Dash cam battery usage?

I use the cigarette charger which turns on and off with ignition (mine Prius prime 2022). Good dash cams have a battery that will record when there is sudden motion while “off” in case something hits your car while parked.

can get a voltmeter and check wires to see which are powered only with ignition —- this way it doesn’t drain battery

 

I'm using a dashcam with parking surveillance without issues since 1 year ago. The trick is to use a special power adapter which will cut the power off to the dashcam if the 12V battery voltage drops below a certain level which can be set. I've set mine to 11.8V and everything is ok.

 

The Prius 12v battery is small to begin with.

The traction battery can only replenish the 12v battery when in Ready mode.

So you should anticipate that you'll need to add a battery for extended parking surveillance. The best systems I have seen are 2-piece: you put the camera up on the window, and then hide the battery pod under the dash or underhood somewhere.

 

I don't think this is a realistic scenario .... Because the Parking camera battery needs to be bigger compared to the vehicle 12V battery in order to obtain an extended period of recording compared to the one that vehicle battery can already provide. 12V car battery is already big enough and I don't see a reason why someone will carry/hide a bigger extra 12V battery inside the vehicle in order to get camera running ... One normal dashcam is drawing around 0.3amps per hour. That means it will work for at least 4 days with around 30Ah. Prime battery is 45Ah . Beyond 4 days, you should probably think of another system ( solar panel ? ) to power your dashcam during parking if that is a MUST for you ...