Garmin Dash Cam Mini Key-Sized Dash Camera with 140-degree
Garmin Dash Cam Mini Key-Sized Dash Camera with 140-degree Wide-angle Lens and Recording in 1080p HD Video
Convenient Connectivity
Built-in BLUETOOTH technology and Wi-Fi connectivity let you upload saved footage to your compatible smartphone running the Garmin Drive app. The Garmin Drive app is your convenient solution to view, edit and share your dash cam footage. If you use multiple Garmin dash cams to capture video in front of or behind your vehicle, the app uses Dash Cam Auto Sync to set up a network and sync recordings among the cameras. That way, if there is an incident, you can easily see the footage captured from multiple viewpoints. The app will also automatically combine and organise the media files so you can easily find and view them.
| Weight: | 28.7 g |
| Dimensions: | 3.13 x 5.33 x 2.93 cm; 28.7 Grams |
| Brand: | Garmin |
| Model: | 010-02062-10 |
| Colour: | black |
| Batteries Included: | Yes |
| Manufacture: | Garmin |
| Dimensions: | 3.13 x 5.33 x 2.93 cm; 28.7 Grams |
Having bought this Garmin mini dash cam, it was very simply unboxed, I put a new microsd card in and fitted it to the car.
Locating it using the live view to determine the best screen location, formatted the memory card and straight into action. Simple.
My only issue or complication is occasionally linking to the device using my phone,
Has performed faultlessly over a 2700mile journey to Rome and back, so. Great product thanks
Compact size , neat and unobtrusive when fitted, make sure you know where you want to mount it before you stick it in its final location as its not easy to get off. App took several attempts to find and link to the cam. Good quality images. So far so good.
Wanted a very small dash cam for my MX-5. This tiny Garmin Mini is excellent. Good quality video & audio. No unnecessary frills. Works well with SanDisk Max Endurance 128Gb card.
Linked to my phone ok and seems to work fine. Two minutes and the video is downloaded and saved on my phone ready to share.
After testing it out for a week or so my wife also went for the same model. Unfortunately she returned it as we just couldn’t get it connected to her Pixel phone. No matter what we tried. Works fine on my android though so I’m still happy.
I have a garmin watch so I generally like both the hardware and the phone apps the Garmin designs. I was a bit worried about the camera quality as it was quite cheap even compared to some Chinese brands, and that was my first camera without a built-in screen, but I’m actually very happy now. All the configuration is done via the app and the videos can be watched and save on the phone, much better than carrying the camera/sd card home, risking to forget to connected back for the next drive. The app is intuitive. Six months on, very happy.
The beauty with these is that because they don’t have a screen, that works in their favour and allows them to be made so small and light. You have to have an app on your phone for most decent dash cams these days, so Garmin simply allow you to view and download any footage you need directly on your phone using their app via a Bluetooth connection. It goes without saying that the picture quality on these is excellent as it is HD. If you are unfortunate enough to get into an accident, you can quickly press the record button on the dash cam and that prevents that particular incident from being overwritten should your memory card get full.
Rather than a suction cup, the pad that holds it onto the windscreen is actually a sticky pad. Once I’ve stuck the cameras up the first time I have never had to revisit any of them as they just stay put, and I have them at the front and the rear of each of my cars.
The only reason I have given these 4 stars rather than 5 is because the length of the cable for the rear camera is simply not long enough to reach the front power socket. So if you don’t have a rear power socket, like I don’t on half of my cars, then you have to buy an extension lead.
Fit it and forget, took very little time to install once I’d decided where I wanted it. Reasonable price and good quality pictures. A little bit of ‘goldfish’ effect but still passable. Easy to pair with my iPhone and really like the live link to my phones screen. Happy with my purchase!
Unfortunately once you put your foot down and get past 30mph the playback becomes blocky (see attached).
I can see this working as a good rear dashcam (especially as it has a g sensor for automatic capture) but as the main one i’d put a bit more towards it and look at getting a Viofo or even Nextbase
I dont have a computer so most dashcams i cant use as you need to download images on a computer. This is great as you just download onti phone. Its really tiny but that is good. Picture quality is also good. Mayb a little laggy but does the job
She had always objected to having a dashcam fitted – not sure why – so I bought and installed this without telling her initially!
