BlackVue DR970X-2CH Plus 4K UHD Cloud Dash Cam

Terrance and anyone else I was dealing with I found very patient and knowledgeable, I am pleased with the help they have given me

This is bar none the best dashcam I have ever had.

Setup: I highly suggest downloading the BlackVue viewer on your desktop/laptop, formatting your new MicroSD card with it. From there, download the latest firmware and extract it into the MicroSD card before inserting it into your camera. This will cause the camera to install the firmware. I say this because in my case, the software didn’t upgrade cleanly over the air and some of the indicator lights were acting weird until I did the above. From there, installation is a breeze. Take your time running the wiring and figuring out how you’re going to route cables and you will be fine. I purchased mine with BlackVue’s B-130x battery and that was a very simple set up. Read the manual and take your time for the wiring. Pairing with the app is a breeze and straightforward.

Video quality: The recordings are extremely good quality. I can easily read plates even at night. I do have a 70% Crystalline tint on the front windshield and 40% on the back, so it does help significantly cut down on glare. Daytime recording is also excellent and smooth. I would’ve liked to see 60fps, but as we all know, that is not the only factor when it comes to smoothness.

Parking Mode: the sensors pick up any movement at all such as a door being opened. This can be adjusted from a scale of 1-10 for three different types of motions. I have mine set to the max and although I do get an alert each time I get back to my car, I’d rather have it like this because any little vibration at all will trigger a recording.. This is a small price to pay to have ultimate parking security in my opinion. I tested with myself and family purposely hand pushed bumpers, opened doors, gently hit glass with their hands, and every single time it would send me an alert. There are two parking modes - Time Lapse and Motion Detection. I tried both and Time Lapse seems to have the best reliability in recording everything before and after an event. In my testing, the time lapse mode yields about two days of parking recording time with both cameras enabled and about 24 hours in motion detection mode both with the B-130X battery.

Cloud connectivity: This is the sore point of this setup to get working properly. Once you’re set up, you’re good to go, but it is painful especially with the lack of knowledge out there. The dashcam can work with its LTE connection as well as Wi-Fi both set up. The camera automatically prefers WiFi and falls back to LTE. I have my car WiFi with the same name and password as my home internet and it works well, but I suggest making a DHCP reservation on your home network as sometimes the dash cam tends to get stuck with the IP assigned by your in car WiFi if you do this. For the LTE portion, this is where things get hairy and I can see why a lot of people badmouth the app and camera. To keep it plain, the BlackVue SIM is pretty much useless. I could not get it to work at all even for the free trial period. The SIM included is for Telus wireless, yet there is no instruction as to what APN to use. As a result, the SIM card just sits there and doesn’t properly work. Ever. From my research and testing. The only types of SIMs to work reliably in these is Prepaid SIMs. I found the easiest way to get this to work is to go to the T-Mobile store and request a prepaid SIM card for hotspot/tablets. It is $10 per month for 2GB and $20 for 5GB. It will cost you an additional $10 for the first month since it includes the cost of the SIM kit. You do not have to give them any IMEI info. They do look at you with confusion when you bring the camera and they have no idea how to get it to work. In the app, for your SIM setup, enter fast.T-mobile.com as your APN and you’ll be connected within a couple of hours after the SIM is activated by TMO.

The app: I’m not sure if it’s that the manufacturer updated the app or I simply have the best luck in the world. The app works perfectly. I haven’t had it crash a single time. It is a bit annoying that you do need to pay a subscription to get access to all the features, but there is a free mode that gives you plenty of cloud connectivity time. The pairing process is extremely easy.

Conclusion: this dashcam is excellent in all aspects and its only weak point is the difficulty of getting LTE connectivity to work. This could be avoided with better instructions. I am very happy with my purchase and I will definitely consider BlackVue for my next dashcam.

I purchased this to replace my previous 7-year-old BlackVue camera. The construction feels rugged and well built, and I was able to reuse most of my old hardwire set-up for this camera so installation was quick and easy. It actually took me far longer to loosen the adhesive enough to remove the old camera from the glass than the time it took me to install and set up the new one.

Once running, I'm impressed by the image quality and clarity of this new model. Plates and details are fairly crisp even at night. It's probably a good idea to upgrade the SD card to a larger size though as the included SD card will only store about 3 days worth of combined driving and parking mode footage at the highest quality for me.

Unlike my old camera where it was possible to adjust the length of each clip, it seems the new BlackVues will only record in 1 minute clip intervals which is slightly annoying since it results in A LOT of clips that you need to sift through and sometimes would cut an event that you're trying to review into multiple files, which means a lot of jumping back and forth. That's about the only gripe I have and personally it's not enough for me to take off a star, although I wish they would restore the ability for the user to adjust clip length in the future.