Nextbase IQ

[Agie]

Some AI is very useful, maybe the clearest example we have is Viofo's Voice Control feature. That uses AI to understand your voice, but Viofo don't make a big fuss about it, they don't even mention AI in their advertising!

Errrrr that's what voice activated dialling has had 20 years ago, it's just voice recognition. It's been on countless electronic devices in different fields since ..

 

[Nigel]

Errrrr that's what voice activated dialling has had 20 years ago, it's just voice recognition. It's been on countless electronic devices in different fields since ..

1952 was the first voice dialing, a bit more than 20 years! Not sure if that counted as AI, but the current systems definitely do.

A brief history of speech recognition | Sonix

This article captures some of the key events that have shaped speech recognition technology over the last 70 years. Many of the advancements point to voice becoming the next dominant user interface.

sonix.ai

 

[Agie]

1952 was the first voice dialing, a bit more than 20 years! Not sure if that counted as AI, but the current systems definitely do.

A brief history of speech recognition | Sonix

This article captures some of the key events that have shaped speech recognition technology over the last 70 years. Many of the advancements point to voice becoming the next dominant user interface.

sonix.ai

I was referring more to what has happened in the last few years with AI being the buzzword. Which voice activation / voice recognition definitely do not come under. Of course one could argue it comes under AI and the first use of the term in the 50s when it was coined, but again I'm referring to more the fad use of the word that has happened in recent times.

 

[Nigel]

I was referring more to what has happened in the last few years with AI being the buzzword. Which voice activation / voice recognition definitely do not come under.

So what does count as AI?

These days it tends to mean software programmed by training a neural network, which can then be implemented using software or hardware.
The voice recognition on, for example the Viofo dashcams, uses a neural processor built into the Novatek SoC, and is programmed by training a neural network, so it is definitely an AI.

There is a lot of AI in Novatek's recent dashcam SoCs, used for things like Voice Recognition and HDR:

Novatek’s NT98530 SoC is a highly integrated device for multi-sensor camera systems with embedded AI functionality. The device boasts high image quality, low bitrate, and low power consumption at a competitive price point and supports up to 640 Mpixel/sec to achieve over 8 MPixel at 60 fps video performance while simultaneously performing advanced AI on each frame.

The NT98530 features:

• 32-bit Quad Cortex A53 DDR4 / LPDR4*1 / 16 MPixels 30 fps (4Kp60)
• AI: HW-CNN (Convolution Neural Network) + DSP 2.5 TOPS
• DSP: CEVA SensPro2 500
• Support for RGB-IR image fusion, AI scene detect, 5 sensor inputs & USB 3.0, and de-warping & stitching functions.

Voice recognition has become a standard feature of many things these days, I have it my phone, where I use it every day, it is in my TV, when I get home in the dark I turn my house lights on using it so that I can see to walk down the path from the car. Maybe it has become so normal that we don't consider it an AI, but it is.

I'm referring to more the fad use of the word that has happened in recent times.

AI isn't a recent fad, I remember doing a course on AI back in the 1980s, including neural networks that were going to solve all our problems, back then it was as new as it is now, although due to very limited processing power, most things didn't usefully work back then!

It is only recently that governments have started taking an interest, with the EU now regulating AI, so that when you ask your dashcam to do something, it can no longer legally give an illegal voice response. It is being talked about more, and people are understanding what it is less!

Artificial Intelligence Act: deal on comprehensive rules for trustworthy AI | News | European Parliament

MEPs reached a political deal with the Council on a bill to ensure AI in Europe is safe, respects fundamental rights and democracy, while businesses can thrive and expand.

www.europarl.europa.eu

 

[Agie]

So what does count as AI?

These days it tends to mean software programmed by training a neural network, which can then be implemented using software or hardware.
The voice recognition on, for example the Viofo dashcams, uses a neural processor built into the Novatek SoC, and is programmed by training a neural network, so it is definitely an AI.

There is a lot of AI in Novatek's recent dashcam SoCs, used for things like Voice Recognition and HDR:


Voice recognition has become a standard feature of many things these days, I have it my phone, where I use it every day, it is in my TV, when I get home in the dark I turn my house lights on using it so that I can see to walk down the path from the car. Maybe it has become so normal that we don't consider it an AI, but it is.


AI isn't a recent fad, I remember doing a course on AI back in the 1980s, including neural networks that were going to solve all our problems, back then it was as new as it is now, although due to very limited processing power, most things didn't usefully work back then!

It is only recently that governments have started taking an interest, with the EU now regulating AI, so that when you ask your dashcam to do something, it can no longer legally give an illegal voice response. It is being talked about more, and people are understanding what it is less!

