Mio MiVue 568 Touch review

We've seen several dashcams / drive recorder on Techradar before. Indeed, we've seen one or two Mio MiVue units.

For an overview of what's involved and why you might want one, head over here. What, then, is new and interesting about Mio's latest, the MiVue 568 Touch?

Most obvious is the addition of touchscreen technology for controlling the device. The 568 Touch also sports a speed camera database with free lifetime updates which makes for a very significant second string feature.

Is that enough to make it a worthwhile update over previous models? Let's find out.

Full of features

Along with the snazzy new touchscreen and speed camera database, the MiVue 568 Touch brings largely the same feature set we saw on the MiVue 388. And that's actually a good thing.

You get 130-degree wide angle video recording at 1080p and 30 frames per second. There's full data logging for those videos including GPS location, time and speed. The MiVue Manager Windows app, meanwhile, hooks into that data and gives you full access to review your drives and any incidents.

On that note, there's automatic emergency event logging, auto start-up and shut-down and power via a standard car 12v adapter. The final major feature of note is the parking mode which uses motion sensors to detect any movement outside the car with the intention of capturing the perpetrator should anyone damage your car in your absence and fail to report it.

Taking the MiVue 568 Touch for a spin

So what's this new model actually like? As before it's a compact device, which is good in terms on not obscuring your view of the road ahead. However, Mio recommends placement near the rear-view mirror for the ebst results in terms of image capture.

That's all very well, but unless you have a power cable professionally installed and routed around the windscreen, that means having a cable dangling down from the device, which isn't really acceptable. In practice, mounting lower down the screen is what you have to do and in our experience is good enough regards clarity of image capture.

As for the new touch functionality, it's very welcome, that's for sure. It may seem like overkill given the tiny 2.5-inch screen. But it actually helps you get at features and configure the device much more swiftly and efficiently than with a limited number of dedicated buttons as per the old MiVue 388.

As before, the quality of thbe video capture isn't going to have you dashing off to make epic home movies. But it's good enough for the safety remit and also for some casual track day recordings on the side if you're into that kind of thing.

Safety in numbers

The speed camera warnings also work well enough. You can configure the distance at which the device provides a warning and choose whether you want the audible warning gong. In our experience, it picks out fixed cameras accurately, but failed to warn of a few well worn locations used for temporary cameras in our area.

The automatic emergency event recording also works well once configured. The idea here is to automatically detect any serious event like heavy use of the brakes or an impact and ensure the event is stored on the memory card and not recorded over by susbsequent normal driving which is eventually loops over once the memory card is full.

Multiple sensitivity levels for the g-sensor are offered and we found that one notch off maximum sensitivity ensures the emergency detection is always triggered without too many false positives.

The MiVue Manager Windows app works well (a version for Apple Mac systems is also available) and allows you review and recordings in forensic detail thanks to Google Maps integration and full g-sensor logging.

The parking mode functional, finally, is a nice little extra. It's hard for us to know exactly how reliable it will be in practice. But even the chance it might catch someone damaging your car is worth having in the context of other features you will regularly use.

TechRadar verdict

Overall, this is another successful device from Mio. The speed camera database is a worthwhile extra, the touchscreen makes using the MiVue 568 Touch easier than previous Mio recorders and the other familiar features works as well as before.

If you're looking for negatives, there are a few. You'll have to supply your own memory card (MicroSD) which seems a bit mean in this day and age. The 12v power adapter is also very bulky.

Moreover, in general terms there's only so much a single forward-facing camera can achieve. For full coverage, you really need at least a rear-facing camera and probably one each side. This camera will be of only limited use should you be rear-ended, for instance. But then with multiple cameras you're into a whole different ballgame regards setup, power and management.

Indeed, just this one device alone can add a significant amount of in-car clutter, especially if you're already using aftermarket navigation. We'd like to see the MiVue 568 Touch's functionality combined with a good satnav feature. Now that would be interesting.

But as this kind of forward-facing drive recorder goes, the MiVue 568 Touch is very easy to recommend even if at over £150, it's quite a significant investment for such a specialised device.