The DDPAI Z60 Pro is a 3-channel dashcam that packs a serious punch

With one of the kids getting his learners, I was tasked with organising a dashcam for the car he will be driving. The decision was made for me when DDPAI reached out and offered the Z60 Pro for review.

The DDPAI Z60 Pro is a new 4K UHD offering with some useful options depending on your needs. I opt for the three channel variant, and DDPAI sent me everything bar the kitchen sink. I got the three channel, hardwire kit as well as the 4G module. No complains here and it has been quite a while since I looked at what is available in the market.

I took some time in testing the Z60 in stages, without reading the manual at the start of course. If all you think about is image quality and how much coverage your lens can get, then hang onto to your hat.

For brevity I am going to refer to the unit as Z60 in this review.

 

First Impressions

There were a lot of packages in the shipping box that arrived at my doorstep. In particular there was one pretty large box with a sleeve.

Upon unboxing that, it was made up of three packages. The largest one being a two channel unit with accompanying cables. Another box contained the third channel – the cabin camera. The third box is more cables.

All of the components look solid. The cables in particular look and feel robust.

Separately I also received the hardwire kit, two microSD cards in a pouch, and the 4G cloud node in another box.

The front camera features a Sony Starvis 2 IMX678 8.3 Megapixel sensor supporting 4K recording. The rear camera is a Starvis 2 IMX662 2.4 Megapixel sensor supporting 1080p.

The cabin camera is a Mini2X 2K dashcam and can be a standalone purchase with a resolution of 1440p.

 

Installation

I went with a professional installation. I can probably do i myself, in about three days and have half the interior left on the lawn.

David took about 45 minutes to get it all done with wires tucked away and everything looking immaculate. He even cleaned up after himself.

 

In conversation, I found out that this is the first Z60 Pro he has installed. He is a bit of a fan of the N5 for their image quality and value proposition. The Z60 Pro has a different wiring harness to the N5 and we were not sure if they are interchangeable. This could be an issue if say, you want to upgrade from the N5 to the Z60 series.

The wiring harness with the Z60 are pretty much all USB connectors. It was quite modular in the sense there are a number of cables and connectors. The connectors themselves are just plain USB sockets with no mechanism to secure them.

Whilst it was not an issue for my installation, it is conceivable when the installer is tugging on the wire to pull it through the car, you could unplug the linkages. Also of potential concern is the vibration from long term driving could also result in a disconnection.

Between the installer and myself, it took a few tries to get the rear camera positioned correctly. This was less about the module (more on that later) and more to do with the way the car is set up. The Suzuki Swift being a tiny car did not have a whole long of room to work with.

 

Getting Started

With the hardwire kit installed, turning over the engine will automatically start the dashcam.

You do need the DDPAI app installed on your phone to get anywhere. But the good part is, you don’t have to create an account to get started. All the features can be accessed without it.

The main forward facing camera module has a LCD screen that displays instructions and details to the driver. This is particularly useful for the setup process, or to immediately view the footage without needing to connect via a smartphone.

However with the road rules being that the driver must have no obstructions from his line of sight out of the windscreen, the Z60 is mounted behind the rear view mirror and there is little room to move the mirror out of the way to see the screen.

 

There are also other rules in Victoria for distracted drivers, which is very restrictive where it comes to looking at screens if you are a probationary driver.

The good thing is, you can set and forget with the Z60 and review the data afterwards.

 

Configuration

As it should be the case with dashcams, the Z60 is set and forget.

When you start the engine, the unit will signal that it is starting up and when recording starts. It kicks in pretty quickly so if you are in a hurry to get out of dodge, the Z60 has got your back.

Adding the cameras via the app was really simple. If you run a VPN on your phone like I do, then you need to disable it whilst accessing the cameras.

The initial discovery with the Z60 is via Bluetooth. Once a connection is established it switches over to Wi-Fi. That said, if Bluetooth discovery fails, you can fall back to Wi-Fi to get a connection. Wi-Fi is the protocol the Z60 uses for viewing footage and adjust settings.

It would pay to invest a little bit of time to setting up the basics of the Z60. For example by default, there is no audio recordings enabled. Do you need it on? Well that depends on your use case.

If you tend to do a lot of talking in the car and perhaps talk about confidential information, maybe you want to keep it off. On the other hand, it comes in immensely useful if you end up in an accident and people are aggressive. Or if you are in a high-conflict separated family dynamics, having the audio recording on would be highly recommended.

Whilst images are getting better and clearer, it is still largely hit and miss to capture a licence plate. With the audio recording, you can always rattle off a licence number and know it will be captured together with the footage.

 

Advanced Driver Assistance System (ADAS)

Another feature to consider is the ADAS function. At the current time it has two features:

Front vehicle start reminder: In a stationary state, when the system detects the front vehicle moving, it provides a voice prompt “Front vehicle started.”
Driver Fatigue Alert: After four consecutive hours of driving, a voice prompt “You have been driving for four hours, please take a rest”is issued to help reduce fatigue-related risks.

I am in two minds on this one. I have been driving for over 30 years and the front vehicle start reminder is not something I ever thought I would use. For a new driver though, this may be of use. At the same time I do wonder if it will be a distraction.

