Blackvue DR900X-2CH Plus - Improved Video, Seamless Pairing, & WiFi

hey what's up guys in this video we're going to be taking a look at blackvue's latest new flagship dash cam the dr900x plus and in this video i want to go over all the different changes and improvements here with this new plus model compared to the dr-900x including the upgraded video quality this is the main thing that i want to focus on here in this video as well as the improved bluetooth seamless pairing process to get the dash cam paired with your phone and the improved wi-fi hotspot capabilities of the dash cam if you add in the cm 100 lte module to give the dashcam its own internet connection to share now full disclosure this is not a paid or sponsored review i've never done those and i never will blackvue sent me a production copy of the dr900x plus to test and review here for this video i do get to keep the dash cam after testing but i'm not otherwise paid or compensated in any way here for this video if you'd like to buy a copy of the dr900x plus i'm going to have some affiliate links down in the video description as well as some discount codes for you and using those does support my channel and it allows me to continue doing tests and videos like this here for you and so with that said let's go ahead and dive into all the new changes and improvements here with this upgraded dr900x plus now first things first let's go ahead and talk about the improved image quality here of this new dash cam now the plus model has the same image sensor for the front dash cam as well as the same lens in front of the sensor however blackwood says that they've improved the image signal processing the software in the dash cam to improve the video quality both day and night and i can definitely confirm that that's the case in the improved image signal processing it's actually due to a new processor that's been installed here in the upgraded dr900x plus the rear dash cam has also been upgraded it now features a sony starvis sensor to specifically improve the low light performance and i have noticed that here as well now starting off with the front camera i'm definitely noticing some improved image quality and specifically an improved ability to capture details such as license plates in fact i did some comparison testing with the older dr900x the new dr900x plus and the thinkware u1000 which i'm using kind of as a benchmark especially because its video quality is better than any previous blackvue dashcam and all of these dashcams record in 4k now starting off with a parking lot test the dr900x it can make out plates of cars that are directly ahead and it can also make out plates as the cars start getting a little bit farther away but it gets a lot tougher to make them out on the other hand the dr900x plus and the u1000 do a better job of maintaining detail and clarity it looks like the dr-900x plus now seems to be holding its own compared to the u1000 and here's another example of this while driving if you take a look here at the silver suv on the right all of the dash cams are able to capture the license plate however if you look at the white minivan in front of me this is about the closest that i got to it and it's just a little past the limits of the resolving capabilities admittedly it's still tough for the other two dash cams but they give you a much better chance of being able to hopefully make out plates in case something happened with the car and you really need to capture those license plates and report it to police insurance or anything else additionally i've also noticed that the plus model has improved dynamic range for example look at the trees in the shadows over on the left side of the frame now to be fair this is what the dr900xs hdr feature actually disabled i'm not a fan of using that feature unless i'm specifically parked and i mainly use its hdr night vision capabilities for night time parking recording and we'll get to night time recording here in just a second if we take a look at some other testing with the hdr night vision feature enabled here on the older dr900x you'll notice that the overall exposure between the two dash cam looks pretty similar i do notice that the highlights in the cloud are a little bit more blown in the plus but i also get better shadow detail with the cars over on the right again we've got similar exposure levels but i think the plus does a better job of preserving detail of the cars on the road and that's really the main thing that you want not so much the clouds necessarily as cool as it is but really the detail of the car is in case of an accident or something actually happens on the road and here's another test with the hdr feature turned on on the dr900x actually driving into the sun you'll notice the dr-900x does a better job again with recording the clouds up in the sky and then looking at the road especially for the exposure levels and the overall levels of brightness you notice that those are going to be really similar it's not like the dash cam is just making everything darker to compensate and then if you look at the detail on the cars which is the main thing that we want to focus on again it seems to be easier to make out info about the cars like maybe the make and model or any car details here with the newer version of the dash cam the plus and so i found some advantages to both versions of the dash cam but i think overall i