Expert’s Rating
Pros
- Good day captures
- Nicely rendered phone app
- Attractive physical design
- Cloud storage and optional emergency service (phone-based)
- Integrated GPS
Cons
- Expensive for a single-channel dash cam
- Middling night captures
Our Verdict
The Piqo is a pint-sized, phone-connected, GPS dash cam from Nextbase with a classy design. It also offers cloud uploads, location, and emergency services, but via your phone rather than integrated LTE as with the company’s iQ.
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Our last look at a Nextbase dash cam was the large-and-in-charge, LTE-enabled iQ. The Piqo that’s the subject of this review is far smaller — a single-channel, non-LTE, GPS dash cam whose diminutive profile reminds us of our favorite Garmin models.
The Piqo sports a handsome, modern design and, appealingly, offers phone connectivity and cloud storage (manual, via your phone). But it delivers only middling night capture quality for a somewhat steep price.
Further reading: See our roundup of the best dash cams to learn about competing products.
What are the Nextbase Piqo’s features?
The Piqo is single-channel (front cam, of course), 2,560-pixel horizontal resolution dash cam available in 1080p (140 degree field of view) and 1440p (145 degree FOV) vertical resolutions. I tested the higher resolution, wider aspect ratio model, but both feature integrated GPS.
The Piqo is around 4-inches tall — including the semi-permanent adhesive, two-piece slide-off mount. The camera body is about 1.5-inches wide and 1-inch thick, including the front lens body and protruding multi-function button on the back.
The body is married to the mount via a ball joint, which makes it adjustable in any direction. Nice, but I did find I had to readjust the camera sometimes after pressing the button. Be gentler than I was.
The SD card slot is situated on the left side of the camera body, and the Type-C power port is on the right. There’s also a mic on the interior face to accommodate the Piqo’s voice command capability. An LED ring light circling the center of the large multi-function (Save/Bluetooth pair/etc.) button lets you know the unit’s status.
I’m happy about Nextbase’s choice to utilize Type-C connectors. Type-C cables are much easier to source and replace than proprietary coax types. Even the auxiliary power adapter’s twin ports are Type-C. If you have older Type-A accessories or cables, you’ll need to grab a Type-A to Type-C adapter to use this adapter.
There’s an app of course — the iOS version of which is shown below. Note that it’s a new app specifically for the Piqo and it allows you to download videos, share them, and map your travels using the GPS info.
The Piqo connects to your phone via Bluetooth, with the live view carried over Wi-Fi. The pairing and Wi-Fi logon processes are quick and efficient, though I grew weary of being asked to join the Piqo’s Wi-Fi hot spot every time I wanted to view a video. Just do it, Nextbase.
I mentioned voice commands, which are very handy, and largely necessary thanks to the lack of a display. The Piqo’s parking/surveillance mode (and everyone else’s), where it wakes when the g-sensor notes a disturbance, requires constant power — either wire tap/fuse box or an OBDII adapter. Both are available from Nextbase.
One Piqo oddity I found. Simply turning my car’s ignition key to the on position wasn’t enough to power up the Piqo, as was the case with the nearly 100 other dash cams I’ve reviewed. I had to turn the engine on for it to fire up. The reason for the behavior wasn’t explained, and I didn’t find a voltage-sensing setting to adjust. My battery is in very good shape, being only a year or so old.
How much does the Nextbase Piqo cost?
The 2560×1080 Piqo retails for $130, and the 2560×1440 version is $20 more at $150.
There’s no ongoing subscription costs for the Piqo itself as there’s no integrated LTE, but if you want 180-day, rather than 30-day retention of videos that you upload from the phone app to Nextbase, as well as the phone-based Emergency SOS function, it’s $5 monthly. You could of course rely on your own cloud storage.
More on those features: Emergency SOS alerts emergency services with precise location information in the event of an incident based on a severe g-sensor reading. Guardian Mode Lite automatically saves timestamped, GPS-marked video clips if triggered by an event. Nearly all dash cams will do this — however, the Piqo lets you set a speed that when exceeded can trigger an event. Hence the fancy name.
Voice-activated Witness Mode Lite saves footage, as you can also do with most dash cams via voice or button. The unique thing here is that it’s shared instantly with a designated emergency contact if you’re connected to your phone at the time. Again, all of these features require that you be connected to your phone. Hence the “lite” in the designations.
What’s the quality of the Nextbase Piqo’s captures?
I was expecting a tad better default capture quality from a $150 dash cam from industry stalwart Nextbase. Daytime captures are good, but the detail isn’t quite as sharp as I was expecting from 1440p. Color is accurate, but I had to dial back the exposure a notch. The capture below is at the default exposure setting, in a relatively low-light area for a sunny day.
Note that these videos were from was 10/31/2024 and 11/1/2024, not 1/11/2024 as shown. I didn’t set the date before testing. The time, however, is correct, most likely set automatically via GPS.
Capture quality drops off quite a bit at night. The image below is with my headlights on and detail is still hard to come by. Parked with the headlights off, detail in surrounding areas was even more difficult to spot.
More detail will start to appear when you up the exposure using a photo editor, but extensive post-production is not something most users want to do.
For day use the Piqo is more than workable, if not the best I’ve seen. At night, well it’s no Mifofive S1. I’ve seen a half dozen cameras recently with more detailed night captures, even sans headlights.
Operationally, I found downloading videos to the phone and then up to the cloud both rather tedious, though smaller thumbnail versions allow you to quickly preview them. The Piqo also tends to run a bit warm. Not unexpected from a dash cam this small sporting integrated GPS.
The Piqo’s night captures improve when you up the exposure using a photo editor, but extensive post-production is not something most users want to do.
Should you buy the Nextbase Piqo?
The Piqo is a well-designed, single-channel dash cam, that has all the bells and whistles including free cloud storage. But the night capture quality is bit wanting, and to take advantage of the extras, you must have your phone with you at all times.
If those services are what you seek, you might be better off with the Nextbase iQ. Damned the expense.
