I am considering installing a camera on the front bumper. This camera would be mainly used for parking to avoid hitting other vehicles. Not wishing to void the warrantee I was thinking of using the car's Bluetooth capability. I know some mobile phones have cameras that transmit the camera video via Bluetooth. Will the 06 Prius Bluetooth pick up these videos and display them on the MFD? If this were possible it would mean I would only have to mount a Bluetooth enabled camera on the bumper and supply 12v to make it work.
Get a bullit cam also known as lipsick camera and a laptop. That is what my friends use for driving videos, they mount it in the lower grill but your actual grille should be about level with the protruding part of your bumper do to the shape of your car. You can get the bullet cam ot transmit video to the laptop. Do this if you already have a laptop as it will save you alot of hassel trying to hardwire it into your car's existing screen then being able to kill the signal the ECU send to the screen to allow the camera to function. Honestly though, I say just get better at pakring and you'll learn where the front of your car is, a good method to try is turn on your headlights and use the to see how big the reflection on th ecar you're parking near is. A FRONT mounted cam seems like a waste of time anyway.
Most of the techniques for adding a second camera discussed here on PC seem to involve tapping into the video feed and substituting a second video into the system. That would provide you with a means of getting the new camera installed. Using the Bluetooth sounds unique. Perhaps someone will figure it out. I think the idea is pretty cool. At this point, my parallel parking is not getting any better.
Another option would simply be to install a head unit or monitor somewhere with video display and capture capability and use a simple CCTV camera that has RCA outs. Power can be run from an inverter to the supplied camera reducer. I also feel that this is a huge waste of time and money. The Prius isn't a long car by any means and a capable driver is aware of the space his car takes.
Thanks for the suggestions. My major concern is that I park nose in to a wall and I don't want to run into that. Unfortunately, it is not convenient to park tail in.
LikeI said if you turn on yourheadlights, looking at the prius design, you should be able to tell how close you are, the lights are about 3 inches at moset receeded behind the crash area of the bumper. If you have a friend help you get pretty much as close to a wall as possible with your ligths on, you can see how big the light spots on the wall are to know what to look out for. If not the camera will be pretty cool and unique.
Another option that will save you tons of cash is to simply park your car in the garage or where ever it is you park. Get your car as close to the wall as your comfortable with. Anchor a piece of string to the ceiling then tie the other end around a tennis ball so that the tennis ball will touch an area of the car that you can clearly see (like the center of the windshield). So every time you pull in, you creep up until the tennis ball touches the car and you know your at your desired distance.
I know that one owner got a cheap ($12) cell phone antenna and attached it to the front license plate holder. You can see the tip of it, especially if you stick an antenna ball on it. When people ask what the antenna's for he says it pulls electricity from the air. As I have a 2005, I don't have a rear camera. I'm thinking of getting one of those reverse-sensor systems. There's one that has two sensors for the front and give a digital readout of the distance.
http://www.sigmaautomotive.com/jdm/prius/prius0405.php check out that site and look for the corner marker pole, auto. With the flip of a switch you can raise the pole and know where the front corner of your car is.
Great suggestions and one made me smile. priusstreetracerFTW method of a ball on a string conjured up pictures of the man on a donkey with a carrot on a string at the end of a pole. Here am I driving down the road with a tennis ball on a pole dangling out the front so that I don't hit the wall in the parking lot. :lol: Just as an aside, our local cheap auto place sells a device for a few dollars that you screw to thewall and it shows your distace from the device on a panel readout. I like aaf709 version of pulling electricity from the air. That is way cool. I am aware of the corner poles but thought a camera would be a very nice addition if I could get the picture in via bluetooth. I should have a bluetooth phone next week so will try and see if I can transmit a picture to the MFD.
I would think Bluetooth would be too slow of a connection for usefull video, it is limited to 586 Kbps at most last I checked and usually Bluetooth that is designed for Handfree sets are the older verison, which lis limited to 56 Kbps.
