Google will soon let Pixel phones double as dashcams

See Google will soon let Pixel phones double as dashcams on 9to5google.com

On select Android devices – primarily Google’s Pixel phones but also other devices like the Nothing Phone (1) – the Personal Safety app offers useful features like “Emergency Sharing,” “Safety Check,” and “Car Crash Detection.” This evening, Google seems to have mistakenly launched a “dogfood” build of Personal Safety – version 2023.04.27.532191641.8-dogfood – via the Play Store.

Inside, our team managed to enable a new feature called “Dashcam” that, as the name suggests, records video (and audio, optionally) while you are driving. If your phone is mounted in the right spot, the recording should provide helpful information in the event of an accident or other unexpected situation.

Lol at how the version name is literally called dogfood¹.

Anyways, this sounds like a great feature and I hope they roll it out widely. I tried this with my iPhone once. Thanks to the ultrawide lens and a decent mounting position, it did a reasonable job. Problem was that I couldn’t play music via Bluetooth while the the “dashcam” was running. It also heat up a lot, even triggering the cooldown warning. Space wasn’t a problem since you can toggle 1080p before recording.

Google’s implementation seems particularly useful since it leaves the phone fully usable², works when screen is off, triggers on Bluetooth connect (handy for my FM modulator) as well as storage management.

This is a great feature and I hope they’re dogfooding works out. Its something Apple should steal, especially since Google is doing it in their Personal Safety app that sounds similar to Apple’s safety features and crash detection.