Google Pixel phones as Dashcam can record for 24 hours but we have concerns | Digit

Have you ever wished to repurpose your phone as a dashcam since it’s there with you in the car and mostly has serviceable if not good cameras? Then, you will like this new Pixel feature. Google has announced a Dashcam capability for Pixel smartphones (first spotted by 9to5Google) that claims to shoot 24 hours continuously. It can also start automatically when you connect the Pixel to your car’s Bluetooth. All that sounds cool and still, we have some concerns. Well, we shall get to that, but first, let’s learn more about the feature in question.

Pixel Dashcam: How it works?

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1. The dashcam feature is present within the Personal Safety app on Pixel and some other Android phones. So, open this app.

2. You will get a description of how the Pixel Dashcam works. You may read it and when ready, click on Get Started.

3. The camera viewfinder opens with a “Record” button and a gallery shortcut to view the “Saved Videos”.

So, you see it’s rather straightforward and simple to use.

However, things get even better with some of its smart capabilities.  

7 Pixel Dashcam features

1. You can shoot 24 hours of continuous footage.

2. You can record the audio along with the video. 

3. It can connect and disconnect automatically based on whether the phone is connected to the car’s Bluetooth.

4. The videos are recorded in a compressed format that saves storage space. In Google’s estimates, this should be about 30MB per minute. 

5. For your privacy, Google automatically deletes all videos after 3 days unless you save them.

6. The recording can happen in the background and the screen doesn’t have to be on.

7. You can also use/run other apps while the recording happens in the background.

Now, on to our concerns.

Overheating phone and high power use

by u/nocapsallspaces in GooglePixel

The Pixel phones have their unique strengths but also have been plagued by one or the other issues ever since the first Pixel. Some of these are related to battery drain, heating, and memory management. Even just recently, we have been hearing cases of Pixel 7 battery and heating problems. Even our smartphone reviewer Dhriti Datta’s review of the Pixel 7a had her admonishing its penchant for overheating — watch the embedded YouTube video below: 

So, can Google fulfil the claim that Pixel will be able to sustain a 24-hour or long, continuous video recording? We’ll have to see if it manages to. These problems usually have easy fixes or are fixed by the brand. The phone also comes with AI that learns your usage or behaviour patterns over time and smartly kills inactive apps in the background. This in turn improves certain performance factors like memory utilization by apps. So, let’s hope this feature works as advertised.

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