prefer the images coming out of the plus because it seems to do a better job of just capturing what's going on on the road around you now after i finished shooting this video i was going back and watching more footage and i noticed that it looks like there is some built-in hdr capabilities that are running here in this dr900x plus and you'll notice that sometimes when there's really fast action like right here for example you notice behind the car there's kind of this light spot you'll notice this happening when it's trying to combine a dark and a light exposure and something's moving really quickly and it doesn't quite blend them right this is one of the examples of when you may see a little bit of weird artifacting with hdr turned on and it's one of the reasons why some people may actually want to turn it off total user preference and to be honest most people probably won't ever notice or care it's not a huge deal and for most people the trade-off of having the better dynamic range is worth any sort of weird little artifacting especially because well you need the dash cam to record stuff and the hdr feature can help ensure that you're able to record more of the scene now i'm totally nitpicking here but i personally would still like the option to turn off hdr if desired but i can understand that for most people yeah they're going to be happy with hdr on and are going to have no issues with it and so either way yes it does look like there's a hdr that's built in and turned on and there is no way to disable it here in the dr900x plus next let's take a look at the image quality from the rear dash cam it records at 1080p instead of 4k like the front dash cam and overall honestly the video quality is nothing particularly special it works it does the job it's able to record what's going on behind you but it's not going to be 4k the way the front dash cam is now this is really normal though i haven't seen any dash cams by any manufacturer that do 4k front and rear usually do have reduced video quality and resolution with the rear dash cam now i've looked at a couple different uh daytime sample clips with both the dr900x and the newer dr900x plus and honestly the results look pretty similar i don't see a huge difference the main differences i find with the upgraded new rear dash cam seem to actually present themselves at night now something i've noticed though in testing is there does seem to be some sample variation between different copies of the rear dash cam the rear dash cam it's the exact same one that comes with the new dr750x plus and while i was driving around and testing the video quality with the uh 900x plus i noticed the rear camera looked a little bit soft and so for that reason i took the rear camera from my 750x plus again it's the exact same camera and i plugged it into my 900x plus and i noticed that when i did that the video quality seemed to look better and if you take a look at this comparison here you'll notice that the plate is crispier and easier to read when i'm using the rear camera that comes with my dr750x plus you'll also notice that the grass and the leaves are also sharper uh when using the 750s rear camera again they're the exact same camera there just seems to be some sample variation between different copies of the camera and this is also something that i've noticed over the years testing a variety of different blackvue dash cams is there can be some sample variation so your mileage may vary on this next let's move on and take a look at some nighttime dash cam footage now this new dash cam it doesn't use a faster lens or an upgraded image sensor all the changes here are going to be done with the image software processing and what i noticed comparing the newer dash cam to the previous model is that the front camera is a little bit brighter it's not a massive difference but it is an improvement nonetheless and actually here's a better clip to show you the difference uh this is a clip of a car actually running a red light in front of me the dr900x plus does a better job of recording both the car and the road around me now don't expect magic here though the dr900x plus it's not able to stop motion at night and i'm not able to capture the plate either with either the front or the rear dash cam so just want to set some realistic expectations here freeze framing license plates on a car that's moving at night that's really tough for any dash cam so just wanted to mention that nevertheless though i do notice that the front camera is more sensitive at night it does a better job you can more easily see the road you can see other cars and you can see what's going on on the sidewalks as well and so overall i find the plus to do a little better job in dark nighttime driving the two dash cams are more similar at recording stuff directly ahead of you but if you look to the far left and right sides of the frame beyond where my headlights are directly shining you'll notice the plus is better able to see into those dark shadow areas now the older dr900x it has an hdr night vision feature that you can enable the previous clips that i've been looking at were with the feature disabled and you can certainly turn that feature on on the dr900x if you like i only use it when parked but for normal driving day or night i actually leave the feature turned off on the newer dr-900x plus they've actually removed any hdr or night vision features