Thanks for the information. It has convinced me.
Although I’m sure that operating my Mobius for a few days on batteries will be safe, but when I receive the capacitors (hopefully in the next two or three days) I’ll substitute them for the batteries.
We have no intention of using the camera outside of the car anyway.
Remember JBR that you’ll be invalidating the warranty by installing the capacitors but the job should be very easy. Plenty of step by step instructions with pictures on the mobius sites.
Just had an incident going into a very narrow car park slot.
Chap next to me claimed that I had touched his door paint.
Then remembered that the in car camera might show something.
Although it cannot look sideways, I can see the other driver’s wing mirror and this shows no sign of a bump reaction (ie wobbling when hit).
Trouble is, I’d forgotten to change the camera to show my new car’s number plate instead of my old one!
A timely lesson - it’s only legally useful if all the facts, like speeds, time, registration plate, are shown correctly!
Are you sure? I asked the seller about this and was told it doesn’t invalidate the warranty.
Even so, if I wanted it repaired under warranty, I’d just swap the battery back in.
Yep pretty sure. To open the camera you would break the small white round seal sticker on the front.
Retailers will supply the cameras with capacitors pre-fitted if you ask them. I presume they have a supply of the stickers.
It’s true that there is a sticker. However, I have just been in contact with the seller, Car Camera Shop.co.uk, and they assure me that it would not invalidate the warranty:
“Hi John, using the capacitors will not invalidate the warranty of the Mobius camera. It’s something the manufacturer actually suggests using.”
The warranty is with Mobius not with your retailer (carcamerashop) so it’s something to check with the manufacturer. That said I can’t find warranty terms on their website. A different retailer (hobbyrc.co.uk) states this:
"PLEASE NOTE:
Since this product requires you to open your Mobius ActionCam, invalidating its warranty, we cannot be held responsible for any damage caused in the process."
http://www.hobbyrc.co.uk/mobius-actioncam-super-capacitor-battery-replacement
Overall though I believe you’ll be ok.
Fair enough.
I suppose that one option would be to leave the battery in there. If the thing is still working after one year, replace the battery with the capacitors.
If the thing explodes before one year is up, claim a replacement under warranty…
…and the damage to the car! 
Actually I have read since that the warranty is just 6 months. Batteries are not covered.
The problem with leaving it for a year is that the heat from the batteries could fry other components on the board.
I can well believe that.
We have just driven, in my wife’s car using her new dashcam, for an overall distance of about 80 miles. The heat sink on the camera was hot!
When I receive them, the capacitors will be installed.
As for a ‘6 month’ warranty, sure that contravenes our consumer rights which, if I am correct, state a minimum of 12 months and, in fact, much longer depending upon the type of appliance/object concerned.
Received the capacitors today. They had sent them separately using Royal Snail and they never arrived, so on Tuesday afternoon I let them know. They apologised and said they’d send some more by UKMail. They arrived this morning.
Having replaced the battery with the capacitors, I tried out the camera and it wouldn’t record automatically, as it had with the battery. It would record when I pressed the ‘on’ button, though, although the recording had the wrong date now. Not being sure of how to adjust the software, I contacted CarCameraShop.co.uk via their online chat facility.
I was very impressed. There seems to be somebody there at all times (I have contacted them before and always get through straight away), which is more than can be said for some other companies. The expert explained exactly what to do, and provided a link to a setup software site. The camera now works exactly as intended: recording starts when the ignition is turned on and stops when it is turned off. The date is now correct too!
I haven’t used it on a long run yet, but I expect that using capacitors the camera will not become ‘red hot’ (I exaggerate!) as it did with the battery. I realise the cause of this is that being charged and used to power the camera at the same time results in overheating, which is why if used as a dashcam it should be used with capacitors and not the battery.
I have, nevertheless, kept the battery in case we should want to use the camera as an ‘action camera’ some time in the future.
I’d recommend the camera, and certainly the supplier because of their excellent customer support.
If you begin to experience trouble with the recordings it may be down to the transfer rate of the video onto the memory card. When I got my MAISI model camera it kept stopping mid recording so I had to reset it every so often. A quick email to where I got it from and they suggested changing the card to a higher rated transfer type which I duly did. It made no difference so I thought it might be something I’d have to put up with.
Anyhow, long story short. I went on a forum and found that a few other users were having the same problem (it also happened on a YouTube review 
). Someone mentioned that my particular brand of camera didn’t work with SanDisk cards so I splashed out on a Samsung card. No problems since.
