Dash Cam

Browsing this website from time to time for interesting topics I came across a story from bakshi6 where he mentioned that a dash cam helped him a lot with his minor incident on a highway. To be honest, I thought such a situation could happen only in less developed countries, but it looks like people are different, and there are plenty of idiots on the roads everywhere. Additionally his accident happened in Massachusetts, and since I live in Massachusetts, I decided to buy a dash cam for myself, just in case.

Actually I'm not a big fan of dash cams. In Ukraine, I used it only once and thankfully, no accidents happened. But here in the US, where everything is so expensive, it's definitely better to have one.

I had a dash cam in Ukraine which looks like OEM extension for a car. You can find plenty of them on AliExpress for the most popular models. They usually replace the rain sensor and camera cover behind the interior rearview mirror. They look good, but Kia Forte is a cheap car and doesn't have such a cover, like K5, for example.

So, I decided to buy a popular universal dash cam. I know that Xiaomi has a subbrand 70mai which is famous for its good quality, reasonably priced dash cams. Knowing that all of these dash cams build on the same Sony lens and I don't need any additional functionality I sticked to the 1S model, which was only $32 on Amazon. Why not AliExpress, as usual? Because I'm here not to advertise AliExpress, I'm just looking for the cheapest option I can get for my money.

And, as you understand, I don't want just to plug in the dash cam to USB outlet; I'm aiming for OEM or close to OEM seamless integration. I want a dash cam connected in a hidden way as much as possible. Essentially, every dash cam is only about 3 wires:

• VCC+ (red)
• ACC+ (yellow)
• Ground (black)

So, I need to get these wires from the closest location behind the interior mirror. To do this, first of all, I needed, a so-called, Hardware Kit. This is actually a converter for 12V power to 5V, which is required by dash cam. And this time, I purchased this kit on AliExpress, because of the price. I spent only $12.94 on it.

Next, I had to find out where to get these 3 wires from original car wiring harness. And, of course, the closest spot is the overhead console. So, I've searched for the schema of the wiring for this.

According to the schema, the console has a connector with required wires. I need to merge the hardware kit wires with this connector wires in pins 1, 2 and 6. Let's remove the overhead console and find the necessary connector. Open the glasses holder and remove 2 screws. Then, with a plastic tool, remove the console.

Disconnecting all the visible connectors, we see the 12-pin connector with 4 wires. Now, we need to merge the hardware kit wires with this connector wires according to their color. Then, I wrapped everything into a cloth tape, so the solution looks exactly as OEM one with no rattling sounds.

The other end of the hardware kit with micro USB connector, I placed under the ceiling cover in parallel to the light sensor wire. This wire comes from under the ceiling to a plastic cover. I want the dash cam wire to go out from this cover, so the only a small part of the wire is visible from a specific angle. In order to do this, I needed to modify the light sensor cover a bit. I removed the small border from one of the "windows" in this cover, so the dash cam wire can come out.

After that I stuck the dash cam behind the rearview mirror, so the lens is not covered with anything, and a single dash cam button is reachable. I think this is the seamless OEM-like integration I could have made.

As you can see there are minimal, barely visible changes from the driver's view and no from the passenger side. Put everything back, turned on the ignition and setup the dash cam software. Now a couple of videos from a dash cam.

At day:
At night: 

Well this is it for today. Thanks everyone for reading this and safe travels. Love your cars!

Total:

• Dash Cam: $31.99
• Hardware Kit: $12.94
• Micro SD card: $8.39

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