Artificial Intelligence Act: deal on comprehensive rules for trustworthy AI | News | European Parliament

MEPs reached a political deal with the Council on a bill to ensure AI in Europe is safe, respects fundamental rights and democracy, while businesses can thrive and expand.

www.europarl.europa.eu

Are we going to get back to the iQ and it's marketing terms/features or is it all about consistently referencing articles for definitions? And going off track? We're not referencing peer-reviewed journals for an university assignment here, unless there's something I'm missing

 

[dannyboy]

Read a few reviews on this camera and the reviewers all rave about it. Yet the image quality looks horrendous.

Take this ridiculous review from SlashGear where they state "Image quality is fantastic" with a snapshot that looks like it was taken with a potato! Are all the current reviews for this camera fake? Really would like to get the real deal on this.

 

[Agie]

Read a few reviews on this camera and the reviewers all rave about it. Yet the image quality looks horrendous.

Take this ridiculous review from SlashGear where they state "Image quality is fantastic" with a snapshot that looks like it was taken with a potato! Are all the current reviews for this camera fake? Really would like to get the real deal on this.

View attachment 69875

Just the usual tech-sphere reviews. Ridiculous.

 

[Decking]

Looking at above picture, focus of both Nextbase at top of screen, and date /time at bottom are so out of focus it’s not funny. Hard to understand the hype.

 

[Nigel]

Take this ridiculous review from SlashGear where they state "Image quality is fantastic" with a snapshot that looks like it was taken with a potato! Are all the current reviews for this camera fake? Really would like to get the real deal on this.

There are good reasons they thought the image was fantastic compared to other dashcams!

1st, they have been mounting all their other dashcams down on the dash, where they don't have a view of the road!
Mounting it up by the mirror is a major innovation:

While some dash cams, as the name suggests, sit on the dash — the iQ doesn't seem designed for that. Instead, you're supposed to place it on the passenger side of the rear-view mirror. This gives it a good view of the road, the car's interior, and the car's windows. You really see the difference with the road view. On some vehicles, mounting the cam on the dash can lead to the hood obscuring a good percentage of the camera's view. This isn't the case when it's mounted high up.

2nd, when checking the image quality of the 1K, 2K and 4K, they found that they all give out High Definition 720 resolution video, a huge improvement over SD video:

Each of the cameras on offer is HD, so you're unlikely to have a poor-quality experience. The same coding also seems to be behind all three of them, so any AI sharpening type magic or adjustment will apply to all of them — though there may be more wiggle room with the higher-end devices due to the better hardware.

We reviewed the 4K version specifically, and we found the images it recorded to be very clear in both day and night shots. The biggest difference with the higher-end camera is its field of view. Far more is in focus than you're likely to get from a lower-resolution model,

Read More: https://www.slashgear.com/1446504/nextbase-iq-review-solid-dash-camera-best-features/

This does actually appear to be the case if you follow the user manual to download the videos!

Maybe they haven't encountered a real 4K dashcam yet?

 

[Decking]

A couple of the 4k iQ’s have found their way onto the online retail pages. At around £430, both I’ve seen come without packaging.

 

[mentadent]

The features look great, but that form factor is just too big for me. I want clouddddddd

 

[cpo]

I bit the bullet and bought an IQ 4K and the rear. I really want to love this camera... but... I'm about to pull it out of the car and send it back.

1. The form factor is just stupid. It's large and awkward. There isn't a way to adjust it to be perfectly aligned on the windshield. And because it is so big, it basically has to go to the side of the rearview mirror area. The curvature of my windshield has it pointing sligtly off center, and the only way to adjust is to rotate the entire assembly so that it hangs a little crooked. Why couldn't they have made it articulate so you could mount the base and then fine tune the camera position???

2. While the OBD installation was a breeze, it is actually the biggest problem for me. I bought this because I was very interested in parking mode/cloud/lte.... but the only way to power it is with battery + and -. The modes are all based on battery voltage.. and there is no option to have a trigger based on accessory power like most other dashcams. I usually use a Celllink NEO battery pack, and this (by design) wouldn't work with that. I even reached out to support and they said it is not recommended to use an external battery power supply because the parking mode will not properly work. But...