It’s small size makes it totally unobtrusive and unlike many larger models, if you’re limited on windscreen real-estate, is just the job, as it really is thumb-sized!
After I pointed out to my wife that I’d fitted a dashcam to her car, and she’d been running around with it without noticing for over a week, she was actually impressed with it’s diminutive size and how unobtrusive it is. It turns out that she was reluctant to have a dashcam, as all the ones she had seen have a screen, which she thought would be distracting – this one doesn’t – problem solved!
In the box is the dashcam itself, two mounts (with already attached sticky pads), two power cables (one long one for fitting in the car, and one for connecting to a PC), and a cigarette lighter power adapter – which handily has two USB sockets on it; and an instruction manual.
The dashcam requires a micro-USB card to record data.
Fitting is simply a case of finding a suitable spot on your windscreen to mount, giving it a clean with some form of degreasing cleaner (window cleaner, or alcohol based wipe). Make sure it’s dry, then stick one of the mounts in place with the sticky pad. Run the cable from your chosen point to the supply – hiding the cable if you desire – I recommend picking up a plastic trim toolset if you’re going to do this, as it makes hiding the cable so much easier, which in turn makes for a very neat install.
In both of our cars, because this hasn’t got a screen, there is no need for it to be in view of the driver, so I have hidden both behind the rear-view mirror – unless you look really closely, one wouldn’t know they were there!
To setup, one downloads the appropriate app to your smartphone and connect to the dashcam – it will automatically check for updates and update itself if required. All very simple.
A single large button on the back of the dashcam both takes a photo and protects the current video clip from being erased.
Quality is fine. You’re probably not going to pick up every car number plate with crystal clear clarity, but as a way of recording ‘fault’ or liability, it’s more than adequate.
Normally im a blackvue user but tried this out for my wife’s car. It is Very compact and discreet indeed as intended by garmin. Install and forget if fitted with with a hardwire kit. Ease ofnuse is superb except the app needs a bit of work. Connecting to the cam via wifi is a hit and miss. When it connects it does the job though and very intuitive. All in all not bad especially for the size and price.
Fitted in a Fiat 500, wired through to an adapter in the cigarette lighter using the cables supplied with the dashcam (I have a hard wire kit but didn’t bother in the end). Easy to fix in and very compact design which works well in the small car. The WiFi download is a bit slow if you want to pull content off as the full resolution export is quite high, but the direct preview by WiFi in the app is very accessible, and makes it easy to select required sections. If you happen to be the type who likes to download footage all the time, then either pull the card or get a different model, but if you want a dashcam that quietly sits behind the rear view mirror and is there just for when you need it, this is a very neat piece of kit.
Fairly easy to install, just attaches straight to the windscreen, and the angle can be adjusted using the livestream view to my phone.
Very useful that videos can be downloaded/managed on my phone via Bluetooth. So I don’t need to remove and adjust the camera or remove the SD card each time I want to take a look.
Fits nicely behind the rear view mirror as well, so it doesn’t obstruct my view.
For the price, a good purchase!
A super compact dash camera by Garmin. The video quality is OK for what I need the camera for. It comes with two sizes of cables in case someone wants to hide the cables underneath the car upholstery.
I would really like the camera to have some sound notifications when it turns on and off or when it starts / stops recording.
My cars fuse box, BMW, is in the boot and the lead they provide does not come near the length I needed. Garmin do not sell extension cables and extending the lead is not possible according to the Garmin website. Therefore the Garmin parking mode cable is useless unless your fuse box is within reach. The Garmin customer service is next to useless as they don’t answer the phone and their info page is insufficient to answer any questions- just basic things. The parking mode cable is useful when you are not with your car and someone hits it. I will not able to use mine ( I tried to extend it but it didn’t work, so now I cant return it) so am left with I hope no-one hits the car. Pointless. I wouldn’t recommend buying a Garmin dash cam.
Update.
I eventually found an extension cable that actually worked and can now hardwire the dash cam. It records well with a good picture. However, I have found it overheats, especially on warm/hot sunny days and then switches off. It takes a while to cool down and after resetting the dash cam it works fine again. As I have said, on hot days it switches off, which is pretty useless. Good for winter, and cooler weather. Im looking for a similar sized dash cam that works on hot days.
