Customer Ratings & Reviews

I'm now on my 5th dashcam. Several of my previous dashcams went with the car when it was sold. In any case my first dashcam had a 640x320 sensor (it was impossible to read license plates on the video), but that was over 15 years ago. Oh, my how the quality of cameras has changed. About 8 years ago I had a Nextbase front/rear camera. So I'm familiar with the brand. My current/last dashcam (not a Nextbase) still operated, but it stopped writing (reliably) to its SD card. I was anxious to see what Nextbase's new "piqo" product offered. The biggest hassle of installing a dashcam is getting cables installed and hidden. I certainly wish auto manufactures would put a USB power output adjacent to the Mirror, it would simplify so much. First I installed the Nextbase app on my iPhone. Then I installed the 32Gb micro SD card in the "piqo" (it supports up to a 256Gb micro SD card). Before moving to my car I connected the 'piqo's" USB cable to a USB power source. The 'pico' initially uses BT for the initial connection then uses a private WiFi network to display LiveView video to your phone. Here you want to have your phone in landscape orientation. Set up went smoothly, you need to accept the BT code displayed before moving on. The video "piqo" captures has a 145 degree field of view. So I removed the old cable and installed the "piqo's" cable with the crevice tool provided. The cable has about 2' of additional unused length (tucked behind the dash with twist tie). I plugged the camera into a power brick so that I could use LiveView to tell where the camera was pointing when I mounted it. The included wet and dry swabs ensure it's done cleanly. By using LiveView I could make sure that the "piqo" had a clear view out the front window, without viewing the electronics dome behind my "smart mirror". I then removed the red protective cover over the adhesive that holds the camera to the electronics dome. The camera is very light and small (no rear display), with a single button on the back (displays red, blue, amber and green). The dashcam has a clip that allows it to be quickly removed. The dashcam offers either 1K (1080p) or 2K (1440p) resolution. I captured both, and either looked very good. But the 2K output allowed me to zoom in and see the detail of license plates much further ahead. It also looked better at dusk/night. Night view is captured in high res B/W but it requires very little light. But it takes up nearly twice the space. So if you want to keep larger quantities of video the 1k output might suffice. For now I left it 2k. The library feature shows you a single frame about once a minute. It optionally shows your speed with the time stamp. You can use their app to download videos from the dashcam to your phone, or you can remove the SD card and view it on your computer. On my phone it looked great, but once I moved the video to my computer's larger screen the true quality became much more apparent. Fine details, absent any motion trails, were viewable in each frame. Quite remarkable vs what I'm accustomed to. Most excellent quality. A couple of other features are available. Emergency SOS, where if you're in an accident the "piqo" can send for emergency services (via your paired cell phone) including GPS based location. Witness Mode Light, where via a voice command you can send audio/video to up to 4 different registered numbers or lock a video file so that it can't be deleted. Smart Parking ("piqo" must have 24/7 power) to notify you if the vehicle is hit or moves when it's parked. And Guardian Mode Lite, where the unit can notify you if the car exceeds set speed limits or drives outside a predefined geofence definition (GPS). Related to these are Incident saving, where based on motion detection video footage is marked as significant (easy to find after an accident). With a Nextbase Protect subscription up to 180 days of cloud storage can be stored, and Emergency SOS is enabled. Overall I'm quite impressed by the quality of the video captured. I don't plan to use the smart parking or the emergency SOS (as my phone has a similar functionality. The witness mode is interesting but I can't see using it very often. If I ever lent my car to a friend, the Guardian mode might be useful, but I've not done this for many years. I doubt I'll ever upload video to their server. But the basic functionality of the LiveView is very well executed. The Library functionality allows you to move throughout history reasonably well. With a 256Gb SD card it still might be cumbersome. I think I'd like to have dated "trips" (On/Off) at a higher level. Something other dashcams offered, but it's not that big of deal, as I so rarely review past information. Having a minute by minute indicator is sufficient.

After some time reviewing what I expected to be a fairly easy to use dash camera. I was left feeling a bit like this product could use some improvement. Upon unboxing, it is simple enough to setup. It comes with everything you could want to mount to your windshield, route the cables down, to plug and play. It's strange that there are two Nextbase apps but the one for this Piqo has a great user interface. That's where functionality wise, I started to notice that it took a few attempts to find in order to connect via it's wifi feature. It is painful wanting to get into the camera via the main access (phone) that is most commonly used. No one wants to have to remove the included micro SD card and connect to your computer in order to backup your footage. Having easy access via your phone is how it should be, so I hope that they have a few updates in the pipeline to fix connectivity. When connected, the safety features alone give me a piece of mind when my family is out on the road. Daytime and nighttime recorded footage is great. Easy to identify objects down the road and license plates are visible enough. 2k video recording has its plus.