altogether it's just gonna be much more automatic but that said i wanted to go ahead and do a little bit of testing with the feature on and off on the previous model the dr-900x so starting first with the front dash cam uh here's some testing actually parked in a really dark neighborhood now between the two cameras i find the dr900x plus does a much better job especially at capturing any detail on this dark street here however if you enable night vision mode on the dr-900x it brings it much closer to the newer plus model i do think that the plus does a little better job of seeing details when it's dark like this but overall things are still pretty close here and then if we take a look at the rear dash cam next this is actually where i noticed a little bit more of a difference and specifically because uh there's an upgraded sony starva sensor that's available now in the rear dash cam and compared to the previous model again the newer dash cam is going to do a much better job at night if you compare the two models you'll notice that with a newer dash cam it's much easier to see the road and the sidewalk in case people or cars go by and then if you turn on the night vision feature on the dr900x i notice it gets a lot better especially in terms of brightness however i do notice that the video becomes pretty noisy and grainy it's easier to see if you're watching this on a big computer screen compared to a smaller phone but nevertheless the newer dash cam i've noticed has a better job of brightening up things at night while still maintaining better video quality which seems to be one of the big advantages here of using a more sensitive and newer sony starva sensor for that rear dash cam and so overall i'm liking the improvements here that i'm seeing with this new plus model i'm seeing improved image quality and ability to capture fine details whether it's faces or license plates i'm liking the improvements to the dash cam's dynamic range i'm liking the low light capabilities of both front and rear and also maintaining good image quality without introducing a bunch of extra noise in grain so i'm really liking the improvements that i'm seeing here overall now there's some other differences here in this dash cam as well blackvue's actually removed the option for h.265 and so now we only have h.264 available it's an older and more compatible codec the idea behind the new codec is it's supposed to improve video quality while maintaining smaller file sizes uh comparing videos from both dash cams maybe dr-900x with h.265 and the newer one with h.264 overall the main takeaways is they're both using the same bit rate at 25 megabits they both have the same file size but i actually noticed better video quality out of the newer dash cam the plus and blackvue actually says the reason that they've removed h.265 is it didn't actually really make that big of a difference plus they wanted the improved compatibility for their new web-based cloud viewer software additionally if you take a look at the other video quality options in the dr-900x plus you'll notice that they remove the hdr and night vision options they remove the manual controls to adjust the brightness for both the front and the rear dash cams there's no longer any sort of manual exposure compensation options and so now you just set the resolution and the quality and the dash cam just kind of does the rest automatically now i was kind of curious how all this automatic stuff worked and so i did some testing kind of playing around with the different exposure levels and brightness levels for example i tried doing some testing with a circular polarizer sliding the polarizer on and off the dash cam and i noticed it compensated and adjusted for that just fine polarizers do block a little bit of light and so i would expect the dash cam to kind of brighten things up once you put the polarizer on and i also did some testing with the rear dash cam and the tint on the rear of my vehicle i tried literally holding the rear dash cam behind my tint as well as on the outside of the car in front of the window and in front of the tint and i noticed that while the tint does affect the white balance a little bit the dash cam works just fine actually uh boosting the brightness to compensate for any sort of light loss from my rear tint and so their automatic options seem to work just fine and i actually asked blackvue about this why did they remove some of the manual controls here and those options and they said it was a lot of options for their engineers to have to optimize for different brightness levels and different hdr on and hdr off and all that kind of stuff and so they decided to basically simplify things and allow them to focus on really just kind of one group of settings so the dash cam works well both day and night without the user having to fiddle with any of the options and in my experience it seems like whatever they've been doing with this new dash cam it seems to work pretty well day and night now i love having the option to control uh different video quality settings and whatnot but honestly i would rather the dash cam just kind of take care of everything automatically it's not like my dslrs or mirrorless cameras where i'm going to use all the manual stuff much more option or much more often and i'm sure most people probably want more of a set and forget it option just put it on and have it work well and