As for the driver fatigue alert, it is a timed alert rather than having any active detection of the driver’s state of alertness. Some of the cars have this built in, such as in my own car (although it is pretty flakey on when the alert pops up).

Last part of the setup is the activate the πLink feature. This feature allows you to link two devices to the network at the same time. In my case this is the main front and rear cameras (considered as one device in the app), and the interior cabin camera. This does require the πLink cable to be connected.

You need to do this via the app, and designate which of the two is the primary and which is the secondary. The benefits to this is that you can then access all the settings and footage from the same screen, rather than having to jump in and out to each device.

 

In Use

After all that preamble, let’s talk about the dashcam footage quality.

I pulled some footage from each channel, for daytime, night time with well lit roads, and night time with not so well lit roads. Just a quick recap, the front facing camera is 4K, the rear camera is 1080p and cabin camera is 1440p.

Let’s start with the easy one. In broad daylight all the cameras have exception footage clarity. The front camera is pretty colour accurate with good pick up of details. I can clearly read licence plate data when I am trailing a car. On coming vehicles is a bit more challenging but I could read a few with some effort.

The rear camera is obviously lesser in resolution. The colour accuracy remains good though. The drop in resolution is very noticeable when it comes to capturing licence plate data particularly when the car is moving. However when you are slowing down, it does improve.

The cabin camera can clearly pick up that car is a tad messy inside.

On a standard suburban road at night, somewhat lit but not well lit, the Z60 front cam footage is noticeably different. It is not terrible by any means of imagination, but not surprisingly it does not have the same clarity as in the other test scenarios. The footage is very usable though in terms of being able to capture the environment.

The rear cam is also struggling here, a bit more so overall but there is enough clarity and details to capture an incident. You are unlikely to get things such as licence plate details.

The interior camera shows the most change. It can get a bit fuzzy and pixelated when it’s dark but not enough to wipe out the footage to be unusable. Overall I think it is actually quite impressive how it handled under the circumstances.

At night on a better lit stretch of the road (thanks to construction work), the front camera remains very high performing. Whilst I was not lucky enough to be following another car in the footage I have pulled, you can clearly read the signs on the road. Within reason I am happy that it will have legible licence plate data in front of me.

Again not surprisingly, the rear camera is not quite the same but is still extremely high performing. The road signs are still legible for most parts. Whether you can read licence plates was not something I could test because unfortunately there wasn’t anyone else mad enough to follow me in the middle of the night when I was testing the camera.

The cabin footage was surprisingly decent actually, it’s not as clear as in daylight obviously but for the purposes of capturing what is happening in the cabin it is more than adequate.

 

Other Features

SR Data

When I dived into this feature, I could not wait to see how it works. SR stands for Sense Reality, and it leverages the sensors and GPS onboard the front camera of the Z60 to interpret driving dynamics into user friendly visual cues post event.

When I checked on my setup, this SR featured was enabled already in my setup. You can check by going into the Z60’s live feed mode and look for the SR button on the bottom left below the footage. The toggle will be in a light blue state when on.

The blurb about SR gives the following information.

Data Visualisation with GPS-Equipped Devices

• Time and Date: Ensures accuracy in record-keeping and traceability of events.
• G-Force Changes: Monitors and displays real-time acceleration and deceleration.
• Altitude: Provides information on the current elevation of the vehicle.
• Actual Trajectory: Tracks and displays the real-time driving path of the vehicle.
• Lane Change Recognition: Intelligently identifies and prompts lane-changing actions.
• Turn Recognition: Offers guidance during turns to enhance driving safety.
• Driving Direction: Indicates the current direction of travel.
• Speed Alerts (Rapid Acceleration/Deceleration): Warns of potentially hazardous driving behaviors.
• Lead Vehicle Speed: Displays the speed of the vehicle ahead to help maintain a safe distance.
• Lead Vehicle Distance: Measures and displays the real-time distance to the vehicle ahead.
• Lane Departure: Alerts when the vehicle deviates from its lane.
• Lane Lines: Shows the vehicle’s position relative to road lane lines.

Data Visualisation with Six-Axis Sensor Devices

• Gradient: Displays the change in gradient the vehicle is traversing.
• Virtual Trajectory: Simulates the driving path using internal sensors.
• Including other functionalities such as time and date, G-force changes, lane change recognition, turn recognition, driving direction, lead vehicle distance, and lane departure warnings.

What happens is that the Z60 captures the dashcam footage along with a whole bunch of metrics as listed above. This metadata is kept with the recordings, and it is important to note that the information is not displayed live, or with the raw recordings.

 

In order to view the SR overlay, you have to download the footage then request the app to generate it. This could take a few minutes per one minute video to complete, at which point you can view it on your phone. If you want to keep it, then you need to export it somewhere.

As you can see in the video below, the information and data provided is quite incredible. The first part of the video is taken in daytime on a two way street. The SR data shows the speed of the vehicles in front of me and my distance away from them. It attempts to show the speed of oncoming vehicles although I don’t think some of the speed indications are correct. You can see the SR data showing the trajectory of my car compared to the road and following the complicated right and left turn that I did.

