When you're driven to record

Dear PropellerHeads: I want to use my smart phone as a dashcam so I can capture something amazing. You never know. Am I right? Which app do you recommend?

A: I recommend you drive in Russia because their roads are clearly more adventurous than those found in the U.S. (http://wrd.cm/1uTzaJd). But this does sound like a bit of fun so I did some research for you.

There are dozens of smart phone dashcam apps out there and many of them are free, although you will need to splurge for some accessories to make this endeavor feasible.

First, you will need a mount. These range in price from $15-50. Most are the suction cup variety with an ad-justable clamp. These are the cheaper models and the type I used in my test. It works fine though you do tend to clamp the phone at one end instead of the middle otherwise the mount will obstruct the camera.

More expensive mounts utilize a magnetic quick-release system. I guess I'm just old-fashioned, but I tend to keep magnets away from all of my electronic gizmos.

Next, constantly recording video will suck up your battery faster than Wisconsin scored a safety against West-ern Illinois (bit.ly/1BspojH). So if you don't already have one, invest in a USB car charger. These often cost just a few dollars. The only catch here is to ensure that the cable is long enough to reach from your cigarette lighter to wherever you end up mounting the phone.

Now that you have all the gear, you just need the right app. Like I mentioned, there are a lot of them. So what features are important to look for?

In most cases, the way the dashcam works is that once activated it will record videos and save to your phone every few minutes. Because this will fill up your phone quickly, the better apps allow you to set a quota for how much storage space will be gobbled up by the videos. Once that capacity is reached, older videos start drop-ping off. You can designate certain videos to be archived so they are not overwritten.

So the main features you are looking for are those apps which allow you to configure as much of that process as possible. Do you want high resolution videos? Do you want short or long videos? Do you want audio in-cluded? Do you want to reserve 5 percent or 50 percent of your storage for these videos? The more settings you have in this area the better.

Another important feature is being able to continue to record even when the app is in the background. What happens when you get a call while driving? You shouldn't answer it, of course, but receiving the call shouldn't stop your recording.

A lot of the apps require you to have your GPS activated in order to function. They do this to monitor vehicle speed and detect crashes. Others utilize the GPS for navigational purpose. For instance, via augmented reality the app will let you know when you just passed the sushi place you are looking for.

Whether you want GPS or not is up to you, just be aware that some apps will function without GPS turned on, while others will not.

I reviewed about ten different dashcam apps; however, my top five in order of popularity are DailyRoads Voyager (bit.ly/1qiGw9e), AutoGuard Blackbox (bit.ly/1uwdDpd), AutoBoy DashCam (bit.ly/1rWD2uw), CamOnRoad (bit.ly/1BsG3nf) and CaroO (bit.ly/1txvdaO).

DailyRoads Voyager is easily the most popular and offers the most settings to configure your experience. While the user-interface (UI) is a bit rudimentary, it does offer the option to permanently save a video as it is being recorded.

AutoGuard is my personal favorite of the group. It has the best mixture of settings and UI. However, back-ground recording is only available with the Pro version at a reasonable cost of $3.

AutoBoy's free version has ads. Really, do I need ads when I drive? The UI has the Windows 8 Metro look (yawn), but otherwise everything else about it is nice.

CamOnRoad (CoR) has probably the most appealing UI and has a substantial number of settings. During recording it had a habit of taking short one or two second videos between the normal three minute videos I configured.

CaroO has a slick, simple UI. It does require the GPS to be activated to record. I dislike how it would indicate if you were speeding during playback. Did my mother write this app or what?

Regardless, any of these apps should meet your needs. So now you are prepared to capture something truly amazing.

When the PropellerHeads at Data Directions aren't busy with their IT projects, they love to answer questions on business or consumer technology. Email them to questions@askthepropellerheads.com or contact us at Data Directions Inc., 8510 Bell Creek Road, Mechanicsville, VA 23116. Visit our website at www.askthepropellerheads.com.