Rove R2-4K dash cam review: Good captures, GPS, and an app

Price When Reviewed

$129.99

Best Prices Today: Rove R2-4K

I’ve reviewed an entire lot of sprint cams, however Rove is new to me. Nice to satisfy you! The firm’s R2-4K Pro sprint cam sports activities a sturdy characteristic set, together with telephone connectivity, in addition to good captures.

Further studying: See our roundup of the best dash cams to study competing merchandise.

What are the Rove R2-4K’s options?

The Rove R2-4K is a single-channel sprint cam able to 2160P captures. It’s black and about common in dimension at 2.91-inches huge, by 2.35-inches tall, by 1.43-inches thick on the lens physique.

The R2-4K ships with a vacuum mount that’s adjustable proper/left and vertically, however you’ll want pay a little bit of consideration to the rotational angle. Placing the suction-breaking pull tab at round 11 o’clock will get you fairly shut. This is true of most suction mounts. Once you might have it set, the digicam simply detaches from the mount.

On the again of the Rove R2-4K is a 2.4-inch colour show, with 5 buttons under it for navigation: Menu, up/mute, emergency lock/Wi-Fi, down/LCD off, and OK. On the fitting is the Type-C energy jack, whereas on the left are the MicroSD card slot and energy button.

The energy to stated Type-C jack comes from the auxiliary connector. Rove provides an auxiliary adapter with a single Type-A port

On prime of the digicam are the TV/video-out and GPS module. Yes, there’s built-in GPS and it connects in a short time — not like some. Note that the time zone and time have to be set manually regardless.

Rove in fact gives an app to attach through the Wi-Fi. The app provides a dwell view and permits you to alter the reasonably copious variety of settings. You may even swap between h.264 and h.265 video (space-saving). The onscreen interface is properly rendered, and logically laid out.

As with all sprint cams, I like to recommend that you simply spend a couple of minutes with the interface earlier than you begin driving. That method, you could find the button or setting you want earlier than the sunshine turns inexperienced and everybody behind you begins honking. Just sayin’.

What I didn’t look after with the R2-4K is that you should create a Rove account to make use of the app. No one needs to be pressured on-line with a purpose to use certainly one of a product’s principal options. Of course, you may configure the sprint cam utilizing the show, however… Note that Rove will not be the one vendor that does this, although that doesn’t make it any simpler to swallow.

How a lot does the Rove R2-4K price?

On Rove’s web site, the R2-4K is available for $129.99, marked down from a said MSRP of $199.99. It appears unlikely the product will ever precise retail for that increased value, since Amazon has the R2-4K at present listed at $119.99, and marked down to $79.99. That’s a fairly darn good discount.

How are the Rove R2-4K’s captures?

I assumed the Rove R2-4K would default to 2160p (4K UHD), however as an alternative it got here set to 2K (1440p), so my preliminary testing was at that lesser decision. I suppose that is to avoid wasting area. Oddly, although, the 2K was set to h.264 compression, whereas the 4K I reset it to for additional testing (that’s what it’s billed as, in any case!) defaulted to HEVC/h.265.

As a end result, there was solely a distinction of about 30MB per minute (225MB/h.264/1440p, 250MB/h.265/2160p). This would make h.265 appear to be a no brainer. It’s in relation to saving storage, nonetheless, that h.265 playback additionally requires extra processing energy. Not all CPUs provide h.265 acceleration and in consequence, h.265 playback on some low-power and older gadgets will be jerky.

The R2-4K’s captures at 4K are fairly good, whereas the 2K captures are middling at finest and suffered some minor stabilization points. As you may see under, the daytime captures are greater than satisfactory, although I’d prefer to see only a bit sharper element.

Night captures aren’t fairly nearly as good. Overall element is sweet, however trivia is misplaced on shiny surfaces when headlights hit them (see under). This might be a key issue within the case of a nighttime accident. Note that the streaking you see is essentially attributable to my windshield, although I did clear it beforehand. Apparently, simply not effectively sufficient!

The R2–4K makes use of a supercapacitor that may energy the sprint cam for a few seconds as soon as principal energy is eliminated. This will save the present file, however not seize subsequent occasions. Note, nonetheless, that tremendous capacitors are good for a lot extra cycles than batteries and carry out higher in chilly climates.

Overall, the R2-4K’s captures are greater than enough through the day, and workable, if not optimum, at evening. In the darkish, you’ll get the massive image, however maybe not the license plate quantity.

Should you purchase the Rove R2-4K?

At $100 or much less (on sale) with GPS, the Rove R2-4K is a really fetching proposition. At $130, there’s a bit extra competitors, however we’d nonetheless put it on the brief checklist.