Bought a separate wiring kit so I could connect it up to my fuse box, but you can install it USB port/cigarette lighter with the wires that come with it. Camera works well, and the video quality is pretty good. When your phone is connected to the camera you can watch all the stored videos (poor video quality), you have to export the videos to your phone to get the proper video quality. Its the perfect size to hide behind my rear view mirror, so I can’t even see if while I’m driving.
This is a really temperamental camera. I have had two now and this second one is so difficult to connect to the phone. It’s a real pain. I also have an Autovox which is so much better. It’s not worth the money. I am about to order something different after 12 months of frustration.
Overall I am very happy with this dash-cam…. I must be as I have bought a second for my wife’s car.
I like it because it’s HD but is small enough to be hidden behind the rear view mirror. Install it and forget about it.
I’ve had no problems connecting my phone for configuration and viewing/transferring recordings. There’s absolutely no need for the device to have its own screen.
Only criticism is that the optional polarising filter was a MUST for both our cars to reduce windscreen reflections of the dashboard. Its a shame this this isn’t included as standard.
been a DRiver i did not want a screen or any distraction in my line of sight. this unit is so small and neat it fits in a space behind the mirror i cannot see anyway. there is just a small red light to show its on but it unobtrusive and hid by the mirror, I could fit some tape over it but it really doesn’t show unless you look for it at night,
After a road traffic incident last year in which my insurance wanted to go 50:50 based on no evidence from the third party, I was trust on a 11 month long journey into the new world of insurance scammers and in the end I decided that for everyone’s sake get a good camera as the insurance company staff DO NOT even understand the rules of the road or are in any way willing to use the courts to enforce it .
Only be their office paperwork incompetence did a resolution process kick in and therefore my no claims isn’t affected but with 30 years of driving and up to 40K a year millage with no accidents I would have thought that my evidence and the way the car was damaged would be an open and shut case. However as they do NOT understand the RTA and have no intention of going near a court room then there is no hope of a fair outcome.
Having looked at many on the market this is by far the best as you can have up to 4 cameras on one system, the app is easy to use and the camera records a good picture nite and day
This camera was to replace an old worn out Blackview camera which was in the rear window of the car. The video from the Garmin Mini is excellent, and I like the way you can see what the camera is seeing on your Android mobile phone. The camera comes with parking mode which you can disable in the camera menu if you don’t want parking mode. I didn’t want parking mode and just wanted to hard wire the camera into the car fuse box. Garmin tech support wasn’t any help with how to wire it in, probably in case I got the wiring wrong and shorted the camera out. However, as a retired electrical engineer I soon wired the Garmin Mini into the fuse box ok. Job’s a googun.
Everything is good, except for the way it mounts to the window. The camera becomes. around 5cm away from the glass, so you get a bit of glare and 10% of the picture is of the rear view mirror plastic. If I lower it, I see an ugly tangle of wires, but I can’t help thinking there is a better way to design this so it sits closer to the windscreen?
It will do the job, but I’m not overly excited by it.
Needed a small dash cam as the rake on my BMW windscreen was quite steep, I had a nextbase dashcam but to get the correct angle the camera was almost in the middle of the windscreen.
The Garmin mini did the job tucked up behind the mirror. Installation was quite easy, but the power plug for the cigarette socket wouldn’t work in my car, but fine in my wife’s car, turned out the stumpy design of it was not long enough for the BMW, after a bit of a modification it worked. Only
Once I have viewed playback on phone , you do forget it’s there, but it does the job.
A very discreet camera that sits quite neatly between the rearview mirror and screen. There was plenty of cable to carefully hide around the trim to the USB power source. There is no screen on the camera which I was used to with my previous dash cam, but it did link to my Motorola G6 with ease. Set up was reasonably swift. The video taken is the duration of the full journey, not in segments like my old Transend, takes a while to scroll through the whole video. To download the video or stills the phone has to link to the camera, a couple of times it took more than one attempt. Images are not bad, not quite as good as the Transend but is a lot less fuss to set up and is a fraction of the size. Most people don’t notice a camera is on the screen. The card can be removed and if you have the slot on your PC/Laptop or Tablet then it is much quicker to view the image. Very pleased.
