Vsysto Motorcycle Dash Cam review | A good value unit delivering high-quality images day and night

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If you are out riding and the worst happens, a dash cam like this one from Vsysto would have you covered and the video evidence would be acceptable to the police, your insurance company, and the courts. A dash cam doesn’t lie.

Related: Keeping young riders safe

Why use a dash cam?

Peace of mind, really. We share the roads with everything from two-wheelers to 16-wheelers, pedestrians to wild animals, and every version of human temperament. Somewhere in that mix is the potential for an incident and it’s good to know that we’ve got the evidence if needed. Some insurance companies offer a reduced premium if you have a dash cam installed. If you’re the victim of a road rage incident or had a close call by a dangerous driver you can present that evidence to the police and those drivers may well be prosecuted based on the video evidence.

Also, the fact that they record continuously means you can relive moments from some of your best rides. Even though they’re evidence gathering cameras, not action cameras, some clips can be useful in an edit.

Keep in mind that dash cams have to be wired into your bike’s electrical system – either the ignition or the battery.

Related: How to look after your motorcycle’s battery

What are the basics of the Vsysto dash cam?

Vsysto is a two-camera dash cam system, with one camera for the front of your motorcycle and the other for the back. Both cameras turn on and begin recording automatically when you power-up your bike, and switch off with the ignition. They record continuously as you ride. The recording loops, so when the memory card is full it goes back to the beginning and overwrites the old files. If you want to keep what’s been recorded just take the memory card out, download the footage, then put it back into the dash cam unit.

Is the installation and setup easy?

Since you’ve got to work with different lengths of cable, you’ll need to plan carefully where to put the cameras and the main unit. The cables are colour coded so there’s no guesswork as to which cables plug into which. The user manual has a diagram of the connections. My bike has convenient spots to mount the front and rear cameras, and I placed the main unit under the seat, since it was out of sight and was close to the battery. Because I’m not a motorcycle electrician I did get a friend to help me with the actual wiring into the battery and configuring the unit so it only comes on when the ignition is on. Otherwise every time you plug in your battery optimiser it will power up and begin recording.

What are the key features of the Vsysto dash cam?

The cameras record in 1080p which is full High Definition and is fine for collecting evidence. You’ll be able to see vehicles and their number plates clearly, and the 150° field of view gives you a nice wide angle image. If you were to have an accident the G-sensor feature would detect the collision and lock the footage on the memory card so it’s not lost by the sudden impact.

Like most dash cams, Vsysto supports loop recording. You’ll have the option to record videos in loops of 1/2/3/5 minutes, and when the SD card is full the earliest recorded videos will be overwritten, but the locked videos will not. It’s best to get a memory card with a decent amount of storage. I have a 256GB card in mine. 

The cameras are waterproof up to IP67 and the main unit up to IP65. The Night Vision function is acceptable in most cases, but not to the standard of a 4K action camera. This model is not GPS-enabled so you’ll have to purchase that as an optional extra.

My verdict

At half the price of some other motorcycle dash cams on the market I think the Vsysto motorcycle dash cam is good value. The quality of the recorded images on both cameras is crisp and clear and you can take still images on both front and rear cameras with the little wired controller. Those images are then locked and can’t be written over if needed as evidence. As a bonus, I often use bits of the Vsysto footage to supplement clips from my action cameras.

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