3. The parking mode doesn't properly work for me even using OBD direct connection. Why? I have a 2024 Kia EV6 GT... which is a fully electric car. It has a modern battery charging strategy that apparently Nextbase didn't consider. What I mean by this is that the car charges the 12v battery from the high voltage battery when it's needed, and then doesn't charge when it's not needed. So rather than an alternator just constantly pumping out 13+ volts to the system while driving like an ICE car, mine will show about 14 volts when charging, and then drop back down to 12.7 volts when not charging. And it will do this throughout a driving cycle as needed. The net result of this is that the IQ will go into parking mode constantly while I am driving. I have played with the voltage setting. I think I found that if I put it at 12.5v for parking voltage, it will stay out of parking mode (mostly) while driving, but then it fails to actually go into parking mode when parked (until the battery drops over time, I presume). I end up with tons of "parking event" clips because it will randomly go into parking mode on every drive because my car stops charging my 12v battery.

This is just silly. There are so many ways to improve this... but when I reach out to support I get canned answers. They could even incorporate a very simple logic that involves GPS or motion along with voltage, but it's a simple voltage threshold switch.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm willing to play around with it some more... but this is way too expensive (upfront plus monthly) to not be thrilled with it.

Pic of my highway "parking mode" events for fun.

 

[152bobby]

That's a very good hands on users review. Sorry that it's not working out for you.

This is the sort of guinea pig user feedback (sorry for the expression) on a new product which we need and confirms that it's not on my future dash cam list. I'll stick with my 2 channel 622GW for now.

 

[Decking]

Oh dear, I think many of us here thought this was going to be a bit of white elephant, apart from many pre-sale trial users who gave it the most amazing reviews. I can’t pretend to understand the charging characteristics of a EV but I would have thought someone should have taken it into consideration. Fitting also, disappointed that there is no horizontal adjustment apart from riding the unit ****eyed.
Were any of the add ons (cloud recovery etc) available to you? Where you pay the monthly subscription.

 

[rcg530]

It sounds like the IQ's voltage monitoring strategy to determine when to go into and exit parking mode would not work for my ICE based car (2014 Chevy Caprice). My car monitors the system voltage level and the amp load on the battery using an amp clamp around the negative battery cable. That monitoring strategy is a fairly common one. When the system load is "light", the ECM will command the alternator to reduce its charging output. The vehicle's voltage level during a light load situation (battery fully charged and low power draw demand) can be reduced all the way down to the 12.3 to 12.6 volt range. It appears the IQ would enter parking mode while driving with those system voltage levels. I downloaded the IQ's user manual and it doesn't even discuss any details of the parking mode voltage monitoring strategy.

 

[Vortex Radar]

I bit the bullet and bought an IQ 4K and the rear. I really want to love this camera... but... I'm about to pull it out of the car and send it back.

1. The form factor is just stupid. It's large and awkward. There isn't a way to adjust it to be perfectly aligned on the windshield. And because it is so big, it basically has to go to the side of the rearview mirror area. The curvature of my windshield has it pointing sligtly off center, and the only way to adjust is to rotate the entire assembly so that it hangs a little crooked. Why couldn't they have made it articulate so you could mount the base and then fine tune the camera position???

2. While the OBD installation was a breeze, it is actually the biggest problem for me. I bought this because I was very interested in parking mode/cloud/lte.... but the only way to power it is with battery + and -. The modes are all based on battery voltage.. and there is no option to have a trigger based on accessory power like most other dashcams. I usually use a Celllink NEO battery pack, and this (by design) wouldn't work with that. I even reached out to support and they said it is not recommended to use an external battery power supply because the parking mode will not properly work. But...

3. The parking mode doesn't properly work for me even using OBD direct connection. Why? I have a 2024 Kia EV6 GT... which is a fully electric car. It has a modern battery charging strategy that apparently Nextbase didn't consider. What I mean by this is that the car charges the 12v battery from the high voltage battery when it's needed, and then doesn't charge when it's not needed. So rather than an alternator just constantly pumping out 13+ volts to the system while driving like an ICE car, mine will show about 14 volts when charging, and then drop back down to 12.7 volts when not charging. And it will do this throughout a driving cycle as needed. The net result of this is that the IQ will go into parking mode constantly while I am driving. I have played with the voltage setting. I think I found that if I put it at 12.5v for parking voltage, it will stay out of parking mode (mostly) while driving, but then it fails to actually go into parking mode when parked (until the battery drops over time, I presume). I end up with tons of "parking event" clips because it will randomly go into parking mode on every drive because my car stops charging my 12v battery.

This is just silly. There are so many ways to improve this... but when I reach out to support I get canned answers. They could even incorporate a very simple logic that involves GPS or motion along with voltage, but it's a simple voltage threshold switch.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm willing to play around with it some more... but this is way too expensive (upfront plus monthly) to not be thrilled with it.

Pic of my highway "parking mode" events for fun.

Thanks for that feedback! As an EV9 owner who's looking to do a dashcam install soon, that's great info about the voltage levels.