I've had my Piqo camera for a few months now and have thoroughly tested its capabilities. Installation is very easy with the included accessories, and I even had a local Best Buy complete the setup in a couple of hours using the Nextbase Pro install kit to take advantage of the vehicle monitoring features. What I really enjoy is its small footprint combined with an abundance of features for the price. The video quality is excellent, including impressive low-light and night-time imaging.

Pros: Video quality is good Portable in size Cons: Recorded footage size very very large in size Couple of minutes footage has hundreds of MB size Difficulty to understand whether it starts recording or not No screen Hassle to get it paired with application Firmware update takes so long

Installed nicely with very easy to follow app instructions. Unfortunately, when I sent an email to the “contact us” place regarding the drain on the battery while the vehicle was parked and unused, I was told “no worries- it automatically disconnects to prevent this. Then proceeded to notice the battery was dead and had to get somebody out to jump it. I then disconnected from the port but the device would not reconnect without going through the whole process again, defeating the purpose of an easily usable product for me.

I used an older, larger dash cam in my car for years. It had a nice compact display, captured all your footage to an SD Card and you could see it in fast real time on the display at all times just by glancing in its direction. After 7+ years of faithful service, it finally stopped working so I figured I would get another but maybe go for something a bit smaller and less obtrusive along with newer features and abilities so I selected the Nextbase Piqo. It arrived in a very compact and small box which makes sense considering its touted form factor. Inside, you have the unit itself, a very generous length USB-C to USB-C cable, a cigarette light adapter, a micro SD card and a few other items. It seems to have ok build quality, but for the price I was honestly expecting a bit more. To use it in any real, meaningful capacity, the NextBase app is required. You are given a QR code to download it. The app must be fairly new as it had no reviews at the time of this review creation. You then insert the provided micro SD card which appears to be ~32GB and will most likely fill up pretty quickly but it makes for a nice starter card. After download, basic account setup gets you going, plug in your Piqo and you will need to enable Bluetooth on your phone to pair it properly and once paired a firmware download is required. For myself, it was 28.2. During installation the led ring will turn yellow. After update, you are ready to continue. To actually connect to your phone, it uses wifi not bluetooth during use for streaming. Everytime you try to go "live" it will ask to create a local wifi network between your Piqo and phone. This means any other existing wifi network you're connected to will be disconnected and it must be connected to your phone which will then resort back to 5G/LTE for data. From here, you go through the basic setup steps to get it up and running and this is where all types of problems began. When given power, it powers on. When power is cut, it powers off. It has no rechargeable battery and must be powered all the time. During setup, it wouldn't even provide with a live display to properly align and mount test before actually installing it on my car to mount. It routinely lost its wifi signal (red ring) and I had to keep reconnecting. When connected, it did not provide a picture 90% of the time (1 out of 10 times I actually got a picture) When it actually established a connection with picture, the 1440p signal was not good and very laggy. I'm used to my old dashcam where it was all integrated together and the picture was instantaneous and fluid. Looking at my phone, I would turn the dashcam, and a second later it would jump to whatever I was now looking at. Even during my limited usage with it, the unit got warm pretty quick. I am hoping there is another firmware/software update, because the intermittent connection on my iPhone with IOS 18 was pretty bad. I wish the mounting mechanism had a quick disconnect ability to pop it off and on quickly when out of the car for security/safety reasons. My old dashcam I just lifted and pulled up and it popped right off to not give an easy target for thieves. Lastly, some of the app functionality requires a subscription and payment method. This isn't a deal breaker, but must be noted. I do not think the iPhone as a display is going to work for me for monitoring nor am I a fan of the lack of a battery, lack of a quick disconnect and slow/laggy wifi picture requirements. Right now, it seems best served as a very basic dashcam blindly recording to the micro sd card and popping it out after finished. I think I am going to go back to a proper all in one unit with more functionality in the actual dashcam itself and less reliance on a smartphone.