Sorry JBR I didn’t realise that you were unaware of the camera configuration software that is required to configure all the various settings. Camera is pretty useless without that !!
That software and the settings are used whether you have batteries or capacitors. You adjust some of the settings if you use capacitors of course. I’m still using batteries at the moment because we were going to change cars and I wanted to save the capacitors until I can buy more of the cameras.
I have it configured to auto record when power is detected and auto shut off after 10secs of no power.
I have configured Mode 1 to be the normal DAY recording mode.
I have configured Mode 2 to be the NIGHT time recording mode and have chosen the various settings available to optimise the camera for low light.
Capacitor Usage
An important note.
When you are using capacitors you HAVE to configure the shut down period to be IMMEDIATE.
If you don’t you will find that the last segment of video does not get saved to the memory card. This is because the capacitor, without charge, can only power the device for a second or two.
Do some tests to make sure this works ok.
Thanks Realist.
Actually, I was aware of the configurations setting software, in fact I think you might have posted a link earlier.
What I wasn’t sure about was which settings to choose. The chap to whom I chatted online did actually point out the importance of setting the shut down period to IMMEDIATE when using capacitors.
The number of variations available in that software is impressive, no doubt about that. I’m sure that no other dashcams can offer such a variety of options.
Interesting that you have configured Mode 2 for night time use, and conveniently selectable as you only need to press the MODE button to do so.
I’d be interested to try that. Could you let me know which of the settings I should change in Mode 2 for use at night?
Sure.
My settings are as follows:
Basic
Power On Default - Video Mode 1 (Day Mode)
Power On Auto Record - External Only
Power Off Disconnect - 10 secs (since I use batteries)
Mode 1 - Day Mode
MOV
Audio - Off
Time Stamp - On
Loop recording - On
Data Rate - Standard
Video Clip Length - 3 min
Wide Dynamic Range - Off
Field of View - Narrow
Resolution - 1920 x 1080
Frame Rate - 30fps
Mode 2 - Night Mode
As Mode 1 except
Wide Dynamic Range - Low Light
The resolution and frame rate choices result in the video being stored as multiple 3min clips with each clip being approx. 330MB in size.
I use a 64GB memory card so that means I get over 200 such files before the camera starts looping and overwriting.
200 files of 3min each equates to 600mins or 10 hours of recording.
This is an important thing to factor because if you have a smaller card you might start overwriting footage from the same car trip if it was a trip of 3-4 hours.
Whenever I manually use the camera to take still photos, I make sure I offload them to the computer as soon as possible and delete them from the camera so that they don’t take up the memory card space.
I bought 2 of these cameras which I think is the minimum worth having. Keep both fully charged at all times.
I use one camera as the forward facing dashcam.
The other I keep with me in my coat pocket for any eventuality.
When someone ran into the back of my car a couple of months ago, I was able to quickly jump out with that second camera and record the road conditions, the driver of the other car, did a complete walk around of his car and the same of my car.
Having this second camera for that purpose is invaluable as drivers will often give false details at an accident. Of course you should note that you need BATTERIES in that second camera to be able to do this.
I actually intend to get a total of 4 cameras. I will fit 2 cameras with capacitors and fix them permanently into the car as dashcams, one facing forward and one for the rear.
The other 2 will have batteries. One will stay with the car to be used in any incident. The other I will walk around with to take video and photos of anything that takes my fancy.
That’s great. Thanks very much.
My wife’s at work at the moment with the camera in the car, but I’ll have a look at it when she gets home.
Does the ‘Low Light’ setting make a lot of difference at night?
Yep you need it really. I experimented with the middle option but low light was best. Whichever you choose you will always suffer from the glare of on-coming headlights but otherwise it’s good footage.
Sorry to bother you again, Realist, but when I press the MODE button (whilst recording) I assume that protects the current recording from future deletion.
If I want to change from Mode 1 to Mode 2 whilst recording, I assume there must be another way of achieving this.
Turning the camera off temporarily and pressing the MODE button doesn’t seem to achieve anything.
Is this done, therefore, by holding the MODE button for longer (whilst recording) or something to do with the EXPOSURE button? The instructions don’t make that too clear.
Simply stop the recording first which you do by pressing the “Shutter” button, the top button.
That will stop the recording light flashing.
Then press the “Mode” button (middle button) and the light will turn blue indicating you are in Video Mode 2.
The click the “Shutter” button again to start recording.
