Having won a plethora of awards for their Road Angel Halo Pro dash cam, we thought we’d review one to see if it really is that good…
Road Angel Halo Pro Review
- What is it?
- What’s it like to use?
- What’s the footage like?
- Do I need the hardwire kit for the Road Angel Halo Pro?
- Road Angel Halo Pro conclusion
- Where can I purchase the Road Angel Halo Pro?
The Road Angel Halo Pro kit gives you a front 2k camera and a rear 1080p camera to ensure you never miss an incident. It includes a 3-year warranty when purchased from their roadangelgroup.com website and can be hardwired for ultimate parking protection.
What is it?
A 2k resolution front camera records at 1140p for the best clarity – many cheaper dashcams record at 1080p or upscale to 1080p, and while that’s largely fine for recording incidents while out the road, you can soon find out that getting details like registration numbers is near on impossible if the car isn’t perfectly stationary.
Up front, you get a 140-degree viewing angle and 120 degrees with the rear 1080p camera. The Halo Pro supports up to 128GB MicroSD memory cards and plugs in using a modern USB-C connector.
The rear camera links to the front via a bespoke circular connector, which feeds into the main USB-C cable.
Regarding image sensors, the Road Angel Halo Pro uses the OmniVision ovo4b10, the same as the Nextbase line of dashcams, while processing is looked after by a Hisilicon hi3556 system on chip.
There’s a built-in G-Sensor and GPS module – the latter enables you to track your journeys and your driving style to see if you can improve, similar to the TomTom Curfer of yesteryear. It’s a little gimmicky but can be handy to see routes you’ve previously travelled.
Retrieving the footage is easy via the Android or iOS ‘Halo’ apps, the camera links to your phone via its own WiFi connection so transferring videos is nice and quick. In the app, you can also tweak image settings, sensitivity and enable the more advanced ‘parking mode’ if you’re hardwired.
Build quality of both the front and rear camera is top-notch, easily in line with rivals Nextbase. The glossy grey plastic is solid, and the port covers have a quality feel. The rear camera can be used vertically or horizontally, and 3M tape mounts securely to glass or plastic.
The front camera can also be un-clipped from its mount if you should need to remove it, but the rear is permanently affixed. You get two sets of 3M stickers in the box, so you can move the Halo Pro at least once between cars.
What’s it like to use?
Well, installing the system really is a breeze. It took 15 minutes to be set up, and working with the 12v socket adapter. Wiring it again via the fuse box to enable the full parking mode took another 15 minutes, if that. The included trim tool made it easy to poke the cable into gaps or lift rubber seals.
One thing to watch out for is how the Halo Pro sits on your windscreen. Depending on your vehicle, it may not be the most discreet solution.
On our BMW i3, the black sun banding at the top hides the Road Angel Halo Pro perfectly, making it really covert. But on other cars without this band or a slimmer band, you end up seeing the whole camera – this totally depends on how pedantic you are about having a dash cam visible to others.
Secondly, the USB-C socket and cable that screws into the Halo Pro is pretty chunky. It has very little bend to it, so you can’t get it as close to the headlining as you’d like in some cases. Again, it’s really going to depend on the vehicle and the location where you position the camera. It would be good if a right-angle adapter was provided just in case you needed it.
Running the cable around the car was easy as it’s nice and thin (once you get about 20cm away from the camera), so the wire tucks in nicely to the rubber weather strips around your doors. There’s also plenty of cable for the rear camera. You’ll only likely need the extra 5-metre extension cable if you have a huge people carrier or a van-derived kinda thing.
When all plugged in and working the built-in voice prompts tell you if there’s an issue with the memory card, and let you know the system is working. On the rear of the unit is a large ‘microphone’ button which can be pressed to disable audio recording – I’ve always had this turned off on my dash cams, but this button will remain lit up in red if you have switched off.
You’ll also get a number of LEDs to tell you the recording status on the front camera, and there’s another on the rear to let you know it’s working.
What’s the footage like?
Now, this is the crux of every dashcam review. Is the footage any good? Can I read number plates?
Well, yes, with the Road Angel Halo Pro, the front camera footage is clear enough to read the number plates of vehicles in front and when they pass you. The rear is a bit trickier due to its lower resolution (our positioning of the camera deeper into the car rather than on the glass also wouldn’t have helped this).
In the twilight hours and night, the footage remains crisp with plates still viewable in front and when passing. The only real issue we had was reading the plates of vehicles passing us in the opposite direction. It was much trickier to clearly make out the registrations, and sometimes impossible even on the front camera.
It’s no biggie, as every dash cam seems to struggle with this, but check out our test footage below to make your own judgments.
Do I need the hardwire kit for the Road Angel Halo Pro?
To enable more in-depth parking mode features, you’ll need the optional Road Angel Halo Dash Cam Hardwiring Kit, which is currently £19.99. This frees up your 12v socket, will make internal wiring neater, and, more importantly, enables up to 24 hours of recording when your vehicle is parked.
It also enables the ‘Winter Heating Mode,’ which warms the dash cam to clear ice from the glass and remove fogging.
For the 24-hour recording, there’s a clever bit of built-in tech within the Halo Pro that will automatically cut off power if your car’s internal battery drops below 11.8V – this can be changed to three different settings in the app to conserve more battery in case you need it.
So yes, you’ll need the hardwire kit if you want up to 24 hours of parked-up coverage.
The kit has all the adapters you’ll need: an ATO, Micro2 Mini, and Mini Low Profile fuse tap. And to install it, you need to find a fuse with a constant 12v power supply – like the alarm horn, and then a 12v switched supply – like the 12v sockets. Attach the black wire to an earthed chassis bolt, and you’re good to go!
Road Angel Halo Pro Conclusion
Weighing up ease of installation, features, and price, the Road Angel Halo Pro is hard to argue with at £199.99. Especially when it’s backed by a 3-year warranty (as long as you buy it directly from them).
There are so many budget dash cams out there it’s worth investing in one with a good warranty; otherwise, you can end up with something useless after a year or so…or worse, a camera you think has been working when it hasn’t.
The Halo app is simple to use; it connects every time, and I love how granular you can be with the settings – again, something you don’t see with other apps. And the Nextbase app seems to take AN AGE to connect or do anything with, so props to Road Angel there.
If you’re looking at a two-camera system that’s cheaper than the Halo Pro, save a little bit more and make it worth your while.
Where can I purchase the Road Angel Halo Pro?
You can buy the Road Angel Halo Pro directly from Road Angel, this will give you the full 3-year warranty. You can also opt for Halfords fitting for £79.99.
It’s also available in Halfords, and of course, you can buy the Road Angel Halo Pro on Amazon.
