The dash cams market has grown slowly but steadily over the last few years and is now filled with many choices. MIO is one of the most prolific manufacturers of dash cams, and most of them are excellent. We received in testing one of their more discreet dash cams called the MiVue J60. It is a camera that hides from sight in the back of the rearview mirror and which comes with Wi-Fi connectivity, 1080p video recording resolution, GPS tracking, and advanced safety features. We used it for a week, and now we would like to share our findings with you. If you want to know more about the MiVue J60, read this review:

MIO MiVue J60 dash cam: Who is it good for?

The MIO MiVue J60 is an excellent dash cam for the drivers who:

• Prefer a dash cam that does not intrude in their line of sight while driving
• Want Full HD 1080p video footage with excellent image quality both in daylight and during nighttime
• Who need GPS tracking and alerts about the speed cameras on the road

Pros and cons

There are many good things to say about the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam:

• It has a sleek design that lets you hide it behind your rearview mirror
• It looks well built and robust
• It records video at a wide 150-degree angle, in Full HD 1080p resolution
• Its 2-megapixel sensor records good quality video during daylight but also during nighttime
• It warns you about speed cameras on the road, and you get lifetime updates for them
• It has a WiFi chip and together with the MiVue Pro app for Android and iOS, you can transfer videos to your smartphone, and even broadcast live on Facebook
• It has a built-in GPS chip that tracks your route
• It comes with safety features such as a Forward Collision Warning System (FCWS), Lane Departure Warning System (LDWS) and a Fatigue Alert (FA)

There are also some downsides to MIO MiVue J60:

• It does not have a screen and the only way to customize its settings is through the mobile app (MiVue Pro)
• Its mount uses sticky tape to stay on your windshield, and it is difficult to remove it
• The firmware update process can be finicky at times

Verdict

The MIO MiVue J60 is a good dash cam that we loved using. We like its design and the fact that you can hide it from view so that you are not bothered by it. Your view of the road is not obstructed in any way by MIO MiVue J60. We also appreciate the excellent quality of the video footage and the wide angle of the lens. The GPS tracking is an added benefit, as are the advanced safety features included. However, the lack of a screen might keep some drivers away from this dash cam. Otherwise, the MIO MiVue J60 is an excellent choice for anyone who wants to keep video footage of their routes. We recommend it to all drivers that are interested in using a dash cam in their car(s).

Unboxing the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam

The MIO MiVue J60 dash cam arrives in a glossy box that is made from thick cardboard. The primary colors used on it are orange and white, similar to what we have seen on other MIO devices in the past. On the front side of the box, you can see a picture of the dash cam together with its name and a few logos that give you an idea of its main features.

On the back and sides of the box, MIO printed more information about the features and specs of the dash cam.

Inside the package, you should find the dash cam, an adhesive mount, a car lighter power charger, the quick start guide, and the warranty documents.

The package in which the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam comes looks good, and it bundles all the accessories you need to get going.

Hardware specifications

The manufacturing company advertises the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam as having an "out of sight, out of mind" sleek design. In real-world terms that means that it is designed to have a small height and a longer width so that you can hide it behind the rearview mirror so that your line of view is clear and unobstructed by the dash cam.

The dash cam uses a video sensor of 2 megapixels that can record footage in Full HD 1080p resolution at 30 frames per second. It has a 150 degrees wide-angle view and f1.8 aperture, which translate into a clear perspective of anything happening on your lane as well as on the others. The recordings are encoded using the H.264 codec and are stored as MP4 files on a microSD card of up to 128GB.

You also get built-in Wi-Fi, which you use to connect the dash cam to your smartphone, via an app called MIO MiVue Pro. The app then lets you watch live video from the dash cam, back up videos to your smartphone or share videos via Facebook. Furthermore, you can also update the dash cam firmware and speed camera data via Wi-Fi OTA (Over The Air), with just a few taps on your smartphone.

The MIO MiVue J60 comes with voice speeding alerts, plus other safety features such as LDWS (lane departure warning system), FCWS (front collision warning system), and FA (fatigue alert). You can turn these features on or off as you wish, from the MIO MiVue Pro app.

