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"Just in case" I installed a Blackvue DR 900 X plus in my car. I did it myself. I also bought an eight cell battery so that I could use the parking mode feature.
I bought from BlackBoxMyCar.com because they provided the best video reviews and I felt obligated.
Because of the problems that I'm having with the 48 V battery I did not want to monkey around with the fuse box. In the back of my wagon is a cigarette lighter adapter so I used that.
As you will see in the pictures I installed the front camera just below my E-ZPass transponder. As we all know there is a special little window where the easy pass transponder is supposed to be placed and I couldn't do anything about that.
In the front and in the back I installed where the rain would not impact the recording. (where the wiper cleaned the view)
I didn't want the camera wire to be hanging down so I turned the camera around or what you might say is upside down so that the wires stayed close to the rearview mirror housing. I did not put the camera below the rear view mirror housing because I didn't want to interfere with the camera system for monitoring street signs, traffic lights and augmented navigation.
BlackVue allows you to install the camera in what you might call an upside down position. In the settings you can rotate the camera. The same with the back.
I did not take apart the liftgate and run the wires through the liftgate. My car has some sort of sound insulation and I just did not want to take the risk of damaging it nor did I want to go through the hassle of taking everything apart.
As you will see from the photos I ran the wires under the rubber on the top of the windshield, across the a pillar, the rubber above the door, across the B pillar, above the back window and down the side.
I put the battery in a conveniently placed strap in the back of the wagon and plugged the cigarette lighter adapter into the battery pack cigarette lighter receptacle. Then I plugged the battery into the cigarette lighter.
It's a little bit inconvenient because you can't turn the camera off and on from the camera itself. You either unplug the camera which I find inconvenient because of where my camera is located or you have to disconnect a cigarette lighter adapter or turn off the battery.
If you ask me it would be better if the camera had an on-off switch but I guess that would add an extra cost to the camera.
I've enabled parking mode and it seems to work but I haven't had a lot of success with the cloud.
Through trial and error I figured out that you have to turn on the hotspot first and then the camera and only then will it connect to the cloud.
BlackVue offers its own cellular device and maybe that works better but I already have a hotspot. I have to imagine they're still working on this and I hope they improve its functionality
If you leave the car and take the hotspot with you and then you return to the car where the camera has been on for some period of time under battery power, the BlackVue will not reconnect to the hotspot automatically. You must turn off the camera and turn it on again. I think it would be better if the camera connected to the hotspot as soon as it was available again and then connected to the cloud.
I can live in hope that they will fix this. Given his current arrangement cloud functionality is little more problematic than I would've expected from watching all the videos.
There are quite a lot of configurations in the settings.
I do not find the BlackVue interface to be intuitive. Through trial and error you can figure it out but it's not easy and it took me several phone calls to black view to work out the cloud functionality. The rest of it is explained on YouTube videos
I have my camera set up not to record sound because I don't want to have a record of my phone calls or things that I'm saying in the car. However if you touch the end of the camera with your hand you turn on the sound recording.
I installed this in case someone backs up into me or runs into me in the back or damages the car while it's parked.
I've got my Thinkware U1000 right in the middle under the housing where the cars camera is, in order to have the best view.
The cellink PRO battery is piggy backed on the cigarette lighter fuse (15v), which works without causing problems.
When in park mode it won't RE-connect to a hotspot, but when you start the car it will.
The cloud is working "ok" (mainly it's FREE), but see it more as a gimmick.
Should something happen, chances are you will get to the car too late anyway..
Got my wires tucked away like you, with a second one (for the rear cam) running on the floor , under the "plinth" (is that what you call it ?)
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