Hi has anyone recently had a front and rear Dash Cam fitted? Just wondered for a recommendation that’s not going to take up the whole windscreen. My car is due a service so should I get Mazda to fit it as not in my capabilities! Thanks in advance.
You’re best looking into a front and rear camera that can be hardwired (fuse tapped) into the passenger footwell fuse box, so it’s always running off the car battery, even when the car is off. The device will be smart enough to turn itself off when your battery gets to a certain level (so you never end up with a drained battery).
I’ve got a EUKI 4K one for Amazon. Currently on a Black Friday sale for £59.99 at the time of writing this. Well worth it. You have to ask them for the fuse tap kit, but they’ll send it for free - comes with fitting instructions too. Definitely doable by yourself if you’re able to get down into the footwell! Just takes time and patience making it neat and tidy.
The EUKI has a “parking monitor” mode which does a timelapse on the front and rear camera until that battery level is hit. Then it’ll turn itself off. I find it’ll last for roughly 2 days of timelapsing on my moderately new battery without the car being turned on (but yours may differ). If your car is bumped or knocked, it’ll turn on to full recording mode. Can connect to it via an app to see the live feed of how it’s positioned, or use it to download footage. Although it’s much quicker to just take the SD card out.
Wires can all be tucked away, and the front camera can be hidden in front of your rear view mirror (so it’s out of your line of sight). Rear camera can be zip tied to the wind deflector (but you’ll have to keep this upright always).
Well worth the £59.99 imo for that peace of mind.
Good luck!
I’m glad someone else has posted something about this. I will be hardwiring a dashcam in my MX5 upon arrival in a couple of weeks.
SWMBO was shunted very recently in a different by an electric VW travelling at 40mph. Thankfully she walked away fron the incident unscathed (can’t say the same for her Fiat) and the footage from her dashcam has become pretty significant with the insurance claim.
I wouldn’t be overly comfortable wiring a dashcam with parking mode due to battery drain (especially in an MX5), but most of the kits I’ve looked at recently have both ignition live connection for driving use and permanent live for parking.
So… do I wire the ignition live cable only and leave the parking mode cable disconnected / taped up; or do I crimp the ignition live and parking mode cables together and wire to a single ignition live?
Depends on the dashcam model I think. You could wire both to to ACC connection as you suggested, or connect as intended (one to perm 12v and the other to ACC/ign 12V) and don’t set any parking mode in the dashcam options. Camera should shut off when you turn off the car. But wiring that way would allow you to play with options later.
For example I choose at the moment to record movement in parking mode for just 30 min, then the camera turns off. Idea is maybe catch opportunists who see me leave the car and then choose to key it or something.
All the hardwire kits should have a voltage cutoff feature which will turn off the camera if the battery voltage gets too low, but in my opinion most do not allow a high enough cutoff voltage so, whilst you can always start the car, I don’t think it’s good for battery longevity and I’ve seen stop start get messed up until the battery has recovered charge to a normal range.
FWIW, I have a Viofo WM1. It’s front facing 2k only, but is small.
Glad she was ok after the accident. John is right though in terms of of how the kits work. How it’d affect a stop/start car I’m not sure myself, as mine hasn’t got it. You may be best getting a dashcam that has a built in battery and uses the standard 12V power supply.
I’ve had my hardwire kit on for a full year now, and had no issues with battery drainage. The car has been left sitting for over a week with no issues, so the cutoff seems to work as expected. I can’t speak for longevity, but I’ve had no issues so far.
I’m not sure exactly what my kit was called, however this looks very similar and gets good reviews - and has the auto cutoff feature: shorturl.at/qSPtP
The above kit is plug and play, they usually provide instructions on what fuses you tap into. There are usually 3 parts to the hardwire kit. There will be 2 fuse taps (as shown in my above image). One goes to a feed that is always active when the car is off (this could be the interior lights, or radio feed - as these always get power), and one goes to a feed that’s cold until the car is turned on (such as the ignition). The this way the kit knows whether the car is turned on or off, and it can shift the camera into it’s “parking mode”. I’m guessing the ND comes with a fuse diagram, but you can usually find it online with a quick google if you can’t find it.
All you have to do is remove the existing fuse (double check it’s nothing related to any airbags), and push the fuse tap cable in, then put the original fuse back into the fuse tap at the top.
The final part is the black cable will just be to ground the circuit, on the NC there are a few bolts behind the plastic panel by the fuse box which can be used - just un-tighten the bolt, push the ground cable around the thread, and re-tighten so it’s secure. Pull a few times on the cable to make sure it won’t be coming off anytime soon.
Let us know what you end up going with! If you decide on doing it and have any further questions, just shoot me a DM. More than happy to help.
