Review: Nexar One Dash Cam Keeps You Connected To Your Car From Anywhere

At roughly 6.5 x 2.75 x 2.0 inches, the Nexar One dash cam is undeniably large. It's By far the biggest of not only the ones I've tested but about the biggest I've ever seen. That's partly due to its modular design, and what you see here has both the cellular connectivity module hanging off one side and the interior-facing camera on the other. However, its size becomes inconsequential once installed. The majority of the camera is cleverly concealed behind my rearview mirror. Even the power light is hidden, creating a discreet and unobtrusive look. The only noticeable element is the power cord, but I'll delve into that later.

Installing the Nexar One on your car is no different than most dashcams. The mount attaches to your windshield with double-sided tape. The camera mounts to that with a magnet, and the connection is strong. The two modules are held to the center section with magnets also, and in the few weeks I had it in the car, there was never any sign of anything coming loose.

I chose to power the Nexar One with the included OBD2 plug that requires you to run the wire across and tucked under the headliner, down the A-pillar inside the door seal, and then down to the OBD2 port in the driver-side footwell. Along with the cable, there’s also a power inverter box that has to be stowed somewhere. Luckily, my car has a cubby in front of my left knee, which beforehand had only held an emergency stash of ketchup packets. This part of the process is a pain, and if I were to keep this in my car long-term, I would use the hardwiring kit that’s also available from Nexar.

Setting it up and getting it running is far less complicated. The process involves downloading the app onto your smartphone and connecting it to the camera with Wi-Fi. From there, if you want to be able to use all the features, you simply sign up for the $10 per month service.

As I am writing this, the Nexar One with the connectivity module and internal camera is $449.99 on Amazon. Along with the $10 per month service, this is not the least expensive dashcam you’ll find. So, what is the value proposition?

First, the video that comes out of this camera is very high-quality. Comparing side-by-side with some of the other cameras, this delivers sharper, more detailed video. It also does very well at night, where the light levels are constantly changing from either street lights or oncoming traffic. It uses Sony Starvis sensors with a 140-degree camera facing out, and a 160-degree camera with night vision for the internal shot.

With a Nexar Connect subscription, you can stream live video from your car. I had zero problems with this. I have read other reviews that have said they couldn't connect, it took a long time to connect, and the video had huge delays. In my testing, I found that I could connect in under 30 seconds, and once I did, the video only had a delay of 10 to 15 seconds. It also allows for live GPS location tracking.

But wait, there's more. Nexar Connect can alert a preset emergency contact when the car has had a hard braking, hard cornering, or impact event. Not only will you get a notification, but it will automatically save the video footage to the cloud. In the event of an impact, it also can be set up to automatically send the video to your insurance company. It will also provide notifications, record, and save footage to the cloud when in parking mode if it detects someone has hit or broken into your car.

I rarely test a product that doesn’t have some downsides, and the Nexar One is no exception. The setup of the dashcam is straightforward, but when I went to set a contact number to be notified in case of an accident, the app wanted access to all the contacts on my phone. It won’t let me input just one phone number. I also wasn’t willing to give the app all of my insurance info, so I can’t speak to how that works either.

Getting videos off the camera isn’t as easy as it could be. First, although the app is currently eating up 35 gigs of my phone’s memory, it seems like most of the videos are stored on the actual dashcam. To retrieve videos, you have to be in the car with the dashcam running. In my case, the car also has to be running. I then had to connect my phone to the dashcam via its Wi-Fi connection. Then, save the video to the Nexar Cloud storage first, before then saving it to my phone. You also have to do all this before the dashcam decides to go into parking mode because it’s not moving.
The dashcam will automatically update firmware, which is great. The downside is during one of the updates, this camera decided to switch to normal 1080 resolution instead of 4K.

My only other complaint is the OBDII power cable. Getting it tucked under the headliner and into the A-pillar isn’t really a problem, but where it runs through the door jamb and then has to store the excess cable and power convertor is less than elegant. The hardwiring kit is the best option, and if this were a permanent fixture in my car, I would go that route.

The Nexar One is on the higher end of dashcam pricing, but it is a premium product. The quality of the video is great, and the ability to stream video is undeniably attractive to many buyers. If you have a teen driver, the purchase price and monthly service price will easily be justified by the peace of mind you get from knowing that, if anything happens, you will be notified and have video evidence from both inside and outside the car.

Some of the app issues are a little annoying, but Nexar has been addressing functionality problems that users have had. Perhaps this means the app will be redesigned to make downloading easier, but there's no guarantee.

Not everyone needs all of the features the Nexar One offers, and if that's the case, the company has simpler models. If you're looking for a dashcam with a lot of features that can stream video and will notify you and others of incidents on the road, this is a great choice.