Garmin Dash Cam 55
VerifiedMPN: 010-01750-1128 reviews
Persistent Power up and down cycle – I purchased two of the 55's in 2017. Updating both were always a problem with the connection via USB to my laptop for updating. They kept killing the SD cards. Now for some reason both devices within a couple of days started shutting down and startup up and continues that cycle until I disconnect from the 12v in my cars. Contacted Garmin… Read more
support here in Canada; they keep pointing me to the support site to reset them. I have reset both sever times and updated successfully, but the device still go into a permanent cycle of powering up and then down. I concluded that Garmin support is there to help as long as the device works.
4, 5 years constant use perfect performance – Just updated with Dash 57 after 4 and half years 55 use My 55 performed perfectly the whole time I had it. Show details
Poor customer service in Australia – My dash cam 55 doesn't turn ON, I tried all the steps as mentioned in their website. Contacted customer service, they said they only support USA and Canada. Now I am left with no support, and the dash cam is of no use to me. Show details
What a disaster – Worked OK for about 12 months, then the problems started, had to reset each time I started the car even after updating the program ? Eventually Garmin admitted that it was faulty and offered to replace it with a reconditioned model, I sent it back as requested with Aust Post tracking, it was delivered to their facility on the 28th May. I have… Read more
requested an update re replacement (3 e'mails) but no answers, just silence, very POOR PR. I just wish that I had read the reviews before I bought this piece of junk
A reliable dash cam – This was a Christmas present in 2017 and it was part of my daily 150 km commute until I stopped doing it. It's been out in all conditions from -5 to +40 of degrees and has never failed to work. The footage is decent quality (1080p) and with a 32 Gb card in it I get 350 minutes captured before it starts to overwrite. Overall, I'd say it has done the job admirably. Show details
Software updates always cause problems, and some feature are useless – After the last software update it needs the initial setting up, such as language, position, measurement units, etc, after each start up (every time the car is started!). Moreover, it will not connect to the phone app: the app says "connected" and then immediately starts "searching" for the camera again - ad infinitum. After every software update… Read more
there's usually been bugs that I've eventually sorted after wasting valuable time but, after weeks of trying to fix this one, I'm giving up, as the latest updates don't help. The Garmin help centre say they are "not aware of this problem," and yet their own website has recorded this issue dating back to software Version 3.50 (I have V4.40). "The lane departure" feature is useless, and some of the other features are marginal. The best thing to do with this dash camera is to package it and ship it off to a terrorist! Rubbish software - I'll be buying another brand and I'll never buy Garmin again.
Nice Brick – Had it one day, did Firmware upgrade via the App. It is now a brick. No ability to recover from brick mode, wish I had read all the negative reviews first! Show details
The worst dash cam i have ever owned – The Good- High quality footage, good mounting point easy to mount in the car. The Bad- the camera constantly detects a crash/event and fills the event folder (this is on each of sensitivity settings, so lets say that function is useless). My camera is wired into my electrical system to record car park events- the camera stays in car park mode and… Read more
does not film continuous footage. I have never successfully captured an event. Garmin offered to replace the item. Its been 2 years with constant emails, nothing received yet. DONT BUY A GARMIN DASHCAM.
Do not buy Garmin dash cam – Dash camera video quality is good. All Garmin dash cameras are advertised as having Bluetooth / wireless access via an app. This app is unusable. It will not locate an Android phone by Bluetooth. When it is located on an Apple device it refuses to download footage. These problems have been long term problems for Garmin an so far they have… Read more
refused to rectify these problems. Subsequently if you choose to purchase a Garmin dash camera the claim of wireless access is false.
Average dashcam and service – Updated 09/03/20: After so much hassle in the beginning in claiming the warranty, RYDA reps contacted me to resolve the issues by offering full refund provided I can send the unit back. Why hasn't this been done in the first place, I have no clue. The whole process is very time consuming. The dashcam itself is generally pretty average without the… Read more
WiFi downloading capability. Considering the pricepoint and the overall experience, I would give 3/5 stars.
Original review: It's intriguing to know the strategy they used to deny the warranty process. Unsurprisingly, the same goes with RYDA.COM where I bought this unit, whose also stop contacting me after I provided the proof of purchase.
Let me explain,... I contacted them for warranty because the device has failed. My device is 1 year and 8 months old as of the time of contact, which under Australian consumer law should still be valid. They first asked me to follow their instructions to reset the device and it doesn't work. I asked them, I would like to return the unit. They responded to me by requesting the proof of purchase which I did provide. After that, they remain silent even after many attempts to contact them. What they didn't know is, I was going to get another garmin for my second car. But I am really glad this happen before I bought another one.
I don't gain anything either, $250 down the drain, shame... I should have gone with a reputable company who honour their promise in the first place. This is a disgrace because for a company this size, I bet they have many refurbished unit laying around which only cost a peanut for them. It's very cheap considering the future sales they could make.
