I've been wanting to upgrade my dash cam for years now. There seems to have been a slow innovation in the dash cam market. I believe Nextbase has finally pushed the industry forward. They combined the features that I was looking for in an upgrade and added many that I had not considered. The dash cam features that I was most looking for before upgrading were to be powered by the OBDII, so the camera could monitor parking and be always on, and to have cellular connectivity, so I could check in and monitor the camera at any time, as well as get updates from the camera sent to my phone. The Nextbase iQ has both features and more. I'll start with installation since that may be a concern to some. I'd like to say that I'm very particular about things that I put in my car too. Not only do I want them to look nice, but I don't want them to cause any cluttered appearances. Thankfully, neither was an issue here. I believe the camera to not take up much space, and routing and hiding the cable to the OBDII was easy and is not visible. The cable was tucked into the trim pieces of my car, around the headliner, down the trim along the side of my windshield and finally under my dash. The cable is not visible. The unit itself also looks nice. It has subtle lights that are not only functional, but also elegant. It warns when events are detected with the lights and with an audible sound. Along with the installation, setup was also very easy. The app walks you through installation and first-time setup. It's as simple as scanning a QR code within the app the begin the setup process. It was a simple and seamless process. Sticking the camera to the windshield with the adhesive was also very easy, and the camera feels firmly in place. Video quality has been overall great. It handles the fast movement required for recording while driving at speed. Both inside and out, the views are high quality and would be great for protection or evidence if necessary. There are also many other useful features, like being able to give others the ability to view the camera as well. Like a significant other. The parking monitoring is one of the features that I wanted most. My previous camera had this functionality, and I wanted to make sure my replacement had it as well. The notifications for any parking events come through quickly, so you can assess any possible problems. There are also driving event detections, like possible impacts that may occur, with the iQ making a clip for these and noting why it marked the event. The app itself is excellent as well. You can see a feed of events, with thumbnails for all available views (inside, out, and rear if you have the added rear cam). Tapping on the event will, of course, let you view the clip, but you can also see additional information, like the GPS coordinates of where it happened, speeds and time. There are also some neat things, like the SOS mode. Which, in the event of a detected impact will notify emergency services that you need assistance. Or what Nextbase refers to as "Witness Mode", which will record and send the clip to someone that you have designated. There's also the promise of future updates that will further increase the already impressive feature set. The one issue I did have was related to the app. It can sometimes take a long time to start the app, or to move between sections. There's also a bit of time that it may take to connect to the iQ, since it may have powered off to save your car's battery. Hopefully there will be some performance upgrades to the app itself. It's not bad by any means, but if it was possible to speed it up a little, that would make it all the better. Another issue is that recorded audio seems very loud at times. An option to adjust the mic sensitivity may help as well. This is an excellent dash cam and easy to recommend if you're in the market for an upgrade or your first camera.