that seems to be what they're going for here so yes they did remove some of the options i'm not justifying it i like having the additional controls but it seems like uh what they've been doing with their auto exposure stuff it seems to be working pretty well so i'm personally pretty happy with uh kind of what they're doing now here with the dr900x plus and something else that for me i'm actually really happy about is i've been wanting to upgrade the dr900s and dr750s that i've been running in my car so far i need to run new power cables uh for the x series and i was gonna be upgrading to the dr900x but uh because the video quality with the dr900x has kind of been lacking i've also been uh wanting to install the thinkware u1000 right next to the black view just to get the better video quality because up to this point blackjuice video quality has really been lagging compared to the competition now because i'm seeing this nice improvement here with the dr-900x pluses video quality i don't think i'm gonna need to install the u1000 next to it to make sure that i can always get a dashcam with really good video quality the dr-900x plus can do that on its own plus it leaves that extra room available in my windshield so i can easily run other dash cams for testing and review and that kind of stuff so i prefer actually having that uh that real estate staying clear on my windshield and so i i think i'm just gonna run with the dr900x plus as my only uh primary front facing dash cam next now that we've covered all the video quality stuff let's shift gears and talk about their new seamless pairing process it's basically using bluetooth built into the dash cam to make it easier to get your dash cam paired with your phone the way the process works here in this dash cam is you'll open the blackvue app on your phone and then you'll tap on the option that says connect to camera then on the top right corner you're going to tap on the plus button and your phone is then going to search for and find the new blackvue dashcam over bluetooth once it does you can just place your hand by the motion sensor next to the dash cam to confirm that this is the dash cam that you want to pair and then it's going to automatically create a wi-fi connection between your phone and your dash cam and so this bluetooth process it's just for the initial pairing process the connection itself that you're going to use full time is still going to be done over wi-fi because it's a lot faster than bluetooth so anything as far as changing settings downloading any footage to your phone live streaming all that kind of stuff it's still going to be happening over wi-fi bluetooth is just there for the initial pairing process now because it uses wi-fi i still run into the same issue sometimes with my phone losing an internet connection because it's trying to connect to the dash cam if the dash cam doesn't have its own internet connection and so for that reason you're going to want to disconnect from the dash cam to make sure that your phone still has an internet connection while you're driving now that said other people online have reported that when they're connected to the dash cam with the phone they're able to browse the web just fine and so i went out and retested it again reconnecting to the dash cam and then another time i found that i am able to continue browsing the web i can connect to waze just fine and all sorts of different internet connected apps they all behave just fine and then again i did another test later and it wasn't working properly so i'm not entirely sure what's up with the inconsistent behavior but it looks like sometimes it works and in my experience other times it doesn't alternatively if you have the optional cm100 lte module that plugs into the dash cam that's going to give a dashcam an internet connection and then your phone is going to be able to use the dashcam's internet connection now blackvue says that there's now a new option as well to where when you close the blackvue app it's going to automatically disconnect from the dashcam that way your phone can still maintain an internet connection i haven't played with this too much but they said that's a feature that they've added now this bluetooth pairing process or what black fuse call in their seamless pairing process it's going to be coming to a number of a previous black view dash cams as well it's going to be coming to their different x series dash cams it's going to be coming to the x plus series dash cams it's going to be coming to the 752 channel lte uh as well as any future upcoming blackvue dash cams now in order to use this feature with the compatible previous gen blackvue dashcams you're actually going to need a firmware update to enable the bluetooth capabilities even if the dash cam has bluetooth built in and for those of you running the dr750x plus blackvue has gone ahead and updated that dashcam released a firmware update to activate the seamless pairing capabilities and then a few days later they released a number of other updates specifically for the dr900x uh the original dr750x and the dr 750 two-channel lte so if you own any of those dash cams you can go ahead and head on over to blackvue's website and update there or of course you can download over the air using your phone and then a couple other quick things to note if you want to get your dash cam connected to the cloud before you had to use