Feature packed great value dashcam – I bought two of these dashcams, have been very impressed with the features and video quality which is as good, even better than a BlackVue 650s which I also have, this is due to the 1440p/30 or 1080p/60 modes it offers. There are a few negative things such as, it runs hot, the lack of any decent software for video review & analysis of the… Read more
recorded video which the BlackVue includes, so you have to use media player or your preferred video player/editor. It also uses more memory for video files than the BlackVue (ie only 6.5 hrs on 64gb compared the BV which can do over 13hrs of same format video) so I guess you pay for the better smarts of the BVs. Setup is like any other dashcam really, spend the time mounting it and hiding the cable and it looks great. I haven’t had any issues with powering it with a standard USB like others have mentioned. The driver assist features are good but I didn’t have high expectations since they are based on video and not radar, although they work and you can disable the alerts individually if one annoys you more than the other. Lastly, they seem to be tough and function when really needed. Within two weeks of installing it in my daughter’s car, some idiot using his mobile collided head-on with her (she survived). The camera proved she did nothing wrong and and that he drove onto the wrong side of the road which saved us having to pay the insurance excess and interviews with the police were easier too. The impact of the crash ripped the camera off of the windscreen and from it’s power cord. I found it in the back of the wreck and was able to retrieve the footage. The camera was unscathed & still powers on, although I don’t have a power cord for it anymore because that became a permanent part of the wreck. One other thing to know is the claim of a 30 minute battery seems wrong, as both cameras power down within 15 seconds after the power is removed, which was the only letdown from the crash as it would have caught conversations after the crash. I’m now looking for a replacement but looks like this model has been updated/replaced by the Dash Cam 56. Great dash cam for the money though, I recommend them and hopefully the replacement model will be as good.
Disappointed, Garmin could do better – No problems with the picture quality, the red light and speed camera work as they should but the lane departure is completely useless. Have had the camera exchanged for a new and both have been the same. Own a Mazda BT50 and it matters not a jot if I program the Garmin for high or low. Very disappointing. Show details
Refunded same day – I bought from jb hi fi Went home to set up saved settings and soon as you power off and on loses the settings and will ask to set again and wont record .i did this few times and didnt work and got refund. I thought garmin was good brand but at least cheaper brand i had lasted 6months I will not buy garmin dash cam again. Show details
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Absolute rubbish. Ive had this camera for 12months.. Ready to trash it and get something decent – If you want to power this camera up using a standard USB cable..forget it. Garmin have used the fourth pin in their 12volt power supply to check the cable out. The Camera will not charge if you want to run multiple devices from your cig lighter/ 12 volt power supply. You are forced to use the proprietary Garmin car charging cable which allows for only one device to be plugged into the cig socket... One word..Lemon
I got a lemon – Out of the box voice control didn't even feature on the menu. Also it failed to pick up the satellite signal. Garmin took an average of about 2 full days to respond to the support requests, but every time they responded they wanted more information. It took two weeks and still no solution, still no offer of replacement, so I just sent it back and… Read more
got a full refund. I don't know where the 5 star ratings came from - it certainly wasn't my experience with the product, or with Garmin support.
Rubbish, at best – Owned this for about 11 months now, and in that time I've had it swapped once, and today is the second time it's going to be replaced. Constantly freezing while trying to remove videos from it, 1 out of every 10 trips the camera is not on, I had an incident where a pedestrian walked out Infront of my car and when I went to get the footage..guess… Read more
what wasn't on?
The download speed is horrendous, the app takes several minutes to recognise you've connected to the dash cam wifi, and when it does connect the video info takes a good 30 seconds after that to load, then you may click on it to open it, but beware, if it's a large file, the dash cam will crash the app because the camera freezes up.
There is no point in having a dash cam that works SOMETIMES.
The ONLY benefit to this cam is the fact that it's daytime picture quality is good, night time not so much.
Beware software downloads using Mac – I bought this as I have 2 Garmin GPS units, both of which are great. However, this unit failed the first day. I set up as per instructions ( which by the way are very vague ), added it to Garmin Express and did a software update, thats when it all turned bad. The download froze the unit. After 2 days of searching Garmin troubleshooting and reading… Read more
blogs, I came to the conclusion Mac software does not work very well. Even Garmin advise using windows on updates. Thats something not in the instructions. I did eventually get it working, but adding it again to Garmin Express really killed it. Its now winging its way back to Johnny Appleseed where I bought it, am getting a refund !