I’ve only gone for front facing. I was going to hard wire, but decided to get the lead from the states that enables you to plug a USB connection into the wiring for the self dipping rear view mirror. Extremely easy, not expensive and enables me to tuck my tiny Garmin dash cam out of sight right up behind the mirror. It goes off with the ignition, which suits me. Potential to do the same with an all in one front and rear camera I guess.
Built in batteries are best avoided in my opinion. They usually don’t power the camera for more than a short time and have a short service life as they’re LiPo tech that doesn’t take kindly to high temps you can get in a car. For the same reason using (LiPo) mobile phone chargers to power your camera is ill advised.
Better to get cams with ‘super capacitors’ whose only role is to power the camera for a few secs as it shuts down so as not to corrupt the SD card.
If you do want a separate battery to power the camera for a while (not forever!) there are expensive options designed for the job. They use a different and more robust Lithium battery tech…
Wow, thank you so much for all your detailed replies and to Matty for the added photos. Really helpful! Have to admit to being a tad confused as all a bit over my head, however, you have helped by giving me an idea of some of the questions I should be asking! Many thanks
Dash cams and insurance premiums.
I’ve just been shopping around for insurance renewal for the daily driver. A couple of things came to my attention about dash cams while comparing providers, which hadn’t in previous renewals come to light on either the MX5 or the daily.
Apparently, with some insurers, a hard-wired dash cam is regarded as a modification, whereas one powered by an auxilliary power output is an accessory.
Several on-line providers I looked at gave the opportunity to declare the fitting of dash cam(s). Some reduced the premium a small amount if fitted, others it made no difference whether fitted or not.
Contrary to other providers, when I looked at LV= they increased the premium by having a dash cam fitted, regardless of whether hard-wired or plug-in. After several email exchanges with them because I couldn’t understand their logic, it was clear their underwriters considered the presence of a dash cam to be a higher risk, insisting it should be ‘expected’ to pay more, despite one of their web pages suggesting the fitting of one ‘might’ reduce the premium. What’s more, the basic premium was additionally hiked by them because the car has (factory fitted as standard) parking/reversing sensors. I’ll not be disconnecting the sensors or removing the front and rear dash cams, so I went elsewhere for cover.
For clarity, I have no claims, no penalty points, maximum NCD and live in a ‘low risk’ part of the country.
Hi.
Just to let you know that a number of our insurance schemes offer premium discount for the fitment of a HD dash cam.
Regards,
Dan.
Very discreet and easy to hardwire this front/rear Nextbase Nextbase 222x Front and Rear Dash Cam Full 1080p/30fps HD Recording in Car DVR Cam - 140° 6 lane Wide Viewing– Intelligent Parking Mode- Polarising Filter Compatible- G-Sensor Motion Detection- Hidden: Amazon.co.uk: Electronics & Photo
This is my dash cam fitted in front of the rear view mirror.
There are no screens or buttons on it, to set it up and view the footage it connects to my phone by WiFi.
You can’t see it when driving.
The cable runs in the screen headlining, down behind the ‘A’ pillar trim and under the dashboard. It then connects into the 12v accessory socket under the dashboard. No cables visible at all 
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Granted when the ignition is off the camera is off too.
Very easy install. You could probably get away with not having to remove any trim pieces, although they are very easy to clip on and off too and would make the install even simpler.
I haven’t installed a rear view one 
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Dash cams tend to be fit and forget. It is worth checking every so often that they are actually doing what there supposed to be doing 
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For years I had nextbase dash cams and they were utterly unreliable, detaching from the windscreen (especially in hot weather) and suffering from poor connectors which vibrated themselves to destruction.
18 months ago I bit the bullet and purchased (they are not cheap!) the Blackvue DR750X-2CH front and rear facing dash cams.
I have not looked back and it has already paid for itself. My Blackvue has not suffered any of the reliability issues that I experienced with the Next Base. The Blackvue has helped me successfully win a court case against an airport Meet and Greet company who scratched my MX5 whilst parking it and then denied responsibility. More recently a lorry scraped my stationary vehicle and that driver too denied responsibility; the insurance companies took a very different view and declared me the innocent party when I supplied the dash cam footage of the incident.
The forward cam is positioned in front of the rear view mirror on the right hand side so as to not obscure Mazda’s built-in camera, similar to that shown by MX51MJR. The rear cam is mounted on the windbreak similar to MX5MATTY. The cams are hardwired and a Power Magic Pro protects the battery from drainage. I shall probably bite another bullet and invest further in a hefty battery to provided extended parking mode capability.
Thank you very much folks. I am very much appreciating your continued input and will certainly be taking all your comments on board before making my decision. I thought it would be quite easy!
