I did a LOT of research before investing in a dash cam. When I bought this cam, the big concern (and reiterated by the sales associate who sold it to me) is that parking mode really struggles and will sometimes drain your battery or in my case, it co tiny ally corrupts my next base branded SD card and I have to wipe all files to reset it. This hasn’t been an issue over the last 2 months but was the first 6 months of ownership. The new issue is if I have my phone connected to apple car play, it disables SOS on the camera. This is frustrating because it is a paid service once you run out of the trial period as well as the camera will repeatedly make noise and flash a red warning throughout your drive to let you know your SOS mode isn’t working. It is also inconsistent with when it does it. Sometimes it works fine even when my phone is in CarPlay and other times it won’t, the app just shows a blank screen even after deleting and redownloading or force closing the app. Leaving this review here as it is not a camera issue but rather an app connectivity issue. Would be 5 stars if the app wasn’t so buggy. Camera itself is great but for the price, the app needs to work consistently. If I get in an accident and SOS doesn’t call for help, it isn’t doing it’s job.

After having this dash cam system for over a year I have noticed few things that definitely require room for improvement. First thing that I find is that the app RARELY works even after deleting it, downloading and restarting the system; it'll maybe work for 2-3 weeks and then not work at all ( I get an empty blank screen when opening the app). Second, the mount that the camera connects to becomes loose over time and allows the camera to sink into a position that isn’t centered, I find the same thing to be true with the rear camera attachment as well, it doesn’t stay in place to where it is set and will record footage off center or tilted. I feel if the front dash cam had a stronger swivel point or maybe even another mounting point and maybe a stronger magnet for the rear camera attachment to avoid the tilting issue I would give 5 stars. The camera and audio quality is amazing and I recommend it to all my friends, family, and coworkers.

The only way to sum up my experience with Nextbase is: it just doesn’t work. Yes, the camera takes good looking video. Except when it doesn’t. Or when it locks every other clip for no discernible reason. Or when it reports that there’s a problem with the SD card even when it’s a genuine Nextbase branded one. But what’s really infuriating is the app. I constantly get the blue screen on start up at which point the only solution is to delete the app, reinstall and go through setup all over again… only to have it glitch again a week later. On top of that I don’t believe I’ve ever successfully downloaded a clip to my phone. The process takes forever and always throws an error and quits. Technical support is egregiously bad. Responses take days or weeks and they’re not helpful when they do. I’ve outlined all these problems in detail and they made me troubleshoot for hours only to blame the SD card. They sent me a new one and when that didn’t help (as I assured them it wouldn’t), they ended up sending me a refurbished replacement camera. Of course it’s plagued with the same issue. It’s just the worst customer experience I’ve had in a long while. Had I not paid to have this professionally installed I would’ve returned it months ago. I cannot believe the good reviews I read on this. It’s awful.

The camera is good when it is working properly. Unfortunately, this has devolved into a rare occurrence. It frequently switches to a red screen saying my phone isn’t connected. I’m not sure if it’s still recording when it does this or not. My phone is never more than about 18 inches away when in use. When I open the app, MOST of the time I get a black screen. The new thing it’s doing is turning off while I’m driving. It happens seemingly randomly. Sometimes it happens when I make a stop and sometimes it happens as I’m cruising down the road. Even if it’s because of temporary power loss from my vehicle’s auto stop feature, it still shouldn’t do that. And even if it does power off from “inactivity”, it should turn back on automatically the second I brake or turn or accelerate or hit a bump. It does not. If I press the power button, it powers right back up. I’ve contacted support in the past and they did not help. I’ve been excited for the new IQ model, but I’m not sinking that much money into another product from Nextbase.