Hey guys, this is going to be my first post here. I've been thinking about getting a Dashcam for my Prius. I've been doing a couple of researching, learned how you could do the cable management by hiding it under the headliner. Though i have some questions before purchasing one, and would like to know any of your experiences. So my first question is, will the dashcam drain the battery when the engine is off (but the dashcam is still plugged in via the cigarette charger)? Even though, I intend to hard wire mine to the fusebox, the same question applies. And speaking about hard wiring, I wasn't able to find any Tutorials on Youtube how to hard wire specifically on a 2nd gen Prius. Since i'm a beginner at this, any detailed info would help. Is there a tutorial on the forums about hardwiring on a 2nd gen Prius? And finally, what is the best Dash cam that you would recommend for a Prius for a budget under $100?
only thing I got is that the dash cam won't drain the battery if its plugged in the lighter socket, because both the lighter sockets aren't powered when the car is off.
In my 2005, I have been using the Rexing V1 for a few weeks now and it does great after you upgrade the firmware. It's $99 on Amazon! I haven't hard wired it yet, but I plan to. Either with this on Amazon, /dp/B00OHHT7ZG or this, /dp/B00MH4ZVHO The latter protects your vehicle's battery from being drained by the dash camera if wired up to a constant 12V. The latest firmware has a parking monitor feature, but the company hasn't updated their manual yet explaining how to use it. And since it powers off when I turn off the vehicle, I haven't been able to play around with that feature yet. I could do it on the bench, but I haven't bothered to. If this cam does well after several months of use, I plan to get another one to use as a rear cam. They have another model that has a rear camera but it has a horrid 640x480 resolution. No thanks, I'd rather have 1080p.
I use a SJCAM M10+ hardwired so it auto-powers up and starts recording when I start the car and stops and shuts off when I power off the car. Works great for dashcam and action camera! Looks like the big "A" store online has the new WIFI model: SJCAM M10 (click the hyperlinked name as you can't post direct links to the "A" store) non-WIFI version HERE
The problem I have with this one, and many others, is that it looks like a GoPro or something else you want to steal. I want a dash cam as well but I'm concerned about crack heads stealing it.
I have both front and rear cams in my Prius. My front cam is an A118-C. The rear cam is a G1W-C. The C is for capacitor, meaning that it uses a capacitor for power instead of a battery. Batteries tend to have issues at high and low temperatures, so the capacitor resolves this. The only downside is that the camera only has enough power to run for a few seconds when not plugged in, but most people will not need the camera to run when the car is off anyway. The cables for both front and rear are hidden inside the interior panels. I have an 8-port cigarette lighter splitter that has 4 usb ports and 4 cigarette lighter ports. Both cams are plugged in here with USB cables. If you use a USB cable instead of the charger that the cam comes with, I recommend getting high-gauge cables. The AWG rating is what you are looking for. Most cheap cables are 28 AWG, and may have issues powering the camera if they are longer than 10 feet. I use a 24 AWG cable for my front cam, and my rear cam is powered by a long 20 AWG cable extension that is chained to a 24 AWG shorter cable near the camera. My rear camera was having issues using a long 28 AWG cable. My front camera is mounted to the windshield with the adhesive that came with it, to the right of the rear view mirror where the black dots are. The lens is just below the black dots, and is barely visible from outside the car. The cable is routed to the right in the headliner, down the A pillar behind the side airbag, then down between the far right of the dash and the passenger door front weather seal, then tucked above the passenger footwell, and to my charger. The A pillar plastic cover simply pops off if you pull on it at the top. It does have catches that prevent it from coming completely off, but you can work with it like this. It doesn't need to come off entirely. Be careful with routing the cable past the air bags, though I doubt that the cables would really prevent the airbags from deploying properly anyway. The rear camera is mounted to the rear glass using an adhesive mount specific to the GW1. The factory suction mount did not offer enough down angle, and the camera pointed up slightly. The adhesive mount offers more angle range and sits the camera closer to the glass. The cable has some slack before it is tucked into the C pillar interior plastic so that the rear hatch can open without tugging the cord. It is routed down between the rear passenger side door and the seat, tucked into the weather sealing where you can't see it. It then goes under the plastic kick panels to the front of the car where it follows the same path as the other cable above the passenger side footwell. I highly recommend getting a dash cam! Here is a small compilation that I made myself using footage from my two cameras. Not all of it is filmed in a Prius. Some of the footage is A118C, some is G1W. Nothing as interesting as the Russian compilations, but fun nonetheless. Youtube overcompressed the video, the raw quality is much higher. Also, night footage on poorly lit roads is very bad at this price point. If night image quality is important, look into a Street Guardian camera, but they are more than you are wanting to spend. Under $100, the G1W and A118 capacitor versions are among the better models. Also, make sure you order from a real retailer, not some random ebay seller. The G1W and A118 are cheapo Chinese cameras, but even these have fakes out there that are significantly lower quality.
What I'm interested about it is how would you wire this thing into the fuse box? So far I wasn't about to find any tutorials specific to the 2nd gen Prius about hardwiring it.
dashcamtalk"com/forum/threads/my-mini-0805-hardware-installation.9846/ but fusebox will be stay open as you insert piggyback fuse adapter
Nifty! What media are these recording to? A memory card? Is it possible to set them to fill the card and then rewrite over the older files first to keep a rolling record?
Yes, dedicated dash cams have "Loop recording", where they will delete the oldest file when the card is full. If you captured something that you need to save, most cams have a "Lock file" button on them that will protect it from being deleted, ever, unless you format the card or delete the file yourself. Some cams put these files into a separate folder.
I use a clip over the mirror dash cam. I hard wired mine onto the dome light hot wire. Dome lights turn off at a time delay if you accidently leave on. So my dash cam shuts a period after I lock the car & walk away. Not right when I turn the ingition off. Works perfect! No need to dissassemble the dash at all. You can get nice ones on Amazon.
Which model? I have purchased two similar (white labeled from different sellers) dash cams (two different cars) which clip onto the rear view mirror, and what I love is that is pretty concealed so you have a dash cam w/o all the attention or clutter PLUS it has a camera for rear as well and records both. What I HATE about it is the firmware can never be updated (at least, that is how it appears as sellers abandon the topic) and the DEFAULT view when looking into your rear view mirror is the FRONT of the car. While there are settings to change that, you can not change the default so every time the car turns on you would have to fuss w/the buttons which is not reasonable to expect. Then there is the problem of recording all the conversations in the car as well, because if you turn that off then you lose your loop video recording ability. So this is a great design in desperate need of a non-existent firmware upgrade. Anyone know of other hidden style dash cams that record front and back?
