Thursday, May 2

    Amazon accounts for over 50% of all e-commerce in the United States [source] and with that comes a whole lot of deliveries.

    During COVID, world shopping quickly went “online”. We can have food, other groceries, and everything else under the sun delivered directly to our doors nowadays, but that means someone has to bring it to us.

    Even if Amazon does eventually nail down their drone delivery service, long-haul truck drivers and delivery drivers will still be a needed workforce in this apparent digital online ordering world.

    With more delivery drivers on the road, companies and normal drivers may want to look to protect their vehicle or asset and that’s where BlackVue offers a solution to help.

    The DR900X-2CH DMS Plus is an AI-Powered dash camera that records the driving world in front of your car as well as yourself. Using AI, an internal camera can certainly say a lot about you. Let’s find out what exactly it has to offer.

    Welcome to my review of the BlackVue DR900X-2CH DMS Plus dash camera.

    Design

    I have reviewed virtually every BlackVue camera ever offered here at Qwerty Articles and the old motto of “if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it” truly applies to the general design of BlackVue cameras.

    The DR900X captures the iconic all-black cylinder camera shape that is unique to BlackVue dash cameras. This all-plastic tubular body makes for a stealthy, yet elegant design that I’ve come to love about BlackVue dash cameras.

    Taking a tour of the body on the DR900X, the front meshed section contains the off-centered camera and has a togglable security recording LED. Then on one end of our tube-shaped dash camera is a proximity touch sensor to enable voice or WiFi capabilities whereas the other end contains the DC power-in, rear camera hookup, physical WiFi button, microSD card slot, and a microUSB camera for the aforementioned AI-camera.

    The rear side of the camera offers a silver band that contains status LEDs for Recording, GPS, and Bluetooth/Wifi/Cloud status. Alongside the LEDs is a speaker to either communicate to the driver or to indicate recording modes.

    To mount on the windshield of your car or truck, the DR900X uses the standard BlackVue bracketing system which allows the camera to slide into a push-button release locking mount. The mount also has multiple ribs for adjusting the camera’s angle.

    Next, the party trick of the DR900X DMS Plus is the secondary internal camera. This AI-powered camera monitors inside the vehicle including also watching over the driver. A great feature for kids, employees, or rental cars.

    The windshield or front dash mountable camera is a rather large rectangular design with four IR LEDs for night vision and a large Sony AI-powered camera sensor, again, off-centered.

    I quite like BlackVue’s sleek and clean design and I personally found it to be basically invisible if mounted high up on the windshield. Few even noticed it there.

    Finally, the DR900X comes with all of the standard BlackVue equipment, such as mounting clips, wiring cables, and accessories. Including a microSD card for instant configuration and setup or you can use your own microSD card up to 256GB.

    Functionality

    If you’ve ever read another one of my BlackVue reviews or have ever used a BlackVue camera, the functionality of the DR900X-2CH is fundamentally the same.

    The dash camera uses a BlackVue staple, the Sony STARVIS 8MP camera sensor with its excellent night vision and clear detailed 4K video capture at 30FPS. The AI-powered camera is a Sony STARVIS sensor at 2.1MP.

    With an optional LTE Cloud module, the DR900X can be connected wirelessly through the 4G cell phone network and controlled via the iOS or Android BlackVue app and users get all of the access they would as if they were connected to the camera’s local WiFi network.

    Moving on to the interesting part of the DR900X-2CH DMS Plus is the included AI-powered interior camera.

    This camera is meant for truck or company owners who wish to watch over their drivers to protect their vehicle or tools from theft. Using AI, the camera can notify the owner if it detects interior motion, drowsiness, or distracted drivers.

    There are plenty of company cars I see on the road that say “Call this number to say how I’m driving”, but they take the honor system of the person calling. With the DR900X-2CH, an owner could look in real-time (with the LTE module) or check recordings and actively see if the AI camera detects poor driving habits of their drivers.

    Within the Android or iOS BlackVue app, the AI-DMS portion of the camera outputs and saves driver and vehicle statistics in a chart or graph format. From here, vehicle owners can check for problematic or unsafe driving habits based on the results from the dash camera.

    Paired with BlackVue’s Black Magic battery packs, the DR900X-2CH can run for hours or even days even when the car is powered off. Owners can check-in on their vehicle at any time and promote a safe driving practice for their drivers.

    In the end, the DR900X-2CH is an excellent and well-performing camera. It brings quality, stability, and effortlessness right to the vehicle owner and allows them to add much-needed protection to their vehicle’s safety by watching over the drivers, interior, and front of the car.

    My Final Thoughts

    Much like insurance for the vehicle, a dash camera isn’t something anyone needs until they actually need it. In today’s world, everything is digital and having video evidence for a police report or court case is almost a sure path to victory.

    Priced at $589.99 for the standard 32GB configuration, the DR900X-2CH DMS Plus isn’t for every vehicle owner and marketed more towards those who need to monitor their drivers and their vehicles’ interiors. A feature that not even Telsas have!

    BlackVue offers additional accessories to the DR900X-2CH, from adding a third camera, LTE module, and always-on battery kits, it makes the DR900X is one of the most powerful dash cameras BlackVue has to offer today and one of the most versatile. It’s a great dash camera from a great company and I couldn’t recommend it enough if it fits your use case.

    © 2022 Justin Vendette

    2 Comments