Review: Roav DashCam S1

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The Roav DashCam S1 is a Full HD 1080p Resolution @60 FPS with Nighthawk Vision that uses the Sony Starvis Sensor that can connect to your smart phone via Wi-Fi and comes with a charger and a 32 GB microSD Card.

Roav DashCam S1 – Features

Features and specs taken directly from the Amazon sales page.

• Full HD: Records 60fps to clearly capture speeding vehicles in crisp 1080p resolution.
• Clear Night Vision: A high-sensitivity Sony Starvis sensor ensures balanced, detailed nighttime capture.
• Shock-Activated: A gravity sensor automatically activates the camera if your car is bumped to record hit-and-runs.
• Dedicated App: The Roav app tracks your route so you can replay any part of your journey, manage videos, and share recording on social media, with a tap.
• What You Get: Roav DashCam S1, 2-port car charger, Micro USB cable, 32GB microSD card, trim removal tool, two 3M sticker mounts, user manual, happy card, our 12-month product replacement warranty, and friendly customer service.

• Full High Definition — Film every part of your journey in Full HD 1080p. A high-sensitivity Sony Starvis sensor ensures every moment on the road is clearly captured—even at night.
• Panoramic Views — Record more than just the car ahead of you. Comprised of 6 lens elements, DashCam’s wide-angle lens captures 4 lanes of traffic to give you footage of the whole road.
• Travel Tracking — A built-in GPS automatically tracks and indexes the speed, route, and other information for every trip. Instantly review any section of your journey with a tap via the Roav DashCam app.
• Records While You’re Away — When your car is parked, the shock sensor detects sudden movements, such as another car bumping into your car, and automatically turns on to record activity.
• Worry-Free Warranty — We have total confidence in our products and back them with a 12-month warranty. We will replace any defective product within 12 months of purchase, no questions asked.

Roav DashCam S1 – The Review

Two weeks ago Roav sent me a sample of the Roav DashCam s1 for being one of the winners of a contest over at the Anker Community Message Boards. Roav asked the winners to test their new camera and let the world know what our thoughts are on it. Now that my testing period is over, I can share my thoughts on the camera.

As with all of the Roav Products it comes nicely packaged and when opening it, it looks great sitting there waiting for you to take it out and play with it.

After pulling the dash camera out of the box and its accessories I was happy to see that the SD car was a Samsung EVO 32 GB Micro-SD card. These cards are awesome and reliable. No reason not to use it.

The camera is on the smaller side when compared to the Roav DashCam C2. Its large enough that you can see the screen but not large enough to take up a lot of the wind shield. It fits nicely under the rear mirror.

The Install

Before downloading the software, go head and setup your camera by install the SD card. Figure out where you want the camera. Before you stick the camera to the window, clean the windshield with window cleaner and let it dry. Once you find the perfect spot after its clean and dry peel the sticky tape cover off. Before completely sticking in place, line it up again. Once in place stick it down and hold it for about a minute or so.

Next run the USB cable from the Roav DashCam S1 to the car charger. Make sure to use the interior tool to hide the cable along the edge of the windshield and headliner. Then hide it under the interior and under the dash where ever you can.

Power up the camera and download the app from Google Play or the Apple Store. Install it and follow the instructions to setup your account.

Once installed, connect the app to the camera and configure the camera. You will be able to control, GPS settings, watermark, length of looping video, time stamping, parking sensor, and emergency sensor settings.

Testing

Testing was done over a period of two weeks. I have saved 6 videos that show the camera in action, during the morning commute, day light hours, at dusk, while its raining, parking camera activated, and at night.

1. Morning Rush Hour

This video is an example of morning rush hour traffic. You can see how clear the video is and how well you can see the car license plates.

2. Morning Rush Hour – Low Light in the Shadows

This video was shot one morning in rush hour. Much of the video is in the shadows or low light. Even in the low light video is still clear and you can see important details.

3. Parking Sensor Activated by the Wind

While at work, the winds picked one afternoon and the winds blew so hard it shook the car and set off the sensors!

4. Afternoon Rains

It started raining on the way to work. Even in the rains you still get a lot of details and make out the important details.

5. At Dusk

On my way home from work one evening. Once again, great details and good enough to make out the details.

6. At Night

I shot this on the way home from the gym. It had rained earlier in the day and the cloud cover was low. This is a great example of the camera in action at night.

Final Thoughts

Overall I like the Roav DashCam S1 and I am impressed with camera quality. I do not like how distorted the wide angle lens is. Sometime you can really see the distortion and at others time its hard to tell. The app works well and its easy to setup the camera with the app. You can view the video  from your cell phone while connect via Wi-Fi. You can even download the video. Once downloaded you can view the video and zoom in and get better details than looking at it at full screen.

For some reason I can not download video. I keep getting an error that says no SD card or not enough memory on the phone. I have an installed video card with 4o GBs open and plenty of space on the phone available. There is not option to tell it where to download. So I contacted support via the feedback button. They have been working on the issue for some time and they say the engineers are working on it. Once I have an answer I will update the review.

Installing the camera isn’t that easy. Once you stick it, you can’t pull it off and move it. You do have an extra sticker plate, but once that’s gone you have to contact support and possibly pay for another one to be sent you. Plus its hard to see the video as you are placing the camera. The camera lens is adjustable so you can set it to the angle of the windshield.

After installing the camera I would wait an hour or two before driving. I stuck mine to the windshield and took off driving. About 10 minutes into the drive the camera fell off. After resetting, it fell again 10 minutes later. It did this one more time as I pulled into the driveway at home. This time I held the camera in place for 2 minutes and left the car off over night. I think the vibrations of the moving car knocked it loose. I think it takes time for the adhesive to cure.

As to the LCD screen, its to small to view video. I recommend using the app to view footage and download it when you can. The SD card can shoot out if you do not install it correctly. So be careful when installing the card.

The downloading process is annoying. Its slow. It can take 7  to 15 minutes to download a single 5 minute video. I’ve transferred larger files over my Wi-Fi network at home and its much faster. I can’t see why this limited connection and short distance should be so slow. To make things worse, if you start the download and switch apps and try and download in the background, it stops the download. So you have to stay on the screen and watch the download as it downloads. If you don’t have anything else to do while it downloading its like watching paint dry. This is something that should be able to be changed in the programming of the app. Other apps allow downloads in the background, why can’t this one do that?

Pros…

• Small
• great video quality
• Wi-Fi connectivity
• Download and share video from the app
• Direct messaging system link to support

Cons…

• Screen to small
• adhesive mount system only
• slow download speeds
• when downloading, can’t multi-task

Even with the listed issues, I still recommend this camera if you are looking for a small camera that doesn’t take up to much room on your windshield, this is the dash camerfa for you.

Currently you can pick up the Roav DashCam S1 from Amazon for $109.99. If this camera isn’t for you take a look at these other cameras from Roav. I have tested the C2 and love it. Check out my review and see more video footage of the camera in action. The cameras I have not tested but hope to test them at some point.