This is a project I've been working on for several years now, and I think I'm just about at the point where I can call it a finished product.

Predator is a completely free, open source dash-cam platform designed to match or exceed the capabilities of traditional off-the-shelf dash-cams. It's designed to run on any Linux computer (typically a single-board computer like a Raspberry Pi). Here's a few notable features of Predator:
1. Segmented video recording with looped recording (automatically overwriting old videos)
2. The ability to store videos on an encrypted drive (or just in a physically protected location in the car)
3. Support for any number of channels (connect several cameras to capture different angles)
4. Add customizable text overlays to videos (license plate, GPS speed/location/altitude, time/date, etc.)
5. Support for nearly any generic USB webcam
6. Support for wireless video transfer/dash-cam configuration via the V0LT Optic web interface (https://v0lttech.com/optic.php)
7. Automatic license plate recognition capabilities through Phantom (https://v0lttech.com/phantom.php) or OpenALPR

Predator started out of a desire to solve a few problems I had with traditional dash-cams, but it has slowly turned into something that I believe could be useful to users with similar concerns as me.

It makes me nervous that traditional dash-cams allow basically anyone with access to the car (valets, passengers, car thieves) to access the storage media containing all of the video captured in the past few days. A car thief who breaks a window to steal the dash-cam on the windshield now has access to everywhere you've been in the past few days, where you live, how you drive, what you've said in your car (if you have audio recording enabled), and more. Predator dramatically improves security by separating the processing device from the cameras it connects to. Someone who breaks into your car would have to determine where you've installed the processing device (typically inside the dashboard, or behind interior body panels), then figure out how to get to it. Additionally, there's nothing stopping you from configuring Predator to store video files on an encrypted drive. As far as I can tell, there is no other consumer dash-cam capable of doing this.

The other main selling point of Predator is the fact that you can connect just about as many webcams as you want, as long as you have the USB bandwidth and processing power to handle it. While most traditional dash-cams are limited to 2 or 3 channels, Predator is capable of much more. Even if you exceed the capabilities of the processing device, the frame-rate will automatically reduce to compensate, but dash-cam recording will continue uninterrupted. This makes Predator extremely versatile, and opens up lots of interesting possibilities:
1. Full 360 degree coverage (front, right, rear, left channels)
2. License plate recognition (two front channels, one wide angle and one zoomed)
3. Multiple interior perspectives (one on the rear facing forward, and one on the front facing back)

If you'd like to give Predator a try, you can find documentation bundled with each download on the linked page. While Predator works completely stand-alone, you may also want to consider installing Optic (https://v0lttech.com/optic.php) as a graphical front-end for convenience.