22 LANDROVER MONTHLY
PRODUCTS
LRM PRODUCT REVIEWMIVUEJ60 DASHCAM
PRICE:£120
CONTACT:amazon.co.uk
DASH Cams are not what they usedto be.
Gone are the days where they are only used
by Russ ians hopingto capture some hor-
rific car accident whichyou thenwatch on
YouTube whenyou can’t sleep or ifyou ar e
waiting for the AA man in hisyellow van.
The MiVue J60easily has moretechnol-
ogy thanmy 1998 Defender 110. Infact,
some of the technology in it is thesame
as thetechnology that JLR are putting into
their latest vehicleofferings. More about that
in a second.
I mounted the J60 behindmy rear view
mirrorso that it does not negatively impact
my views while driving.Easy enoughto do
by sticking the mounting plate onto the
windscreen.The actualcamera just unclips
so you can hide itawayif stopping inRom-
ford for more thanfi ve seconds. I have extra
power points and just plugged the power
cable into one of those. The J60 iscapable
of capturing full HD 1080 pixelsfootage at a
crazy 30 frames persecond. So no chance
of missing anything.The J60 has 150 degree
wide angle viewing and an aperture of F1.8.
For me a dashcam is all aboutcapturing
cool footage of my Landy adventures. The
J60 does more than that. I downloaded the
MiVue app onto myphone andconnected
my phoneto the camera viaWiFi. So if I am
driving through the lakeat the Billing off-
road course I can liv estream the dashcam
footage onto Facebook and makemy
mates jealous.
One of the advantages of the app is that
it’s easy to move footage onto your phone
or laptop or else share it withsomeone else.
Not long after
installing thecam I
was ableto update
all the J60’sfi rm-
ware thanksto an
alert thatcame up
on my phone.
That was not the
only thing that up-
dated. All the latest
speedcamera info
was also updated. So the J60tells you when
you aregoing too fast, whenyou arecom-
ing to a speedcamera or ifyou are drifting
across lanes. All of those systems worked
really well especially when Iwas driving ina
place thatwas un familiarto me.
Howeve r, I was notconvincedby the Ad-
vanced Driver Assistance System assome-
times itwould say I was drivingtoo clo se to
the vehicle in frontof me when therewas no
vehicle in frontof me. That system probably
needs a bitof refi nement.
The thing I like the most about the J60 is
that it has an in-built GPS trackerso I will
always be ableto know where Iwas and
how fast I was going. Plus I will always ha ve
HD wide anglefootage of every move my
Defender makes. I will be ableto look back
at footage of a trip and link thisto exactly
where Iwas.
I ne ver thought that Iwould be a dash
cam kindof guy but now Icannot imagine
myself without one. Especially in an old
Defender like mine.So I ha ve managedto
obtain all this newtechnology andextra in fo
without havingto buy a new LandRover!
One last and important thing. Ifyour cam-
era senses a sudden change in movement
(thanksto its built-in 3-axis Gsensor) dueto
an accident, it automaticallystores the foot-
age. The only thing itcannot do is diagnose
faults onyour LandRover.DOMETIC ICEBOX
PRICE:£174
CONTACT:amazon.co.ukFRIDGES are niceto have but sometimes
an icebox is justcooler, like whentaking a
multi-daypaddling trip or if driving aSeries
I acr oss the desert without a dualbattery
system. Good ice boxes can pr ovide you with
ice andcold drinksfor several da ys and this
new NATO green 42-litre box from Dometic
defi nitelyfalls in to that catego ry. Infact, it
surpassed ourexpectations Firstly, it ’s the
rightcolour andsecondly it’s madeto last
and be thrown about. It’s a bit like thatred
Toyota Hilux they once triedto destroy on
Top Gearby blowing it up and then burying
it in the ocean. We have been unableto
break our Dometic ice box thoughsomeone
did suggest drivingover it.
The box uses thickrefrigeration grade
foam insulation. Couple this with itsseam-
less roto moulded design andyou know the
heat will stay out and thecold willstay in.
At the recent Kelmarsh LandRover ShowI
fi lled it with ice and beers on theFriday and
when the showfi nished therewas still lo ts
of ice left.
The handles are made from polyethyl-
ene and best of all theycan also act as tie
down points if you needto secure the box
in theback of the LandRover. I just love the
quality androbustness of the Dometic ice
box. When the lid is closed it seals likea
fridge andway be tter than a Defender door.
The rubber handles thatyou useto close it
are pretty heavy dut y, too. Then if you need
to ge t rid of some water or melted ice just
loosen the drainage plug, whichstill remains
attached during this process, so it won’t be
left behind.After use it onlytakes a minute
or so to clean withsome soapy water.
Our Dometic ice box hasseen a fair bitof
action this summer and itstill looks brand
new except for thecouple of ‘travel’ sticker s
we’ve attached. It’s become an important
part of the LRMroad trips and unlikesome
of our rides, it hasyet to let us down.LRM PRODUCT REVIEWEnough spacefor a second case of beer!Matches thecolour of our Ed’s DefenderJ60 dashcam is
nice andcompact
and does not spoil
the viewsLive stream onFacebookReviewsbyPatrickCruywagen