The myGEKOgear Orbit 951 is a mid-range dual channel dash cam (front/rear) that films in full 1080p. It keeps a very small footprint on your windshield, and is basically ready to go out of the box. It has a lot of basic customization amenities that you would expect from a camera of this quality and even comes with a hard wiring kit! In this review, I’ll go over the installation and set up of the myGEKOgear Orbit 951, I’ll take a look at its performance and recording quality and share my thoughts on this dash cam.
Unboxing and installing the myGEKOgear Orbit 951
Unboxing the Orbit 951 is pretty straight forward. You get your two dash cams, a 32GB MicroSD card with adapter, and your cables. The front camera comes with a magnetic mount, while the rear camera (as can be expected) has an adhesive mount on itself for the rear of your vehicle. What is really helpful, however, is the inclusion of two different power cables. You can go through the 12v hookup in your vehicle, or hard wire through the use of the plug-in OBD port power source. The OBD cable also comes with its own power switch and this hard wire capability means that you get immediate access to the Orbit 951’s parking mode.
The only odd thing of note is that the box and a couple charts in the instruction manual state that the maximum supported card size is 64GB, while one part of the instructions states it’s 128GB. I’m going to assume the box and the charts are right, and this camera supports nothing larger than 64GB.
Installing and setting up the myGEKOgear Orbit 951
Whichever way you power your dash cam, installation should take mere minutes. As is the case with any dash cam I review, getting the adhesive backing off the mounts are the bane of my existence and take me much longer than it should.
In terms of all of the actual settings, I would recommend setting up your Orbit 951 direct from the camera. To accomplish this, plug it into a power source (you can probably do this inside the house since the power source input is a simple USB-C extension) and press the “M” button underneath the camera. The up and down menu buttons will cycle you through the options and the still picture/record button confirms as you make changes.
You can change recording settings (by quality and continuous loop preferences), drop timestamps in and out of your recordings, change exposure rates and more. The Orbit features a simple mounting system, where the front camera attaches to a magnetic mount which houses the electronics to connect it to the rear camera.
From there, just toss it onto the magnetic mount and you’re set to go! Unlike other cameras that will shut down and reset when connected or disconnected from the rear camera, this one has on the fly hookups. Once the camera makes contact with the mount, it’ll send power to the rear camera within seconds and recording begins.
Recording quality and performance of the myGEKOgear Orbit 951
The default recording method is its highest resolution at dual 1080p. Since it doesn’t have any performance issues at its highest settings, I wouldn’t recommend scaling down unless you absolutely need to (ie. maximizing recording space) because to be honest, the highest full 1080p settings are necessary to capture the clearest and most fluid footage possible.
Video quality is about what you can expect from a full 1080p dash cam system these days. The best looking and clearest footage comes during the day, where it can capture comfortably, even at high speeds. Parking footage is fairly clean as well. The OBD cable’s on/off switch is helpful, since parking mode can be toggled on and off at your leisure (it’s a faster use of your time to enable/disable it that way rather than directly from the camera.
The Night footage was about what I was expecting. Since the camera doesn’t have any special night vision features, night time drive footage can be a bit blurry from distances on the front camera and then clearer as you come closer to objects or signs. The back camera, however, is better in the dark than other 1080p offerings I’ve seen, and I was quite impressed considering the touch and go nature of most rear cameras I’ve reviewed.
myGEKOgear Orbit 951 does have a still camera, however, which is a nice to have. You can detach the camera from the mount and take a quick still photo. There’s a really small battery backup that ensures the camera doesn’t shut off right from the mount, so you can use the camera to take a picture of an accident scene if you don’t have a smartphone or digital camera nearby.
The camera at full settings is recording about ½ GB per minute (front and back) so you’ll get about an hour worth of footage from the 32GB camera before it begins recording over itself. Overall, video quality is about on par with its competition.
Is the myGEKOgear Orbit 951 a complete package at its price point?
The myGEKOgear Orbit 951 is a really solid entry into the mid-range dash cam market, and is one that would be good for everyday commuters looking for small but useful camera. It’s easy to set up and get going, and the customization features are nice. There aren’t a lot of other fancy bells and whistles, but if you don’t need something really comprehensive, this is a nice straight forward option for the 1080p market. I might have liked to have seen 60 FPS recording on the front camera, but it’s a small tradeoff for a 1080p rear camera.
The OBD cable is a welcome addition, and gives you immediate access to parking recordings, and of course, frees up your 12v power for phone chargers or other devices. With those parking recordings, I would recommend relegating them to just G-Sensor incidents, but it’s up to you.
A few things to note, however. The camera doesn’t appear to have any sort of temperature control built in, and while it never shut off on me while I was recording (or while it sat in the hot car) in mid-summer temperatures, it runs really hot. This won’t impact you 99% of the time, but just keep it in mind if you reach up to tinker with your settings since it might be hot to the touch. myGEKOgear says the camera can operate safely to 65 degrees Celsius, so the camera’s performance shouldn’t suffer.
The other thing of note to me is the supported Mobile App for this camera called “GoPlus Cam”. This app was developed by a third party, and honestly, it isn’t the best. It hasn’t been updated for iOS in well over a year, and using it to connect to the camera direct was spotty at best. However, it’s really easy to watch your drive footage back directly from the camera and directly on a computer, so don’t let that be a dealbreaker. It’s just a bit inconvenient.
Should you get the myGEKOgear Orbit 951 dash cam?
For a mid-range dash cam, this performs and records well. That said, if you’re a rideshare operator, or somebody who does a lot of night driving, I’d take a pass on this one since there are other cameras out there that film better and clearer at night. There might not be many options at this price point, but it’s worth spending more to get something that can do higher quality recording at night if you’re on the road a lot after dark.
The myGEKOgear Orbit 951 does pack a nice punch for what it offers, but when you have a lot of other cameras out there in the market that do the same thing, it’s hard to separate this from the competition. It’s helpful that you get the memory card and OBD hard wiring cable in package (since that’s easily a savings of about $80) but performance-wise, it doesn’t do anything to stick out from the others. That said, if you’re in the market for a really simple and easy dash cam that doesn’t require much attention and is pretty hands off after the initial setup, this is a good option to put on your list of dash cams to check out.
The myGEKOgear Orbit 951 dual channel dash cam is now available at Best Buy and online at BestBuy.ca
