Z-EDGE R1 Wi-Fi Dash Cam Front and Rear

I am pleased with my Z-Dash Dash Cam. I have tested it out for three months now, and it is perfect for my needs. This dash-cam is an excellent addition to just about any car, helping keep you safe out on the road. This camera is ideal for protecting me from unfair tickets, as well as a back up of my version of events in the case of an accident. It has a front-facing camera that suctions well on my vehicle's windshield and a rear camera that works well on the back window of my car. It has all the fantastic features that come on more expensive versions of DashCams. The best quality is that it has wifi capability, capturing footage in your cell phone as you drive. The wifi capture is handy in an accident, robbery, or any unfortunate scenario where you need a backup to show the police or anyone else. Please see the pictures below, which are images that my phone captured from the Z-Dash camera. You will need to purchase your own SD card. I bought an inexpensive compatible SD card from Costco and it works perfectly. The cameras are connected via a mini-USB cord. You will need to lay the cable into the panel lining of the car. I do not recommend using the provided cable hooks to hold the wires because they will not work in summer-heat conditions. I suggest you lay the cable in the car's paneling so that you can avoid disappointment from failed glue in place of having a fantastic camera for a reasonable price. (You can look up videos on youtube on how to install the cord in the car's panels. They also provide a few tools in the box to do this. It is easy to do with some effort and should take a half-hour to do.) This dash-cam does not have GPS unit. Coordinates are captured in the images so the app on the phone can display the location on a map. This dash-cam will not fit your needs if you drive for a ride-sharing service. Suppose you want to record any activity for passengers who get into your car so that you have peace of mind as you go. In that case, you need to look elsewhere for a camera that has a rearview camera on the windshield camera. This is my genuine critique of a dash camera that I purchased on my own. It is an excellent dash-cam.

Great camera, light and functional. Price is competitive and Amazon always deliver! The installation was easy (not my first rodeo, my 3rd actually) and very straight forward. I replaced a previous version on my truck for this one to take advantage of the WiFi/Application Option. 26 ft of cable is ample for any installation on rear applications. I have a Tundra Crewmax and I have a lot of slack cable stored inside the trims. I would say the greatest advantage of the camera is the wifi/app interface. I programed the entire thing via the app. I really preferred the app vs playing with the buttons on the side. Specially after I installed it, the position was not good to play around with the buttons. I added a couple of snapshots of the app configuration menu. BTW, the app allows you to play the videos stored in your SD Card but also I can take a snapshot from the camera's live view. That is a neat feature. The PRO's of the camera are the wifi and application interface and the 155 degree lens. One thing I would probably improve for this model is to consider a GPS version of it. I did have GPS on my previous model but opted for this one since the app I think is a nice feature. I had another model by the same seller and I thought I could re-use the previously installed rear camera cable but I WAS WRONG... cable is not compatible. No biggie, installation wasn't that bad at all if you've done it before.

I bought this Z-Edge R1 to replace a Z-Edge Z3 dash cam that I bought in 8/2017 which is having a problem. My experience with the Z-Edge dash cams is that they have a very good build quality and the R1 feels sturdy and appears to also have a VG build quality. Unlike some other dash cams, the Z-Edges have a battery rather than a super capacitor. On my old Z3 the internal battery lasted about 3 years but with some basic DYI skills you can replace the battery as I did and got another 2.5 years of use. The window suction cup on the Z3 also failed when it was about 3.5 years old and I replaced it. I would expect the R1 to have a similar life. I live in S. Florida and I needed a camera that could handle the summer heat in the car. The Z-Edge specs state that it can handle up to 158F and my old Z3 survived the heat. There was another camera that I seriously considered but I saw a user's pic from Houston which showed the camera's plastic case had melted. The setup on the R1 was relatively easy and the app provides a lot of useful functions. You can view/save recorded videos several ways including 1) on the LCD screen in the camera, 2) on a smartphone with the Z-Edge app installed or 3) connecting the camera to a PC with the included USB cable or popping the memory card into a card reader on PCs with memory card readers. The image quality of the videos is excellent and smooth. I am not using the small rear camera which I have read improves the quality of the video recorded on the front camera. The captions on the app could be significantly improved and take a little time with the manual to determine what the icons or descriptive text actually mean. For instance, the default password for the camera is 12345678 and I wanted to change the password which is good digital security practice. There weren't any instructions in the manual on how to do this but I eventually determined that you can only change the password in the app using the Wi-Fi menu item. A Wi-Fi menu item in the app just says 'password', not 'change password'. However, to change your password you enter the new password here and it doesn't require you to enter the new password twice so make sure you enter what you think you are entering else you will need to reset the camera to the factory setup and re-setup everything again. I add very few apps to my primary phone which is an iPhone 13 so I installed the Z-Edge app on an iPhone SE 2016. It installed fine but many of the menu items I expected to see in the app weren't there. I installed the Z-Edge app on my iPhone 13 and all of the menu items were there. In both cases the app installed fine but apparently the Z-Edge app checks the iPhone model and turns off/on menu options depending on the model. When installing the app make sure you authorize access to your local area network else you will not be able to connect the app on your phone to the camera. I had the camera plugged into my PC to charge the battery and when I tried to connect phone app to the camera it didn't work. Make sure when using the app that the camera is not connected to your PC. If you want to see a video on your camera the easiest way to do so is to view it on your smartphone with the app. In order to do this your car needs to be on so that the camera is on else you will need to turn the camera on manually using the on/off switch on the camera. The camera Wi-Fi doesn't play well with wireless Apple CarPlay and probably would have a problem with wireless Android Auto. Wireless Car Play uses Wi-Fi to connect to the iPhone and has priority and prevents the Z-Edge app from connecting to the camera as it also uses Wi-Fi. If you have wireless CarPlay you need to turn it off before accessing the video recordings on the camera (or turn on the camera manually and access the video files before turning the car on). It would have been better if they had used Bluetooth to connect the phone app with the camera rather than Wi-Fi as it permits multiple concurrent connections.