In the second half of the video for the night scene getting onto the freeway, I am on the on ramp with the through traffic on my right. The overlay has inserted the speed of the car in front of me as well as my distance from them. It has also picked up the speed of numerous cars next to me as well as my distance to them. At about thirteen seconds into the video, the SR data is displaying the trajectory of my vehicle along the road. Other data such as my speed, g-forces on the car and altitude, date and time are all clearly displayed.

 

The way the SR information is presented as a visual overlay makes it simple in the event of an incident. Instead of having a he say she say, you can supply the information to the relevant investigating party and let them sort it out. It really is a no-brainer. I can see particular benefits when there is a language barrier involved.

 

Other Features

There is a lot of features in the Z60 and at this point, I am going to try touch on all of them briefly.

You can tell the dash cam to “Take Photo” and it will take a photo for you, as well as record a 10 seconds (by default) video at the same time. This gets saved to a separate folder on your microSD card.

If you have the option hardwire kit to tap into the fuse box, you can enable the parking mode. That can be set to time lapse, normal or sleep. With the exception of the normal mode, the Z60 will wake up if it detects a collision and will record a video around the event.

GPS records your trips and you can view it along with your video recordings.

DDPAI also provided me with a 4G cloud box which allows me to remotely monitor the vehicle, provided there is sufficient battery to power the units. You can configure this to automatically upload collision photos and short videos when detected.

 

Other Observations

I am used to the challenges of connecting to the dashcam on my own ride. It was finnicky to get a connection, and over the years I have never successfully update firmware updates over a wireless connection. In fact, if I want to look at footage or do anything, it was much simpler to pull the SD card and do it offline.

With the Z60 I am reliably getting a connection as long as the camera has power to it and I have my VPN turned off. First time, every time. Viewing footage, downloading them to local storage was significantly faster than my previous experience.

With the πLink feature enabled, you can view the video library on the same pane so you can grab everything you need from all the cameras from the one place.

 

Gripes

The first one that caught both myself and the installer by surprise was that there was no option to flip the rear camera image. We had to do this the manual way and physically flip the module around so that the image is the right way. David noted that this feature is available on the N5.

DDPAI relies on USB sockets to daisy chain the cables. As I flagged earlier, I had some concerns about how secure that connection would be. But after a few weeks of having it installed and driving around, everything seems to remain in place.

Another thing I want to point out is the microSD slot. It is super convenient on one hand, to just be able to pop the card in the left side without needing to fiddle around with anything. But on the other hand, it is also convenient for a bad actor to swap your card out and find out where you live. After all, how often would you check your card and footage?

Granted you can’t stop someone determined enough to stalk you, but DDPAI could make it a tiny bit harder. As a DIY solution, you can mark your cards in a way that you can reassure yourself at a glance that it has not been swapped out.

A few more minor ones. I had a random ADAS driver fatigue alert after a 15 minutes drive to collect footage for this review.

The last one is more cosmetic, but confusing. When the firmware upgrade is completed, all the boxes are green ticked and confirmed successful. But to get out of the screen, you have to tap on the “cancel update” button.

 

Conclusions

When I was first approached to review the DDPAI Z60 Pro, I thought I was going to see how much the sensors have improved in the intervening years since I last had a bit of a look at them. I have on and off looked at competitor products but not really deep dive into it.

Whilst the base footage of the Z60 is very good under all the conditions I looked at, the real game changer was the SR data overlay. When I showed the SR enhanced video a few people, without explanation, the reaction were all consistently positive. Not just positive but it has the wow factor, and an immediate recognition of it’s power to tell a story.

I also quite enjoyed the experience using the DDPAI app. Again I have used competitor apps and I find some of them clunky. In particular a very expensive brand had an app that felt like thrown back to Windows 3.11 days. They have in recent times made significant progress on their app, but their feature set does not come close to what I have just reviewed.

More incredibly is the price. With such a feature set you could be forgiven for assuming that it comes with a matching price tag. The DDPAI Z60 Pro comes in a number of configurations, I will list them here with their RRP and the discounted price at time of publishing in brackets. Even the SD cards are very reasonably priced, some competitor branded ones are over four times the price.

• Dual-Channel Set | A$269.99 ($229.99)
• Dual-Channel Set + Hardwire Kit | A$269.99 ($245.98)
• Three-Channel Set | A$299.99
• Three-Channel Set + Hardwire Kit | A$315.98
• Dual-Channel Set + 4G | A$339.99
• 4G Cloud Box | A$139 ($99)
• OBD Intelligent Hardwire Kit | A$35.60 ($26.50)
• Class 10 microSD card | 64GB A$15.99, 128GB A$24.99

The review unit is a three-channel set with hardwire kit, 4G Cloud Box comes to $445.47 and this is the absolute maxed out bundle you can get. It is also available on Amazon and JB Hi-Fi.

I think the DDPAI Z60 Pro is incredible value for some incredible technology. I was very grateful to have the opportunity to review it, with thanks to DDPAI.

This is one of the occasions when I am handing out a DRN Pulse Award. Congratulations DDPAI!