What’s nice about getting a BlackVue is that once you’ve installed it, you can generally pretty much forget about it. The dashcam will do its thing–record–while you can focus on driving.

However, for those interested, BlackVue dashcams offer ways to customize your experience.

In fact, we recommend to at least go over the essential settings listed below, even if you do not care much for customization. 

Let’s go over them one by one.

First things first, you should check the following settings imperatively, no matter what dashcam model you purchased.

That one applies to every user and model. Obviously, you don’t want to get into an accident only to realize that the date or time in the video overlay was wrong. By default, the dashcam will sync with the GPS time (if available). However, you might still have to change the time zone.

Why don’t time zone settings change automatically, you ask? The reason is that video files are named based on their time of recording. That means if time zones suddenly changed as you drove, things could get messy as new videos could be named like older ones. Also, if you commuted everyday between two time zones, you’d probably want all videos to stick to a single time zone anyway.

 

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > Basic > Time.

BlackVue dashcams that have a built-in or external GPS can overlay the speed at the bottom of your videos.

Depending on where you live or where you bought your dashcam, you might want to change the speed unit to suit your preference.

If you’d rather not embed speed data in the video overlay (GPS data will still be recorded), choose “Display Off”.

 

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > Basic > Recording > Speed unit

The following settings are not as essential but still worth giving some thought. Some of them are universal and others are model-specific.

You can set your dashcam to protect 50 Event files. In other words, you can avoid Event videos getting written over as the dashcam starts a new loop when the microSD card is full. 

Additionally, you can choose whether the camera will keep those first 50 Events and lock them indefinitely or just keep the last 50 Events (we recommend to do the latter by activating “” as well if you choose to lock Event files). 

We recommend you use this feature only with 32GB or higher capacity microSD cards, as 16GB microSD cards will be almost full with the Event files alone (especially with dual channel dashcams as it will save a total of 100 videos).

 

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > Basic > Recording > Lock event files

Depending on your dashcam model, you can choose between up to two different options for Parking Mode: Motion+Impact detection (the “classic” mode) and Time lapse+Impact videos. 

For more info on these two modes,  visit our Parking Mode page. 

 

You can also deactivate Parking Mode altogether, in which case the dashcam will keep recording in Normal (driving) mode as long as it is powered. 

 

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > Basic > Recording > Parking Mode recording > Off, Motion & Impact detection, Time lapse

Do you want to install the front camera with the cables facing the opposite way? Or did you mistakenly install the rear camera the wrong way? You can set things right with this option without reinstalling the cameras!

 

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > Basic > Recording > Front camera rotation > On/Off

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > Basic > Recording > Rear camera orientation > Default, Rotate video 180°, Mirror video

It should not be much of an issue for most DR900S users but if your computer or your mobile has a hard time decoding (reading) 4K videos encoded in H.265 format, you can change this to the more universally supported H.264 format. Also, for faster video playback over Wi-Fi or the Cloud, choose Quick Play file rather than Original.

 

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > Basic > Video > Video Codec

Some users want everyone to know there’s a dashcam active in their car. Others want their dashcam to operate as stealthily as possible. BlackVue understands both philosophies and gives users options accordingly. You can let all LEDs on in both front and rear cameras or go dark all the way. These settings may change slightly between models but the path to access them is the same. 

 

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > System > LED > Recording status, Front Security (Normal mode), Front Security (Parking Mode), Rear Security, Wi-Fi (Parking mode)

By default, the proximity sensor on the side of the dashcam (the side with the Wi-Fi LED) allows you to toggle audio recording on/off by waving your hand in front of it. However, you could set it to trigger Manual Event recording instead. Manual Events include the 5 seconds of video before the trigger.

 

Go to Camera settings > Firmware settings > System > Proximity sensor > Off, Voice recording on/off, Manual recording

 

When your phone connects to your Wi-Fi-enabled dashcam, it can lose Internet connectivity.

Meanwhile, you probably don’t need to be always connected to your dashcam while you drive. Chances are you might just need to connect to it to browse recorded videos or change settings from time to time. However, when you add a new Wi-Fi network to your phone, it will always try to connect to it whenever you have Wi-Fi activated on your phone. For this reason, we recommend deactivating the Auto-join (iOS) or Auto-connect / Auto-reconnect (Android) feature on your phone for your BlackVue.

While the BlackVue is powered on, go to your phone’s Wi-Fi settings and select the BlackVue in the network list. On iOS, tap the ℹ icon on the right or if you are already connected to the dashcam, tap the network name again to bring up the network detailed info screen. In there, locate “Auto-join” and turn it off (on by default).