Toyota OEM Dash Cam PT94908210

I added bullet point responses to your questions in the quote above


Here's an install I did back in 2017. https://www.tacomaworld.com/threads/street-guardian-sg9663dc-install-dashcam.519194/ Ignore the part about the HW kit (PowerMagic pro). I was being cheap and recycling a HW Kit from another brand camera that I spliced a 12v plug and electrical taped together. Saved me about $20 but it was ugly. The rest of the setup is still mostly relevant.

upload some videos if you can. Would like to see day and night video.

 

if you're willing to spend $600 plus per camera, then BlackVue I say is the best in class and fewest headaches (relatively speaking, I still sometimes get random lost connection and weird bugs, but they push out updates regularly to address these problems).
I have all my vehicles professionally hardwire installed. They just tap into the fuse box inside the vehicle for power. When you turn on the engine, the alternator powers the dashcam, and when the ignition is off, you can choose to use the 12v battery from the vehicle to supply the power to the dashcam for parking mode. When in parking mode, the dashcam will record videos if it senses motion visually. You can change the sensitivity too if all you caught was some bird flying by.

However, I installed auxiliary battery packs so when in parking mode it draws my own battery pack instead of the 12v battery from the vehicle because I've had a few times that it completely drained the 12v and I couldn't get the engine started.

The loop time depends on how much memory space you put in the SD card for the dashcam, mine's set on 4k resolution and 256GB SD card, it can record 1 to 1.5 days of footage before overwriting. That should give you enough time to react to anything that you need to get access to.

BlackVue or maybe others, can be configured to automatically upload severe impact to cloud (if you wire the dashcam to LTE module with data connection) so that if something were to happen, you still can see it from the auto uploads to the cloud and that won't get overwritten.

 

The bolded portion is my biggest gripe with BlackVue. I love the design and feature set they have, but it's those bugs and other issues I decided to move away from. A few years ago they had major problems with the lens losing focus over time due to glue melting from vibration and heat. The might have fixed that now, but the forums are still constant with people reporting issues. For something like a dashcam, I don't want to worry about bugs and the thought of losing or missing files. I expect a dashcam to always work. I'm just one person though and this has been my experience and opinion I have on BlackVue.

I have an original StreetGuardian Panorama dashcam that's now about 8 years old and still working (knock on wood) and the quality is still excellent for being a 1080p camera. It has to do with the use of high-quality capacitors and lens that keeps the image sharp. It will likely outlive my 08 Sentra haha

 

Yeah, I agree, I didn't believe in spending $$$ on dashcam, and I dabbled with garmin mini, Toyota OEM, Thinkware, and then finally decided to try BlackVue after their 900x series and their newest 900x plus. So far I have no issue with heat and glue melting even after 2 summers in brutal Texas. They will shut down if they get too hot, so I normally would park opposite of sunlight and that should be enough to keep the temperature low. Other than that, I haven't had any significant malfunction, the LTE disconnection is a bit problematic sometimes, I have it with T mobile data plan so who knows, might be T mobile's problem.

 

I appreciate all the information. It's a lot to digest for me as I have zero experience... I'm past my prime so I don't even think about things being connected to the cloud, LTE enabled, etc... the world moves faster than I do and while at one point I considered myself up to speed...I'm no longer .. up to speed, hell somedays I can't even get up.

I don't feel I must have cutting edge technology and I am certainly not ready to spend 600$/car. For my new Tacoma I like the idea of an OEM product. I think I found it around 240$ from some of the online parts.toyota.com dealers. That's not out of the question, if it's a decent product.

I've recently learned about this cool site called Youtube . So I went and watched a couple of videos on some of the other brands that were mentioned. Eventually I ended up on some website named after a really large river and found this

$114 VIOFO Dash Cam A119 V3 2K 2560x1440P Quad HD+ 60FPS Front Car Dash Camera, 5MP STARVIS Sensor, 140-Degree Wide Angle, GPS Included, Buffered Parking Mode, True HDR, Motion Detection, Time Lapse

VIOFO model, which after the sale price and the additional coupon would run me about 85$. It is most likely a dated unit, but I am wondering if it wouldn't be a good place to start.
I'm spending money on my new truck like I am printing it in the spare bedroom . I'd told my wife that I'd keep it stock for a while so a budget item to play around with a bit might be the ticket.

