Dashcam time

My employer has decided to send me to a major city for some training... for like three months. Since I have a long history of being rear-ended (it's not me, I swear), I decided this would be a good time to get a dual dashcam.

My current choice is the Viofo A129 Dual. Any tips or tricks for plugging this into my 2016 model 2?

I think I will put a switch on the dedicated 12v line so my battery doesn't drain when I am at home, but I think the parking mode will be a good idea when at the hotel...

 

I have my kit, and I managed to get the hatchback wiring run. The flexible conduit between the body and the hatch can accomodate teh rather thick data/power wire for the camera, but it's some work to massage the Mini-USB connector through it. You'll want to free both end of the conduit: either end has four clips hold it into the sheet metal; free two of them and you can remove it.

Right now I am stuck trying to figure out how to get the grab bars off. Meanwhile, I will likely start on the front camera.

 

The camera is in! It is hidden by the mirror from my point of view, and I am going to order the BT remote at some point so I can lock files at need.

 

So, forward is down in this picture. The camera requires two taps: 12v (always on) power and Accessory (on with ignition), which enables parking mode and driving mode. Luckily, on the 2016 Prius 2, there are a few open spots. The one all the way in the back (bottom of this picture) is Accessory power, and the one in the middle is always hot. You can see the bolt that secures the fusebox to the frame, which makes a handy grounding point, as well.

 

I picked the Viofo set because it was highly rated and reasonably priced. I am slightly paranoid about privacy: I don't like GPS tracking, and have the GPS and Location turned off on my phone as well as on the dashcam, for instance, and so having a camera turned into the cabin is not something I would welcome.

My biggest regret is not having all the tools on-hand that I wanted to when I went on my trip. I was out of town for two weeks, and it took me five or so days after work to finish the install, and a good chunk of that time was wasted in me searching an unfamiliar town looking for tools and accessories.

The rear camera sits a little high... the upper tenth of the view is obscured by the middle divider of the hatchback, and I can definitely tell on the video when my brakes are on (though maybe that is a good thing?), and I regularly feel the need to manually clean the dust off of the glass for optimal video quality.

To be honest, I haven't taken the time to pull video off the device to check for quality... it's on the bottom of my extensive to-do list, hah

 

Too true

As I mentioned above, I placed my forward camera behind my rear-view mirror, to the right, which makes it hard to reach from the driver's seat, so I got the optional BT remote, which is literally just a button for locking the current video file and mounted it to the dash.

You will want to consider something like that if it is available on your system, or place the forward camera so that you can reach the incident button on it.