cosmetic (= absolutely useless) and hardly provides any brightness in the dark scenes.
The Wi-Fi feature is operational and can be a useful addition for some.

Good:
- Elegant and discreet camera design with intuitive button layout
- Video quality at night is acceptable if using the full HD mode (1080).
- Good audio recording quality.
- Full featured still camera mode

- The 300mHa battery provide a comfortable reserve of power for reviewing records or taking snapshots unplugged.
- Complete and intuitive video playback controls
- Doubles as a HD PC webcam with audio support
- Parking mode

Not so good:
- HDMI output is terrible (prefer AV out)
- Some gaps in the recording (set "Seamless" to 1 minute to reduce the impact)
- Resolution 1080px30fps only is ok. 720px30fps and 720px60fps should be avoided.
- Chipset and sensor a bit limited.

Note: The G50 (BL850) is a variant, trading the IR lights and WIFI for a better chipset (Novatek 96650) and sensor (AR0330). To be reviewed here soon!

** Big thanks to Nikki from Shenzhen Dome Technology for her kind assistance.**

Feel free to email her for further information on that product.