Going back to hardware, the MIO MiVue J60 has built-in GPS tracking, which means you do not have to connect to your smartphone for the dash cam to know where you are on the road. All the GPS tracking information is stored alongside the driving videos so you can see where you went, on Google Maps. Another useful feature is the 3-axis G-sensor found inside the dash cam which is used to automatically start video recordings when sudden movement is detected. That is useful in unpleasant situations such as when you are in an accident.

The MIO MiVue J60 also supports parking mode but only when connected to a SmartBox power cable. If you buy a SmartBox, the dash cam can then automatically record video footage whenever it detects movement in its line of sight, even if your car is parked. The dash cam's built-in battery has only 240 mAh which is not enough to keep it going when your car's engine is not running.

Regarding its size, the MIO MiVue J60 is quite small: it is 1.53 x 3.94 x 1.34 inches (38.8 x 100 x 34 mm) in height x length x width. It is also light, having only 2.79 ounces or 79 grams.

If you want more details about the features and hardware specifications of this dash cam, you can find them all on this webpage: MIO MiVue J60.

The design and user experience of the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam

The first thing we noticed when we saw the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam was that it is long but thin and that it does not have a screen on it. Because of its design and size, it fits perfectly behind the rearview mirror, just like the company advertised it. It also justifies the lack of a screen as you do not have any reasons to look at a screen that is behind the rearview mirror - it would not be visible anyway.

The dash cam is made entirely out of plastic materials but feels solid nonetheless. It is longer than other dash cams that we have seen, and its form is rectangular. On its front side, the one towards the front of the car, the lens are positioned on one side of the dash cam, while the rest of it holds an MIO logo, a LED that turns on when the camera is recording, and a microphone grille. It looks nice, and the lens gives you the impression that it is high-quality.

On the back of the dash cam, there are two buttons: one to turn the power on or off, and one for the Wi-Fi connection. There are also three LED lights that tell you when the Wi-Fi is on, when the dash cam is recording video, and whether it is muted or not. Each of them has a different color, so it is easy to identify them.

The windshield mount feels solid, but there is one thing we do not like about it: it attaches to the windshield using sticky tape. From one perspective, it is better than a suction cup because it stays firmly in its spot and chances that your dash cam will drop are small. However, it also means that once you have positioned it, it is going to be pretty hard to take it down and you have to struggle to clean your windshield.

One of the things we like is the fact that the power charger has a long cable, which means that you can fairly easily hide it under your car's roof and drag it through the passenger A-pillar, then via the car floor and into its 12 Volts charging port.

The MIO MiVue J60 dash cam starts recording video immediately as you start your engine. As you know, it records video in 1080p Full HD resolution, and the quality is excellent both during the day and the night. Here is a sample video from it while driving during daylight.

The dash cam does an excellent job also at night - if you want to get an idea of what it can deliver, check the next video.

The MIO MiVue J60 is a nice dash cam with a sleek design that lets you hide it behind the rearview mirror. We appreciate its build quality and hardware performance. However, we would have preferred it to come with suction mount instead of sticky tape.

The MIO MiVue Pro mobile app and MiVue Manager desktop app

If you want to customize the features and options available for the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam, you must connect it to your smartphone, on which you previously installed the MiVue Pro app. The app is easy to work with and offers useful features such as the option to watch live video footage from the dash cam, one-tap video backup to your smartphone, or collision events backups, as well as the option to share live video to Facebook if that is what you want. Also, all the settings related to how the dash cam works are readily available in the app.

Besides the mobile app, MIO also offers MiVue Manager, which is an app for Windows that lets you browse through the recorded videos. It also allows you to share videos to YouTube and Facebook, see a moving map of your car's route that is synced with the video, and analyze the driving direction using a graphic with the information collected from the 3-axis g-forces sensor of the dash cam.

We found both apps to be working well. However, we stumbled repeatedly on an issue with the mobile app MiVue Pro. Among other things, the app can also update the firmware of the dash cam. However, for us, that did not work from the first try. We had to repeat the update process a few times before it finally managed to finalize the update.

The software offered by MIO for the MiVue J60 dash cam is useful and mandatory, at least when it comes to the mobile app. The MiVue Pro app for Android and iOS is the only way in which you can customize how the dash cam works.

What is your opinion about the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam?

The MIO MiVue J60 dash cam is an excellent device that we like. It feels well built and has useful features and good hardware. We are curious if you do too, so please share your thoughts about it, in the comments section below. Do you like the MIO MiVue J60 dash cam and what it has to offer?