UPDATE The unit I currently have keeps having problems with recording images. Initially I thought it was a problem with the sd card I was using, because the Garmin app kept telling me it was not of the required class 10 rating. In fact it was a class 10 card, but I replaced it anyway just in case. The next one, another brand new class 10 card had the same issue. So I bought another one, this time from a different manufacturer, and to begin with it worked fine. However, after a few weeks I noticed that the led light on the unit was indicating another fault with the card, which was extremely annoying because again it was a brand new one of the required speed rating. Since then it has worked intermittently, sometimes working immediately, sometimes only working if I remove the card and reinsert it, and sometimes not working at all. I tried 4 different cards in total, all brand new, all of the required speed rating, but all either wouldn’t work with the unit or only worked occasionally. And yet all 4 cards worked perfectly with other devices. It was clear therefore that the fault must lie with the unit itself and not the sd cards.
So I have now requested a replacement in the hope that it is just my unit that is faulty and not a general design flaw, because when it does decide to work it’s brilliant. But it’s not much use if it chooses when to operate and not me.
If the replacement unit is problem free I will again update this review.
FURTHER UPDATE
Having now received the replacement unit, I am very disappointed to have to report that it is suffering exactly the same issues as the first one. Records some times but not always. However, I have now tried it with a 128gb card instead of the 256gb I had been using, and so far it seems to be behaving itself. So the claim that these support up to 256gb is misleading, because they don’t in my case, twice now. I wonder if others have had the same.
Also I am having the same problems as others, and worse with the replacement unit, that it constantly loses connection with the mobile app. Very annoying.
So, so disappointing with the whole experience really. Garmin really need to sort out these problems urgently because at the moment it’s overpriced junk. I have emailed them describing the failings but so far I have been ignored. I am now reducing this to a one star review.
UPDATE OF THE UPDATE
I think I owe Garmin a bit of an apology. Having had many problems with the unit not accepting the sd cards I was using, and blaming the unit for this, I have now discovered that Ebay is riddled with cheap Chinese sd cards with fake Samsung and other manufacturers labels on them. I am now using a genuine card, and it is working perfectly. I also had relentless problems getting the android app on my phone to connect to the unit, but I now find that using a different phone that too is now working perfectly. So, sorry Garmin, I have put you back up to 4 stars. Not 5 stars because it very overpriced, but other than that it’s a great little fit and forget gadget.
When compared to the many non-name or Chinese branded dashcams out there this one appears to be over priced and under-specced. Having been stung by poor software or bugs with cheap dashcams (like not overwriting once the SD card is full!) in the past I thought I would try a name-brand one. I must say the user experience is much better than any other dashcam I have used. The app is very good (properly seamless) and you don’t have to mess around with menus on a tiny screen stuck behind your rear-view mirror.
The 720p resolution is more than enough even when others are offer twice that. You can read number plates, the field of view is fine and its night-time performance is no worse than any other one I have used.
I initially wanted a suction mount but as this dashcam is properly is set and forget, I compromised and went for the stick on version. I haven’t removed it and stuck it back on yet but the contact area is very small and out of sight so cleaning should not be too hard.
I would buy this dashcam again.
Can be a bit tricky to setup if its not drawing enough power from PC or other USB connection. Go to the Garmin website and take note of all the led warning variations. Couldn’t get bluetooth to turn on and after a few restart and factory resets, finally FTOM and saw light not only meant memory card not working, but power might be at fault.
All sorted and easy to setup after that.
Much easier to thread cables as Garmin provide thinner gauge than regular usb or most other dash cam providers. Worth it for that alone.
When you eventually get the app to work it’s a really nice and easy to use camera.
Fitted to an Astra K below the rear view mirror it hardly takes up any footprint and is hardly noticeable from outside viewing in.
I was a bit stuck for camera choice because the Astra K has a housing containing the collision avoidance camera bang in front of the rear view mirror which leaves no space for a conventional dash cam, even if you try to put it to the left or right of the housing it then fouls the sun visors and not wanting to draw any unwanted attention I went for this Garmin mini.
Ok waffle over, the app to connect to dash cam was a bit of a flaff to be honest, at first it would not connect for love nor money until I uninstalled the app and reinstalled it making sure blue tooth was on.
On this 2nd attempt I went out to the car and plugged it into the cigarette lighter via the supplied usb gadget so that my wifi in doors did not interfere and hey presto it worked after about 20-30 seconds and I was able to set up the camera via the app.