I was hoping that maybe the fuse tap solution could be an alternative over the OBD II cable, but given that they went for a simpler 2-wire solution without a third ACC wire, looks like you're gonna be in the same boat.

In my talks with Nextbase they said that they put a lot of work into power management for parking recording stuff, including thinking about the differences with EVs, but it looks like it still doesn't work properly which is disappointing.

 

[cpo]

Thanks for that feedback! As an EV9 owner who's looking to do a dashcam install soon, that's great info about the voltage levels.

I was hoping that maybe the fuse tap solution could be an alternative over the OBD II cable, but given that they went for a simpler 2-wire solution without a third ACC wire, looks like you're gonna be in the same boat.

In my talks with Nextbase they said that they put a lot of work into power management for parking recording stuff, including thinking about the differences with EVs, but it looks like it still doesn't work properly which is disappointing.

Yeah it's unfortunate. I had very high hopes for this camera, so much so that I did a full install right away... I created a new thread with a video discussing my challenges.

 

[Taycan]

I bit the bullet and bought an IQ 4K and the rear. I really want to love this camera... but... I'm about to pull it out of the car and send it back.

1. The form factor is just stupid. It's large and awkward. There isn't a way to adjust it to be perfectly aligned on the windshield. And because it is so big, it basically has to go to the side of the rearview mirror area. The curvature of my windshield has it pointing sligtly off center, and the only way to adjust is to rotate the entire assembly so that it hangs a little crooked. Why couldn't they have made it articulate so you could mount the base and then fine tune the camera position???

2. While the OBD installation was a breeze, it is actually the biggest problem for me. I bought this because I was very interested in parking mode/cloud/lte.... but the only way to power it is with battery + and -. The modes are all based on battery voltage.. and there is no option to have a trigger based on accessory power like most other dashcams. I usually use a Celllink NEO battery pack, and this (by design) wouldn't work with that. I even reached out to support and they said it is not recommended to use an external battery power supply because the parking mode will not properly work. But...

3. The parking mode doesn't properly work for me even using OBD direct connection. Why? I have a 2024 Kia EV6 GT... which is a fully electric car. It has a modern battery charging strategy that apparently Nextbase didn't consider. What I mean by this is that the car charges the 12v battery from the high voltage battery when it's needed, and then doesn't charge when it's not needed. So rather than an alternator just constantly pumping out 13+ volts to the system while driving like an ICE car, mine will show about 14 volts when charging, and then drop back down to 12.7 volts when not charging. And it will do this throughout a driving cycle as needed. The net result of this is that the IQ will go into parking mode constantly while I am driving. I have played with the voltage setting. I think I found that if I put it at 12.5v for parking voltage, it will stay out of parking mode (mostly) while driving, but then it fails to actually go into parking mode when parked (until the battery drops over time, I presume). I end up with tons of "parking event" clips because it will randomly go into parking mode on every drive because my car stops charging my 12v battery.

This is just silly. There are so many ways to improve this... but when I reach out to support I get canned answers. They could even incorporate a very simple logic that involves GPS or motion along with voltage, but it's a simple voltage threshold switch.

Anyone have any ideas? I'm willing to play around with it some more... but this is way too expensive (upfront plus monthly) to not be thrilled with it.

Pic of my highway "parking mode" events for fun.

I’ve just installed the IQ in our Taycan. I’m having the same issues regarding the voltage detection for park and drive modes. Like the EV6 the Taycan basically charges the 12v battery as and when required, so there’s no “park and “drive” voltages that remain static. I only bought it yesterday and installed today. I might look at returning though, finger crossed I can do that. I’ll email their customer support and see what response they get.

Did you return yours in the end?

Surely a GPS/movement trigger would be more reliable?!?

 

[cpo]

I’ve just installed the IQ in our Taycan. I’m having the same issues regarding the voltage detection for park and drive modes. Like the EV6 the Taycan basically charges the 12v battery as and when required, so there’s no “park and “drive” voltages that remain static. I only bought it yesterday and installed today. I might look at returning though, finger crossed I can do that. I’ll email their customer support and see what response they get.

Did you return yours in the end?

Surely a GPS/movement trigger would be more reliable?!?

Yeah I returned it. This is a huge opportunity missed for Nextbase. I am now running a combination of BlackVue and VIOFO and have been happy. (

)

 

[Taycan]

Yeah I returned it. This is a huge opportunity missed for Nextbase. I am now running a combination of BlackVue and VIOFO and have been happy. (

)

Hi CPO, I contacted Nextbase and got the response below. I’m going to try it before I tidy all the wires. It doesn’t mention anywhere about going into park mode due to no moment anywhere in the material I can find, so worth a shot.