Do any of you use a dashcam?

You're exactly correct in how it's wired, there are no issues, it just works great.

Then every few months I format the front and rear camera SD cards for trouble free operation.


Rob43

 

Prius v pics:


Rob43

 

This is exactly why I invested in a decent camera (including parking monitoring); if my silent witness saves me ONE insurance claim to prove my innocence, it has paid for itself. Plus, you never know when you may witness something that will be helpful to someone one day (witness an accident, etc).

The BlackVue I bought was not cheap (~$500), but it works well and is discreet. The only flaw with this camera is in the last year or two the internal battery seems to be shot, so the clock loses sync when it powers down when my backup battery runs out. Out of warranty and not worth paying to repair, so the simple workaround is to hold the button for a few seconds to reformat each time I need to force re-sync the clock via GPS every other day (annoying the software doesn’t sync automatically ). I plan to upgrade to a 4k camera at some point to be better at reading plates (as 1080p is still a bit weak at this, IMO), but I don’t intend to do that until after I change cars within in a year or so...

For installation, I ran the wire along the headliner, including the rear camera. It is mounted on the on the hatch, sitting on the bottom of the lower tinted glass (above the Toyota logo “hump” with the Gen 3 Hatch lower glass). The factory tint adds even more discretion, aside from the occasional thumb wipe on the glass to clean it, especially in the salty winter, lol. Setup works well.

 

I have a Viofo A119 V3 with a Cellink battery hardwired to the car. Love it.