why though? by all accounts the video quality was terrible

Depending on what you want to hack together, sometimes terrible video quality out of an incredibly cheap machine is acceptable.

At that price, you could afford to buy five of them and the micro computer to amalgamate the camera output into something better than bad.

If all you're looking for is cheap, you can find action cameras like that for around $20 on Amazon, probably even cheaper through AliBaba or similar.

Bought two of them for my kids. They work with the 32gb sandisk microsd cards I bought at the same time. Bigges gripe with them is the RTC looses power when you switch batteries, somewhat allieviated by automatic timesetting when connecting with the akaso app, but alas only somewhat, since the time is lost every time the kids replace the batteries, which means the photos are all in jumbled order on the memory card.

Aside from that, they came with a bunch off accessories, including a non-coded remote that allows "one button" picture or video taking, without caring about the mode of the camera (and the buttons on the remote are easier for kid hands to press, less force needed)

The non codedness comes in handy, since one remote will trigger both cameras, allowing synchronized videos to be created for front/rear or stereoscopic purposes.

btw, created an account to post this, hope it has value.