the qr code uh that was both on the box and on the dash cam and scan it with the app now you're also going to be able to use the bluetooth capability to connect to your dash cam directly that way without having to scan and use any qr codes and then finally i wanted to go ahead and talk about the dash cam's improved hotspot capabilities if you pair it with the optional cm100 lte module that's an optional accessory that has some lte antennas and then you pop in a sim card to give it a data connection and then it adds some data connectivity to your blackvue dashcam so that it can connect out to the cloud now previously you could only have one dash cam or one device paired to your dash cam and give that device an internet connection as well the dashcam would actually share its internet connection and act as a hotspot but again you were limited to just one device direct wi-fi connection already in use now with the dr-900x plus you can have up to five devices connected and so your dash cam can become basically a wi-fi hotspot for all the devices up to five uh in your car and i've been testing this and i found it to be pretty useful i run a four channel blackvue dashcam setup so front and rear for the main ones as well as left and right the rear dash cam can now connect to the front one so the rear dash cam gets the cloud connectivity i can also pair my different phones to the dash cam if i've got friends or family they now have a hotspot in my car which can be especially nice if they're coming from out of the country and don't have us data now they've got wi-fi in the car my escort radar detector is like the max or redline 360c those can connect to the dash cam now as well the only thing with those is the escort radar detectors only support 2.4 gigahertz wi-fi so you are going to have to go into the blackvue dash cam and change it from the default to 5 gigahertz to 2.4 gigahertz so that the escorts can connect to it so that's the only weird little quirk there but otherwise you can connect radar detectors multiple phones devices other dash cams all sorts of stuff uh to the dr900x plus if you have the optional cm100 lte because it allows for uh not just one but now up to five devices connected simultaneously now i know a lot of cars actually have wi-fi built in directly into the car and that's super convenient and a lot of those allow for multiple devices too if you don't have that capability and or if you'd also like the wi-fi or the cloud capabilities while you're parked this is where the cm-100 lte comes into play in-car wi-fi is usually only when the car is on this is going to work both when your car is on or and it's off now getting wi-fi into your car while you're parked has traditionally been pretty tough i've been needing this capability so i've been using third-party lte dongles and using dedicated battery packs in the car and i had to make sure that they power on properly and i had the proper cabling even after messing with that i've noticed still some flakiness to where it doesn't just stay on reliably and so for that reason even though i have it with third party stuff i find the new black view option to actually work better and more reliably so i think i'm actually going to switch over to using the cm100 lte even though i already have indoor wi-fi while parked because it just seems to be more reliable than the solution that i've been using up to this point and so if you're wanting the cloud capability for the dr-900x plus the cm100 lte makes it a lot easier to do plus it's now going to give you a wi-fi hotspot in your car as well for other devices to connect as well and this upgraded connectivity option is going to be available for the different x plus series dash cams so like your 750x plus and 900x plus for example now speaking of other dash cams what if you want to upgrade to the dr900x plus from a previous gen blackvue dash cam what mounts and cables and all that kind of stuff for compatible let's take a look at that now over on blackvue's website they actually have an faq going over the accessory compatibility with the dr900x and some of the previous models so i'll link to that down in the video description and so i wanted to go over not only that but also some additional information that i found by playing around and doing some testing now the front mount itself that the front dash cam plugs into is going to be compatible with most of black fuse other dash cams not all of them but most of them and the same is true with blend mount compatibility if instead of attaching your dash cam directly to your windshield you'd like to hang it under your rear view mirror i've been using my blend mount here for all of the sample footage that you've seen here in this video and it's been nice and solid and stable if you want to get one of course make sure you don't get the one for the 752 channel lte that's a bigger dash cam instead get the one that's compatible with most of black these other dash cams including the dr900x for example that's the one that's going to fit the dr900x plus and i've got a link to where you can get more information about it as well as a discount code if you'd like to pick one up and then as far as the rear dash cam you're going to be able to pop out your old rear dash cam and upgrade to the newer one it's just going to slide right into place you won't notice any differences that said i've noticed that if you slide the