Wire to connect the front camera to the back camera stopped working and had no luck contacting the customer service via their website/email. Easy to install and user friendly app. Great video quality as well. Update: Very satisfied with customer service and had my issue resolved quickly. 100% recommend this company and product to my friends and family.

TLDR: It's unreliable, when it's working it's a decent enough dashcam but a dashcam that I can't rely on is not useful. I purchased this dashcam about a 1.5 years ago, shortly after I had to get a replacement twice because the battery bloated and caused the device to fail. Support was very helpful and quick to resolve the issue, the third device is now starting to have the same battery bloat issue outside of warranty. The only reason I guess to this being such an issue is the Texas summer heat/sun, but this is a dashcam this is something it should be able to survive. If the device tells you it's time to format the SD card (which must be done every once in a while for data integrity) it will STOP RECORDING and it is very easy to miss this warning. This happened to me before I was the victim of a hit and run which resulted in me having no evidence of the accident. Just recently the device I guess reset itself (I'm guessing due to the battery bloat issue that happened again) which prompted it to ask for the date and time which again causes it to stop recording but this time it will just turn off if you don't notice it. This again caused me to have no recording when someone backed into my car at a gas station.

For the price, it's still a good buy. A lot of improvements over the previous model I had, though some of the same flaws still, and 1 step backward. The mobile app lets you record your route, DVR or download recordings to your mobile device, and control the dashcam from your mobile device (or at least change settings). Not recommended to modify dashcam settings or functions while driving regardless, of course. The picture seems clearer. The night vision option is arguably better, yet I found myself wanting a little bit more artificial brightening for the night vision. This is STILL an excellent and easy-to-install option if you want a back-up camera on your car, with an even larger display on this model, although I can guarantee that the suction cup mount will fall, and I honestly ended up using glue to keep it up, once I found the right spot. That's not a knock on this suction cup as it's a knock on all suction cups, but if you are worried about resale, or have a lease, the suction cup can work for awhile. Including a mount option that hangs off the mirror would be better for many. You'll have to glue or use gorilla tape or both to keep the rear camera up. The dashcam records excellent video, again arguably better, and has some quick preset options, and better power management options. That said, the parking monitor is unlikely to last more than 2-3 hours or so in my experience, and you probably want some external battery with a foldout solar panel if you want that option if your car is parked at work or something. A lot of the above criticisms are ones I had of my previous model, except for the artificial brightening of the rear camera, so there are improvements. But this new model has 1 major step backwards in my opinion, which a firmware upgrade should be able to solve. The old headlight alarm would sound once, and had a clear, decently loud sound (okay, could have been louder). The new headlight alarm is such a quiet odd tone that you could easily miss it, except for the fact that it will keep going off, even when you have your headlights on. I recommend 2-3 headlight alarms at most when the camera has external power going to it, and using a different and louder tone. I personally don't care if you reuse some existing tone in the camera. But it's honestly so annoying that I'll likely shut off this feature, which sucks, because it's a really nice safety feature for anyone with an older car whose headlights don't turn on automatically. I'd still recommend it, but a firmware upgrade to address some of the above issues, if possible, and inclusion of a mount to hang it from the rear-view mirror would make this a great buy. Video included. Shot quick on a phone, so apologies for quality. I learned a couple things since shooting it too. (UPDATED) I went back to my old dash camera. Honestly, the night vision displayed was just not good enough. Went to 3 stars.

This is a fantastic dashcam. Installation is a breeze and the kit comes with everything you need. The cable length is more than enough for all vehicles to install both the front and the rear cameras. Yes, this has a rear camera that sticks onto the rear window so it gives a true recording of what goes on behind the vehicle and not just a view from the front looking back. The product is well made and the software menu is intuitive. I particularly like the WIFI functionality. With this wifi function you can replay clips on the phone immediately after they occur. So, if someone hits your vehicle and then tries to deny it you can show them the recording and case closed. This is my third dashcam from Z-Edge and I have to say that the customer service is great, one of my prior old style dashcams had a fault and it was easy to get the replacement part. On a scale of 1 to 5 I give this one 4.8. The only downside is that unlike the Z3D this does not have GPS built in and relies on the phones GPS and mapping system

I've had this product for two weeks now. Very easy installation, especially the rear camera, cables are long and you don't have to mess with finding a power wire to power up the rear camera. The quality of the both cameras are awesome. One thing about the rear camera that I particular don't like is that the rear camera is intended to be put in the rear window, so, my car is a convertible and I drive with the top down down all the time. The issue is that the rear camera has no way to change it from upside down. In other words you cannot place it any other way, so I have opted to record upside down....but only the rear camera... the front camera is awesome, easy to navigate and it swivels to get side videos..so far everything is good...Everything works perfectly....I'm considering it buying a second one for my other vehicle.....Highly recommend...excellent product!!!!