I would say if trying to set this up in doors initially then it may not work as it seems to have conflicts with the wifi and bluetooth fighting it out.
Video quality is good and the app once connected shows your recent journeys or incidents which you can crop and save to phone or for speed just pop the card out and use the pc or laptop as it’s faster.
Overall I’m happy with it now that it is working ok, app could connect quicker but I’ll take that hit as it serves me well.
I opted for this version as I preferred the physically smaller size which is much easier to hide away behind the rear view mirror. Less of a concern of it being stolen as it’s much less noticeable.
The lack of device screen isn’t a problem as the iPhone app connects pretty quickly to help align and preview footage.
Downloading footage can take some time but the app works seamlessly with the files and photos on the iPhone (unlike Nextbase which stores them in the Nextbase app first and then requires you to start copying them around).
The footage is actually very good in it’s highest resolution (1080p at 30 fps). Admittedly I was hunting for 60 fps but you can still clearly read road-signs, vehicle number plates in light and dark.
60 frames per second is better as it’s captures twice as many frames so appears smoother, it more commonly comes on the latest action cameras (1080p 60 fps or higher) but that’s because you need more image stabilisation and smoothing for things like body mounts, bicycle & motorbike mountings etc. A car typically travels more smoothly so 30fps is passable.
1440p is better still but it generates even larger files and will take longer to download, I’m not sure it’s actually worth it.
The lack of GPS feature didn’t stop me from buying it, it will be apparent from the footage where you are and roughly how fast you were travelling in case required as evidence.
The lack of internal battery to record wasn’t a dealstopper given the price, but it is a feature that would have been nice. You can hardwire it into the car, and this device probably uses less power than other devices, but I was more concerned about it flattening the vehicles battery.
The supplied cables by Garmin were better than the mounting and cables from Nextbase. For example the Garmin comes with a 4m USB cable which is about the perfect length from rear view mirror, down the window pillar, glove box and to a centre console/armrest USB port. You can also then choose to use a cigarette lighter charging adapter (supplied by Garmin) or not. Nextbase only includes a large cigarette lighter moulded onto the cable and USB ports are becoming more common place hence why I had to buy another cable for the Nextbase.
You can daisy chain two of the Garmin Dashbcam Mini’s together to have one camera pointing out the front and one point rearward. I’ve yet to try it but I have bought a second to install and the instructions seem fairly straight forward as is the app setup..
It’s the kind of device you install and forget (apart from the periodic re-formatting of SD card that all dash-cams need) therefore I’d recommend it.
* A ton of effort was put into the cam’s firmware and the accompanying Garmin Drive app (I use it on iOS); the app is *very* slick, reliable, and – notably – properly handles dodgy edge cases (when things don’t go to plan). I have one cam looking ahead of the car, and one looking behind, and picture-in-picture (i.e. the rear feed playing in-sync in a corner) exports work well, and ‘just work’. Sometimes, the device (iPhone / etc) will fail to connect to the cam’s Wi-Fi network, but always seems to work a second time– not ideal, but also not a deal breaker. As a software engineer, I’m pretty impressed. (Bravo, Garmin developers!)
* Camera image/video quality is good, as I’d expected from a Garmin product. Captures at night, in mostly darkness, look fairly grainy, but are adequate.
* I separately purchased 2 Garmin Parking Mode Cables, because I wanted the cams to be as unobtrusive / factory-fitted-looking as possible, and that meant wiring the cams into my car’s fuse box (rather than using the included USB cable and cigarette socket USB adapter), and hiding all cabling behind interior trim. This hardware setup has been reliable, and the Parking Mode software feature is really quite good— the app notifies you, once your device automatically connects to the cams when you’re inside the car, if any Parking Mode videos were recorded while you were away. You can choose whether visual movement, or physical impact, or both, trigger recording. I’ve yet to have any actual impacts recorded (thankfully); just false positives, I assume due to wind. Parking Mode got an update since I originally purchased (and reviewed), which made it way better— it was originally quite useless, as it would always trigger when visual motion was detected, which was continuously.
* Video export via the Drive app seems to happen at almost real-time speed; a 30 second video might take 30 seconds to export. Fine, but something to bear in mind if exporting longer clips.