The review is misleading - don’t be fooled into wasting your money
The reviews are not accurate.
I have posted corrections in the past but they get removed.
For example, it has a really misleading guide:
“ How To Set Up A Dash Cam In The BMW i3
So you want to set up a dash cam, but like me, you definitely don't want to use the car's battery to power it. Most dash cams use the cigarette lighter socket, but if you do that, the drain on the battery registers on the range-o-meter as 1 mile less every 5 miles driven. Ouch.“
TOTAL RUBBISH
This is very misleading. There is no way a dash cam can consume 20% of the car battery (1 mile per 5 miles). The cigar lighter socket can't possibly supply that kind of current.
You should update your incorrect advice.
People will buy expensive battery units based on this nonsense. Just by coincidence, the site has links for you to buy just such expensive power supplies for dashcams. It’s disgraceful.
I have a dash cam permanently connected and it has no impact on range at all. The camera stays on for 15 minutes after the car is locked. That also has no impact. The amount of power used is tiny compared to the energy stored in the high voltage battery.
Update
I have calculated that if you carry a battery pack like the ones this person is promoting, just carrying the mass of the battery will use more power and reduce range than the energy it can store.
So if you were banboozled into buying a battery pack, take it out of you car now and stop reducing your range!
Reply from i3Guide
Dear R Black,
I'm really sorry you weren't able to get through to me on the times you tried. This particular website page was written in 2014 and had been overlooked until now, and the Comments section had stopped working too. I was not ignoring your post. Please forgive me for this oversight.
I'm glad you expressed your concern about the dashcam. It was very much a trial and error process at the time it was written, as I was very new to the vehicle. I found that running a separate power supply to the camera meant I could run the camera for hours while the car was turned off.
I have updated the content on this page now. And again I am very sorry that you thought I was ignoring this. Thank you for reaching out to me. I'm happy to be corrected on technical matters; I'm always learning from my experiences.
Very best wishes,
i3Guide blog