The NextBase Piqo is part of Nextbase’s latest line of dashcams which I would lable as smart dashcams. I understand there are three variants of this line namely the full hd version, the 2k version and the 4k version. All function pretty much the same save for the resolution. The model I am reviewing is the 2k version. Inside the box one can find the Piqo cam. Do note that the Piqo does not have a built-in screen. (More on that later) A USB C cable and dual car charger so you can also charge your phone will using the dashcam, an extra mounting plate, a cable pusher, cleaning cloths and safety stickers. And my unit also came in with a 32GB micro-sd card which is handy so that I wont buy an SD card anymore. However, I am not sure if the bundled SD card is standard or just a promotion considering the product is new. Setup is easy. The inner box has QR codes to help you do the initial tasks which includes the downloading of the app and physically the dashcam. It’s really so simple. Mount the dashcam, insert the SD card, connect the cord to your charger and start the car. And like most dashcams, there is an optional kit available if you want to have it hardwired to your car. But that may need professional installation and may cost more than your dashcam. For me, it’s simply not worth it. Upon doing the initial physical setup, the app will ask you to connect via Bluetooth. And in some cases, the app may further prompt you to a firmware upgrade immediately. My unit underwent a firmware upgrade immediately though you can always do a manual update. From thereon you can already enjoy the benefits of the Piqo dashcam. The Piqo offers nifty features both paid and free in the such as high clarity (obvious), an emergency SOS, smart parking meaning it will start recording when there is bump in your but this is a common feature nowadays. You can also download videos to your phone via direct wi-fi. Now here is my complaint with the Piqo, while on paper it is great I cannot get a live video feed from the Piqo using the app. As mentioned I’ve already updated the firmware but to no avail. And since it is new, support is still minimal. But perhaps there are compatibility problems with iOS. I have recently updated my phone to iOS 18. Who knows? Stange thing though is that it can record videos. And I can view them through the app. Whatever the cause it, it is not yet ready for prime time. That in mind, I would recommend that you wait for further firmware updates so that this issue can be fixed.

Works great! With how the world is going and all the crazy traffic incidents this is perfect to have! App is a bit slow when connecting to it but other than that works great video is clear and crisp.

This dashcam is as basic and user friendly as it can get. Most require hardwiring to the fuse box but this dashcam is very easy to set up as long as you have a USB-C or cigarette lighter (my newer car does not. I know weird). The app took some time getting used to but once I figured it out, it was very easy to manage. Highly recommend.

Easy to set up. Functions great so far, simple app. Has limitations, but works great for what it is

I ordered this Piqo from Best Buy and the hardwire kit directly from Nextbase. I installed the camera on my own with hardwire kit - took 2 or so hours. HW kit is about 1 meter in length and wire that came with dash cam was able to reach behind rear seat where our fuse box lies (MB GLE400). Challenge #1 - HW kit from fuse box only works when battery voltage is > 11.6V. With our car ignition on we are right at that level so camera does NOT work. I have to start the car to get it working. Keep that in mind if you use the hardwire kit. I think same thing applies to the cig lighter adapter to USB-C as that did not work at all for me when testing (battery voltage ~ 11.6 - 11.7V and probably too low). Challenge #2 - Got everything paired up and then later on could not pair back to the camera. Really weird. I had to delete camera bluetooth setting and then reinstall the app. Got it working again. I needed help from Nextbase to get past this. Challenge #3 - This is the biggest issue and why 2 stars. Maybe it will be solved but right now the camera does not work properly. It does NOT record all the videos. It might record for 1-3 minutes and then has a gap, maybe 7-8 minutes, then records again, and so on. I've tried 2 different SD cards with no luck. Updated FW when I got the camera. Could it be a low voltage to the camera? Maybe, but when the car is on I don't expect any interruptions (voltage will be much higher). I think our unit has some underlying defect and maybe rebooting/glitching out internally. Just something to be aware of. I really like the compact size, hardwire kit, cables and fact that it comes with SD card. Great package, unfortunately it doesn't work well. If I can't get resolved in next couple of weeks, I'll likely trash this and buy a Garmin Mini 3 or similar. I can't return since I'm unwilling to redo/remove the wiring installed. If I'm able, I'll do a follow up on any resolution or transition to new product.

Loses connection frequently I have a Acura 2025 and you need to take it off CarPlay in order to see video. I just have it for an emergency just in case, but the fact of the matter is, it’s very difficult and loses connection constantly the Wi-Fi disconnect constantly. I believe there is certain type of interference with my type of vehicle.

small yet great, easy to install yourself following instructions

No internal battery. Good camera. Good software. Stays put. No battery to get ruined in the geat!

I found out they no longer had an installer after picking up. But it turned out to be a pretty easy DIY. It works as advertised and was a good purchase.

Small, easy to move around between vehicles. Used for a rental car, resolution was good enough for the limited usage.

This camera was easy to set up and easy to use. It is small and convenient

This is a great dash cam I’m so thankful I had it because it recorded an accident that happened that was not my fault and that helped my case to go through. It was actually a manhole cover that took out my car who knew but it feels good to have a reliable dashcam in your car because you just never know and the value was really good too. It was easy to put up. I give it an excellent rating. If you want the features where you can watch it in your car like real time, this one doesn’t have it, but that’s really just to me a distraction. You can view the film after so that’s cool and if there is an accident this dash cam will keep that recording.

Did a lot of research before getting this. Worth every penny. Easy to install and use. Make sure you’re not hooked up to car play when installing it or updates and videos won’t download. Video quality is great.

Camera works great, no complaints so far! Super easy to use