new dash cam into the old mount it's not quite as snug of a fit so you can rotate and spin the dash cam and adjust it angle a little bit more easily but it seems to still hold the dash cam securely nonetheless just not quite as tightly as before now this rear dash cam is the exact same one that comes with the dr750x plus and so if you want to upgrade to the 900x plus to get the 4k instead of 1080p up front uh you can literally just buy the single channel version of the dr-900x plus it has the port on the side to actually plug in a rear dash cam even on the single channel version now and you can just plug in your existing rear camera from the 750x plus so just a heads up about that however if you're upgrading from a previous version of the blackvue dash cam you are going to actually need to upgrade to the 2-channel version to get the new front camera and the new upgraded rear camera as well and then that cable that connects both the front and rear cameras that's exactly the same so you can unplug the old one and plug in the new one uh the power cable it's the new three wire ignition triggered power cable that comes with the uh the x series dash cam so if you're upgrading from let's say a dr-900x it's gonna be the same power cable but if you're upgrading from an older dash cam like an s series such as the dr-900s that does use an older power cable so you are gonna have to run a new power cable for the dr900x plus and then if you're running a cm 100 lte this is the exact same thing that we've had before so you can literally just unplug it and plug it back into the new dash cam now if you'd like to order a dr-900x plus they are available now on blackvue's website the single channel front only version starts at 379 with a 32 gig card and then the 2-channel version that records front and rear starts at 4.89 then on blackbox my car's website they're available for pre-order they're not shipping yet but the eta is going to be september 20th they're 20 cheaper at black box my car than they are on blackvue's site the single channel front only version starts at 359 and the two channel version front and rear starts at 469. plus if you use the coupon code vortex 20 that'll save you an additional five percent off the purchase at checkout uh just in case the links in the video description don't automatically give you that discount so ordering from black box my car would actually give you the lowest price if you'd like to go for that option and then finally just one quick thing to note about these little micro sd cards that you pop into your dash cam now normally i run and recommend the samsung pro endurance cards but lately i've been having multiple issues with both the pro endurance and the evo select cards in my dr900x plus it keeps giving me different memory card errors and then the dash cam reboots and so i've been having issues with a couple different cards however when i then switched to the blackvue card and put that one in the dashcam i haven't had any issues since i don't know if it's just because i don't use the blackvue cards as often maybe it's just both of those cards failing simultaneously i don't know but either way i know the blackvue cards are more expensive than the third-party ones it's one of the reasons why i usually go for the third-party pro endurance ones but i have been noticing better reliability at least just for myself with the blackvue one so i just wanted to mention that here as well and down in the video description i'll go ahead and link to all this kind of stuff so the dash cam both single channel and dual channel different memory card options or accessories all that kind of stuff that you may need here i'll link to all of it down in the video description for you and so yeah that's just kind of my thoughts here as far as the improvements here for the dr900x plus i'm actually pretty happy with it i think this is probably the best uh blackvue dash cam that they now make i really like the upgraded video quality i've long felt that that was probably one of the biggest weaknesses for blackvue dash cams and it feels like they've really addressed that here with the dr900x plus and so i'm really happy to see that thank you very much blackvue it's not perfect there's still stuff that can be improved they're always i'm sure it's going to be but either way this seems to be a nice boost here in terms of video quality plus all the other changes in terms of low light sensitivity dynamic range bluetooth stuff uh the new cm100 lte wi-fi hotspot stuff it seems like it's a minor change but it's actually quite a bit of stuff that all adds up and so i'm pretty up pretty happy with this latest update here for the 900x plus and so yeah that's my thoughts here on this dash cam thanks so much for watching hopefully you found this helpful let me know if you have any questions and that's it stay safe i'll see you in the next video bye

Channel: Vortex Radar

Views: 70,119

Keywords: dashcam, blackvue, dr900x, dr900x plus, dr900x-1ch, dr900x-2ch, dr900x-2ch plus, dr900x-1ch plus, blackvue dr900x-1ch plus, blackvue dr900x-2ch plus, dash cam, dash camera, cm100 lte module, blackvue x series, 4k dash cam, blackvue cloud cm100lte, best dash cam, best dash cams, dash cam review, blackvue dash cam, dash cams, blackvue dr900x-2ch, dash camera for car, first look, blackvue cloud

Id: z1PgfkqKhwQ

Length: 26min 9sec (1569 seconds)

Published: Fri Sep 17 2021