In recent weeks, video of car wrecks, road rage, poor driving and even plane crashes has made the rounds in society. Such footage is often captured by a dashboard camera (dashcam for short), which is a small camera mounted inside one’s windshield. The primary selling point of a dashcam is to protect you in case of an accident in which you were not at fault. What, then, are the features to look for in such a unit?

Virtually every dashcam on the market today captures video in high-resolution 1080p format. What’s more important is determining the viewing angle at which the video is captured. A 180-degree angle would capture everything in front of your car, so look for a viewing angle of at least 150 degrees. Beware of anyone claiming more than a 170-degree angle — these are often scams.

Also, be cognizant of the size of the camera and how it mounts in your car. After all, the last thing you want is for the camera to block your view and cause an accident. Many manufacturers tout the size of the screen as a selling point, but really, you are probably not going to watch any video on the camera itself. Rather, the video is saved to a microSD card that can be viewed on most PCs. The most efficient size currently is about the size of a small smartphone.

Some units mount to the rearview mirror, which is fine if there is only one driver for the car. Otherwise, when adjusting the rearview mirror, the placement of the camera might also need to be readjusted. Most units provide a suction-cup mounting bracket. Others mount directly to the windshield, which can be difficult to place without obstructing your view.

Most cameras come with a microSD card to store the recorded video, but double-check to be sure. Five minutes of 1080p video will typically be about 400 to 500 MB, so do the math to figure out how much video is stored. A 32-GB card, for example, will hold about five hours of video — about one round trip from Kapolei to downtown. Virtually all cameras are set to overwrite older video, so be sure to transfer any video you want to save to your PC. Most cameras also provide the ability to prevent certain segments of footage from being deleted.

All cameras should follow the microSD standard so you can use the largest card currently on the market: 128GB. Anecdotal evidence suggests that microSD cards don’t last forever, so check your card every once in a while to make sure your camera is actually recording.

A camera following the above guidelines can be had for $90 to $150, and can be bought from online stores, including Amazon. There are many vendors who sell dashcams, but the internals are often the same, so name brands don’t make much of a difference here.

One final note: Most dashcams also record sound, typically inside the car. So if you are prone to conversations that you might not want others to hear, be sure to turn off this feature.

John Agsalud is an IT expert with more than 25 years of information technology experience in Hawaii and around the world. He can be reached at johnagsalud@yahoo.com.