Problems within weeks of purchase. Very disappointing – The quality of the footage is good, however, started having problems immediately after the first software update within weeks of purchase, with certain dash cam functions not working any longer. After much wasted time trying to get a software update to fix the problem and emails to Garmin I was asked to return it to them for replacement. I… Read more
suggest Garmin should thoroughly test their software and updates BEFORE release - and not expect clients to do the testing for them
So disappointed – I did lots of research before buying a Garmin 55 dash cam. Initially everything worked fine, then within 2 weeks the voice command stopped working. And things got worse from there. Now whenever I turn it on I have to go through all the steps to set it up. I've tried to restore it many times but it refuses to restore. I even tried running the… Read more
battery flat in the hope of causing it to re-set. All to no avail.
And now the latest version of Garmin Express v6.9.1.0 will not open on my Mac nor on my PC laptop. I'm in the process of looking for a different dash cam. This one is for the garbage bin.
One of the worst products I have ever owned.
very satisfied – easy to use and set up,have had a few cam's put them in front and rear of car,very indiscriminate,although I do make sure the rear cam' can be seen by tailgaters,which I don't get now,also have aged but still working perfectly a garmin gps never lets me down and if and when needed updates are quick and easy,hope I don't hex myself ,,,garmin is good
Disappointment with a star – Found this product difficult to operate and it only works with the supplied cable? So do not loose it. Operation is not that easy and Garmin support failing. Windscreen mount was good but expensive for a magnet if you want to install in two vehicles. Would suggest looking elsewhere. Selling my unit as a major disappointment
This is the right dash cam – So after days of research, going through all the other reviews, checking the price and actually testing the item, I think that the Garmin 55 is just the right dash cam for me! First of all, it works just as advertised, second, it actually exceeded my expectations as how easy it was to set up and running. Lastly, for the price, it has the features… Read more
that actually should have been some premium added to it but they didn't so I got more value for my money.
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Works, but voice control needs urgent fixing – Video quality good. I payed extra for voice control, but had to disable it. It constantly thinks a song said to stop recording audio, or to record video or other. Listening to a podcast is hell, it will record video or another command every few minutes. It makes it impossible to find specific videos as there are so many saved. I turn voice… Read more
control on after every update with hope.
Edit 06-03-19 Has gotten better with every update, hasn't misheard in days.
Don't Buy it! – This worked well for about 2 months then died. New replacement camera did exactly the same. Costly to send them back repeatedly for warranty, so out of pocket. I have many other garmin products, and won't be buying them again after this experience. Footage was ok, Parking mode function accessory cable required (costly) to access this feature, proprietary cables are a pain.
Failed on the 2nd day...but – Great design and video quality, love the magnetic mount. Came with 8GB miniSD which is not enough. Should be shipped with minimum 16GB card. Speed and red light camera, forward collision and lane departure warnings are great and worked very well when tested for one day only. I am afraid on the second day device got corrupted. Every time I started… Read more
the car, device kept asking re-do the setup process and the only language option was American English. I called Garmin and they provided me links to re-install the device software however it didn't help. Tried re-setting device and formatting the card also did not help. I must say Garmin support team was very helpful and pleasant to deal with (Aleah and Christine). I am returning the device back to Garmin. Their return policy reads: "Goods presented for repair may be replaced with refurbished goods of the same type rather than being repaired". I am disappointed that a brand new item, literally worked only one day will be replaced with a refurbished one. I hope that the replacement will work without a problem.
UPDATE 06 March 2019: About a year ago, Garmin sent me a brand new replacement and they even reimbursed my postage fee. It has now been almost 12 months since my above review and the replacement works flawlessly. I have also updated the firmware on MAC without any issue and installed Sandisk 64GB mSD Extreme Pro. I am happy with the replacement.
Easy to setup and works well – One piece sticks to the window and the rest attaches via a magnet. It is therefore easy to remove for security and on hot days. It is easy to setup and use. It is plugged into the car 12v socket and it turns itself on when I start the car and off when I turn off the car. It has voice control (eg OK GARMIN SAVE VIDEO). In my opinion the picture quality appears to be OK. When vehicles are close you can make out the number plates.
This has already saved my Insurance excess – I am well and truly in front. I purchased the camera on points. The camera and features are great. Particularly the speed/red light warnings. I had a truck wipe out my wing mirror and the truck company later disputed the Insurance claim. I had it all on camera and they had no leg to stand on. The features on the 55 are better than the other camera(Garmin also) on my other car. It's a winner.
Outstanding Dash Cam – I recently purchased my Garmin dash cam 55, don't let the size fool you it is not much bigger than a box of matches but it packs a huge amount of useful features. Including forward collision alert, lane departure warning, red light and speed camera warning & voice control that allows you to take still images time lapse, video save, all you need to… Read more
say is "hello Garmin" and a sub menu appears you just speak the one you want. It is that easy it also come with an 8gb card so you just plug and play, it has setting for centre left or right mounting whichever one you choose. It has a magnetic mount for easy removal and because of its size is not obstructive.
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