@malatx and @venezian, you guys seem to have a lot of knowledge. Tear that VIOFO model apart and give me your thoughts on it as an inexpensive entry point.

 

The model you linked is currently the latest version of the 119 model. With the current coupon, that’s a hell of a deal.
Two things I strongly recommend. Get the hardwire kit

$14 VIOFO HK3 ACC Hardwire Kit for A129, A129 Plus, A129 PRO, A129 IR, A119V3, Enables Parking Mode, Low Voltage Protection

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KZGM9LS?_encoding=UTF8

Check The firmware version on your camera and see if there is an updated version available to download.
https://viofo.com/en/content/41-viofo-a119-v3-dash-cam-support/#Firmware

When going through the settings. Set the video quality to high/max and keep it at 30fps. 60 tends to soften the video too much and might not be as good at night.

when pointing the camera, make sure not too get too much of the sky. Since it’s brighter the camera will constantly try to correct white balance.

remember, for this price point, you don’t get Wi-Fi. If you want to retrieve video files, you’ll have to remove the memory card and plug it into your computer with an adapter.

 

I like my Garmin mini. Easy to use app. Good quality. Very small foot print. Downside is there are no telematics (if you’re into that tech stuff) and the camera could use a slightly wider pov. But for the price, it’s great.

 

Been running that one in a couple of our cars for several years. Only issue I have ever had is if car is parked for a long time (week or so) the unit seems to want you to hit the power button to fire up instead of autostart (I don't have parking mode setup). Other than that they work great. Not sure about you but I have found that shopping on a website named after a large South American river tends to result in a flood of packages to my door

 

No specs on the video resolution of the OEM dash cam. Seems a little suspect

 

I'm going to go ahead a grab one then. I'm kind of looking at the next model up A129(?) as there are some bundles that include the wiring and the polarizing filter and that model supports the wifi transfer. I am thinking the polarizing filter may be useful, because I live in the land of perpetual rain and the glare can be horrendous at times off of wet roads.

Any thoughts on that filter? @venezian

Amazon is a damn double edge sword. I get on there and just buy shit, they are experts and data mining and they show me things I didn't even know I needed. Couple that with the fact that If I order very early in the morning, I am so close to a distribution hub I can literally get it the same day, sometimes within just a few hours. Covid spoiled us. I havent been inside a physical store, but a handful of times in a few years. Costco doesn't count...

 

I'm getting a "clear" windshield ceramic tint on the truck so I don't use a filter. I think the tint caused issues for the filter so I don't use it.

If you get the filter, check and make sure to remove the plastic on the lens. Sometimes it's on both sides of the filter and another plastic cover on the dashcam lens. A lot of people overlook that and wonder why their videos are blurry and have a blue tint.

 

https://youtu.be/772SOW4oRGc

from what I captured, it's 1080p. To be honest, 1080p is not enough to see license plates.

 

nope not good enough for the price. Running the VIOFO 129 pro with 4k and it does an ok job with license plates

 

Same. Had one for 4 years that did great, but finally bit the dust. Promptly got another and have been running it for 2 years and change now, still going strong.

Video quality is good enough to read “close” license plates, don’t use any fancy features though (parking recording, etc) just basic front facing dash cam.

Have caught quite a few interesting encounters in it, including very interesting Toyota tech moments Always surprising how many people, who end up driving my vehicle for service or whatever, don’t notice the camera or it’s start up sound.

 

It's quite impressive that they can miss something like that, it's small, but it's also not remotely hidden either.

I review videos whenever it goes in for service.

 

Who got pulled over? lol

 

Up until this Tacoma, I always hid it high and tight just behind the passenger side of the rearview mirror…so it was a bit out of direct sight (and the wires run hidden along the headliner).

My new Tacoma has that sensor on the passenger side of the rear view mirror, which would put the dash cam too far passenger if I cleared that, so it got installed on the driver side of the mirror and is still pretty hidden, but less so.

 

the Ford that passed me on the right, I was already doing 5 mph over

 

We have a Fitcam in our 2019 Highlander and besides not being noticeable it works really well. It was totally plug and play...no wires to run or tap into. We recently witness a person holding a gun out the window of a passing car and it captured the license plate number and the persons face clear as day.

 

Hello everyone. If any one is interested in doing this, I wanted to post the installation instructions with the alignment template before making your decision.

I was curious how it goes in and what the Y-harness P/N was for a Tacoma.

Happy trails!