Update: Our original Dash Cam Guidemaster was published in March 2018, but we recently tested out some of the newest options and updated our picks—just in time for 2019 summer road trips.

If you've ever been in a fender-bender or a serious car accident, you can appreciate the importance of a dash cam. These tiny car cameras stick to your windshield and silently record driving footage, capturing all the strange, mundane, and perilous things going on in front of your car. In addition to peace of mind during daily commutes, they can provide information footage to law enforcement, insurance companies, and other parties in accident situations, monitor your car when you're not around, and sometimes capture fun videos of you and your friends on a road trip.

But with the numerous big and small companies making dash cameras now, wading through the sea of devices before you choose one to buy is a formidable task. Ars reviewed the newest dash cams and revisited our testing of existing devices to pick the best dash cams available now.

Note: Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.

Table of Contents

Best overall

Anker Roav Duo

Specs at a glance: Anker Roav Duo Price $129 Camera quality Front: 1080p at 30fps Rear: 1080p at 30fps Field-of-view Front: 155 degrees Rear: 110 degrees Audio recording on/off option Yes Display 1.25×1-inch LCD GPS Yes MicroSD card Up to 128GB Loop recording Yes Operational temperature range -4°—158°F Mounting method Adhesive mount Power source Car power outlet Warnings Incident detection (G-sensor) Voice commands No Mobile app No

I can sum up my philosophy about dash cams in one sentence: the best dash cams disappear in your car, monitoring your surroundings and only making themselves known when you need them most. Anker’s Roav Duo does that very well, filming you and your passenger in addition to the road. Some people won’t want to be recorded while driving for various reasons, but that extra video feed could be vital to showing your side of the story in the case of an accident.

Both of the Roav Duo’s cameras record 1080p video, and both have fairly wide fields of view: 155 degrees on the front-facing camera and 110 degrees on the rear camera. Just be mindful of where you place the Roav Duo—you can angle the rear camera up and down, but not side to side. While you can swivel the entire dash cam up to 180 degrees, I recommend placing the device on the left side of your rear-view mirror so it can capture the driver completely rather than the passenger.

If you’re in an accident, the rear camera could prove that you weren’t texting, leaning over to check your phone, or doing something hazardous that could have caused the incident. Hopefully you would never have to use the Roav Duo’s footage for something that serious, but it’s helpful to have when necessary. Most of our drives are mundane at best, and the Roav Duo can also capture that impromptu Carpool Karaoke session you started to keep you and your passengers entertained.

In addition, Anker packed a few extra features into this $129 dash cam. Its built-in GPS takes note of your location and speed, and the latter can be stamped onto your recordings if you wish. Dual Sony sensors and NightHawk technology help the camera record decently bright and crisp video at night. Also, an optional parking kit lets the camera continue recording even when your car is off, capturing any nefarious incidents that happen when you’re away.

The Roav Duo also has a G-sensor to detect impacts and save recordings immediately when it does so. It can take up to a 128GB microSD card on which it saves all footage, and the camera will automatically delete the oldest clips in order to make space for new ones.

Aside from its adhesive mount, the biggest drawback of the Roav Duo is its lack of mobile app. You’ll have to remove the microSD card and insert it into your computer in order to access any videos or photos—that’s pretty standard, but many of the newest dash cams have a basic mobile app that lets you access footage immediately. But if you can live without a mobile app, the $129 Anker Roav Duo is a solid dash cam that will cover incidents both in and around your car.

The Good

Affordable dual-view dash cam.

The Bad

No mobile app.

Anker Roav Duo Buy Now (Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs .)

Best budget dash cam

Yi Dash Cam

Specs at a glance: Yi Dash Cam Price $49.99 Camera quality Up to 1296p at 30fps Field-of-view 165 degrees Audio recording on/off option Yes Display Yes, 2.7-inch LCD GPS No MicroSD card Up to 64GB Loop recording Yes Operational temperature range Not specified Mounting method Adhesive with swivel neck Power source Car power outlet Warnings Forward collision, lane departure, incident detection (G-sensor) Voice commands No Mobile app Yes, for videos and social networks

Often priced below $50, the Yi Dash Cam looks like a bulkier version of Garmin's dash cams: a larger rectangle with a lens on its front, a 2.7-inch LCD display on its back, and navigation buttons on its bottom edge. The camera saves footage via loop recording to a microSD card, but it also has its own Wi-Fi network and app so you can view clips on your smartphone in the Yi camera app.

All footage is saved to the device's microSD card, but the mobile app gives you extra access. You can either manually download clips through the app to your smartphone, or remove the microSD card and access footage via your PC. The Yi mobile app is surprisingly good—it sections video clips off by date and lets you view them in the app or download them to your device with just a few taps. The dash cam's Wi-Fi network is always on (unless you change that setting manually), making it super quick to connect to and play footage on your smartphone.

There's a makeshift social aspect of the Yi camera app as well, but you can easily ignore it if you have no desire to share footage with strangers. The app also has a camera settings page that lets you change the dash cam's settings from within the app rather than using the buttons on the device itself.

The Yi Dash Cam is fairly standard otherwise: it shoots videos at up to 1296p at 30fps with a 165 FOV, emits lane departure warnings when you have its "advanced driver assistance system" on, and saves accident-related footage when detected by its G-sensor. GPS is one of the few things it doesn't have, so it cannot stamp videos with your coordinates like it will with the date and time. Yi combines the most essential dash cam features into a small device at a nearly unbeatable price.

The Good

Most important dash cam features in a $49 device.

The Bad

No GPS.