I really, really, really wanted to love Owl. I’ve owned upwards of 10 different dash cams over the years and the Owl Car Cam seemed to check all the boxes, unfortunately in practice the camera has a number of significant flaws.
Issues…
1. You can only pair one phone to the Owl, meaning if you are a single car household, the interior driver-facing spotlights will turn on every time the person who’s phone isn’t paired with the owl gets in the car. These lights are INCREDIBLY bright and blinds the driver. This is a dangerous oversight by the folks over at Owlcam.
2. While the outward facing camera claims to be 1440p, over wifi the video is compressed and resolution cut down to 720p, which is sucks and is seemingly some attempt to keep you locked into their monthly cloud service.
3. I’ve had the audio recording function totally glitch out on me. I’ve been left shouting at it “Ok Presto!”, only to go back and check the video to see that there was no audio during a portion of a the clip.
4. Night video is very muddy, with plates hard or impossible to read.
5. When the camera starts to get hot, it turns on an internal fan which is relatively loud
At this price point I was expecting much, much more. My cheapo GoLuk dash cam produces roughly the same video quality for 1/3 of the price. It’ll also give me 1080p video over wifi. In the video I uploaded, the Owl camera video is on the top, with the GoLuk video on the bottom. As you can see, the GoLuk video gives you a better chance of seeing the plates.
If Owl does work the kinks out, I’d be very much in. I love, love, love the concept, and the company seems to be headed in the right direction, they are just not there yet.
Albert - May 3, 2019 @ 12:33
The notification dont work most of the time
The picture quality at night is horrible even if an incident was to occur and I did get a alert which I never do, The picture quality is so dark and grainy you can’t make out a person standing directly in front of your car tapping on it. Not worth the money needs a lot of work.
The notification dont work most of the time
The picture quality at night is horrible even if an incident was to occur and I did get a alert which I never do, The picture quality is so dark and grainy you can’t make out a person standing directl
Conie - May 11, 2019 @ 13:25
I writing this review after only had the camera for 2 days. I will provide updates as time goes on. My initial take is that it’s ‘ok’. The install was quick and easy. As I went to setup the app, by scanning the QR code with my phone, the device went into update mode – which took 20 minutes.
One of my hesitations in purchasing the device was that I read the device only supports one user. People seems annoyed by the fact that with other drivers, the 2 bright white LED’s would light up as you sat in the car. I sometimes use valet and let someone else drive my car. I was concerned this would be a big problem.
The reality is – the LED’s aren’t that bright. So far I have noticed that they turn on more than half the time with me (the sole user). When this happens I receive an event alert. The device doesn’t seem to be very good at detecting that it’s me getting in the car. No big deal – the lights go off when I start the car and I ignore the event alert.
I have twice experienced that the device has rebooted when I start my car. This seems to be a bug. It takes a few minutes to go through the restart process. Again, not a big deal. Seems like maybe a bug in their current software. I have not experienced it restarting while driving.
I have provided feedback to Owl that I would like to see a disable option for the front-facing LED’s. Adding additional users will not fix my problem. I don’t want a person to have to install an app to have to drive my car. Also, I don’t want to give access to my video.
Also, I would like to see some type of indicator in the app itself when my phone is connected via BT to the device. I want to be connected directly to the device when downloading video. I don’t want to use credits. From the app, you are not able to tell.
More to follow….
******Update after 1 week of ownership******
I feel the product is still 3 stars. Some observations – I have noticed the fan kick in a few times. I live in Florida. I expect to hear much more of it as the temps rise. I installed the app and selected to only use my location while using the app (iPhone). I have noticed that every time I enter the car, the white LED’s turn on and an event is registered.
Three days ago I first experienced the bright LED’s. I now see the difference between the white LED’s turning on, and the BRIGHT lights turning on. I forget the verbiage on the device, but essentially it registered a ‘more serious’ event. I’m not sure why. All I did was get into the car. The lights were very annoying.
The day before yesterday I received a notification on the app that stated my settings would prevent the camera from identifying me. It requested I allow the app to ALWAYS track my location. I thought the device was using bluetooth to determine this. I made the update in settings (knowing this will impact battery life). The result has not changed anything. The LED’s continue to turn on when entering my car and an event occurs. In fact, since this change I have experience the bright LED’s several more times. It acts like it is experiencing a more serious event, but all I am doing is getting in my car. I have also noticed that the LED’s will sometimes not turn off after the car has been running for several minutes.
Whatever they were trying to accomplish with these LED’s is a complete failure. In fairness, every other feature seems to work ok. It’s just that these white lights make for such a bad user experience. I have not yet tried to download video from the camera to my phone. I will try that soon.
****** Last Update
The device is going back. The bright LED’s come on every time I get in the vehicle and stay on, even after the car is on. At night you can not drive your car with the lights on and it takes a while for them to go off. Never did I think a dash cam would prevent me from driving my own car. With as many complaints as I’m sure they have received it surprising me they haven’t pushed out an update to disable them until they figure it out.
I writing this review after only had the camera for 2 days. I will provide updates as time goes on. My initial take is that it’s ‘ok’. The install was quick and easy. As I went to setup the app, by scanning the QR code with my phone
Margaret - May 20, 2019 @ 13:25
Does not work with Apple phones before apple6 something that was placed in parenthesis way far down by the end so my 5 wasn’t compatible. ALSO BE AWARE IT IS $16.95 TO RETURN IT. NOT HAPPY.
JOnathan - June 2, 2019 @ 05:07
Allow me start by claiming I didn’t get this digital cam. I have actually done an excellent amount of research study as well as I’ll inform you why I picked not to fire.
# 1 membership and also credit report system.
$ 99yr would certainly not be mischievous; nevertheless, the credit history system is ludicrous! You obtain 60 credit scores a month. You’ll be utilizing credit report for
ALRIGHT Presto = 1 credit score report per voice tag
Live Sight = 1 credit report ranking per minutes
Video History = 1 debt record per min
And when you head out you’ll have to pay an extra $5 for 60 even more. You can most likely see precisely just how they’re preparing to generate your loan with this established.
# 2 The cam just covers the front and also within the vehicle without any schedule to upgrade combination of a rear\/ account video camera(s). So the person that backs right into you or extra pounds their door right into yours at the food store gets away Scott cost-free!
Likewise taping quits after 72hrs.
# 3 Android functionally is limited according to different other present evaluations. Area watching of your video clips undoubtedly isn’t offered with Android gadgets.
This business has a superb suggestion and also marketing campaign, yet they have some work to do before I’ll be leaping onboard. Very regrettable.
Allow me start by claiming I didn’t get this digital cam. I have actually done an excellent amount of research study as well as I’ll inform you why I picked not to fire.
# 1 membership and also credit report system.
$ 99yr would certainly