Possible Hidden Dash Cam / Raspberry Pi board

[jason.tv]

So After 8 months with the Roadster I feel Dash Cams are a necessity for the vehicle; there are too many people that do not know what the car is; either come up to close to the rear of your vehicle at a light or just tail gating you just to be a dick; or just do not care because you are going the speed limit while they are going 70mph in a 45mph zone. Few instances more than once I was like "I need to get a dashcam"

I am Kind of disappointed that with the modern tech we have today as for the size of the cameras; moreover, the only solution is to "Pay" for one of the LTE or Cloud hosting Dash cam services like Parrot, NexAR, or BlackVUE.

These cameras are too big; bulky, and no need to pay monthly for any of these services. It's a nice feature to have but where have the times gone? Everyone is trying to make money; it's a shame.

So I would like to create a Raspberry Pi Board with the https://www.raspberrypi.org/products/camera-module-v2/?resellerType=home

This can be integrated inside the Rear view mirror or somehow integrated into a spot of the car which would be even better? I have been trying to find a location such as maybe modifying the "Gauge cover" or ordering another cover so we can see how to integrate the camera into the gauge cover?

Just trying to come up with some ideas but I'm not the only one; about 5 years back someone with a lotus attempted the same thing so you can see some what of a example I am trying to shoot here.

With this setup we can have the same solution as the newer Tesla's; it's possible to use a 500gb-1tb hard drive to capture the footage front and rear; then store a laptop in the trunk for instant replay on the go without any use of cloud or monthly services.

Is there anyone that is good enough with programming or technical know how that can attempt this project? I would be willing to purchase the hardware and attempt so we have somewhat a solution to move forward.

<Stuff about="code" />: Raspberry Pi Car Cam overlaid with OBD data

 

[ShawnA]

Hi Jason,

In my Model X I use a Roadie 128 GB.
This uses the TeslaCam support and the cameras in the car.
I realize that this is not a complete solution but it will store and manage
your videos while not needing a cellular service.
For my amount of driving it stores about a week of driving videos from the 4 cameras...

So, if you could find or create a camera solution the Roadie would be a good USB file storage
solution for you. It is Raspberri Pi design.

Roadie for Tesla

I have no relationship with the Roadie organization other than as a happy user...

Shawn

 

[gregd]

So, not as a dash cam, but I have a Raspberry Pi in my 2.0 Roadster, supporting some ham radio applications. This might be of some help.

The Pi sits nicely at the bottom of the center console tray; an alternate place might be under the dash, above the heater vent. I power it from the Accessory port via a car cell phone charger. I have wired the Pi's VGA display output into the in-dash JVC Nav unit's backup camera input, as the car doesn't have a camera, and put a small touchpad mouse right above the shift buttons (over the warning flasher button). It's only held on with some tape loops, so easily moved if access to the button is needed. If I need a keyboard, I have one in the glove box that can connect via Bluetooth (when parked, of course).

A USB camera might be easier to integrate than the Pi-specific one, just for the running of wires. Easier to run one long wire to a camera at the rear, than a bunch of wires for the Pi's power, display, etc. to the dash. I'm considering adding a USB camera to my Car-Pi as a backup camera app, but in practice, I'd probably be backed out of a parking space before the Pi has fully booted, so not sure how useful it would be.

If you want to grab OBDII metrics, note that the Roadster's OBDII connector does not provide them. They are available via the OVMSv3 module, however.

Powering down a Pi is best done gracefully, but since my apps are static (no dynamic data to be saved), I just let the Pi boot when power comes up, and die when it goes away. Creating a "proper" power management solution turned out to be a bigger headache than it seemed to be worth, given some of the corner cases. No harm as yet in over a year of operation, but I've made an image backup of the SD card, just in case I need to recover from a trashed file system.

Good luck!

 

[Bunnak]

Just stick with the Blackvue dashcam Jason. If you go with the basic service you don't pay any monthly fees. However when parked it won't record. For that you'll need a mobile hotspot (which through your phone carrier will charge a monthly fee). I'll post photos of mine later. It's small. You won't notice it at all. The photo above of that camera sticking out of the dash is way more fugly.

 

[jason.tv]

Just stick with the Blackvue dashcam Jason. If you go with the basic service you don't pay any monthly fees. However when parked it won't record. For that you'll need a mobile hotspot (which through your phone carrier will charge a monthly fee). I'll post photos of mine later. It's small. You won't notice it at all. The photo above of that camera sticking out of the dash is way more fugly.

I'm trying to be like Jame Bond bro; 007 style lol. You can clearly see the blackVUE; where do I put it? Maybe for the rear of the vehicle yes; but for the front it's bulky.

 

[Bunnak]

I'm trying to be like Jame Bond bro; 007 style lol. You can clearly see the blackVUE; where do I put it? Maybe for the rear of the vehicle yes; but for the front it's bulky.

When you park you can remove the dashcam. When you have your hardtop on no one can steal it.

 

[Bunnak]

When you park you can remove the dashcam. When you have your hardtop on no one can steal it.

Front is not bulky at all. When you're driving even with the top down you can't see the camera because it's on the windshield right infront of the center rear view mirror.

 

[jason.tv]

Front is not bulky at all. When you're driving even with the top down you can't see the camera because it's on the windshield right infront of the center rear view mirror.

You are skipping the entire reasoning for my first post and thread; I love you but I do not want to pay $20 a month to have dash cam recording services plus another +$250-$300 for the camera and then the camera is not hidden which is the point of the thread to have something integrated where it's secretive or non visible to anyone else.

As Shawn mentioned above the Roadie can be hooked up to the raspberry Pi and you can have the same via dashcam footage access via Roadie app without paying for any LTE service.

 

[DeedWest]

You are skipping the entire reasoning for my first post and thread; I love you but I do not want to pay $20 a month to have dash cam recording services plus another +$250-$300 for the camera and then the camera is not hidden which is the point of the thread to have something integrated where it's secretive or non visible to anyone else.

As Shawn mentioned above the Roadie can be hooked up to the raspberry Pi and you can have the same via dashcam footage access via Roadie app without paying for any LTE service.

It may just be me, but I feel like 90% of the time, having the dash cam visible would do the best job at deterring incidents.

 

[Bunnak]

You are skipping the entire reasoning for my first post and thread; I love you but I do not want to pay $20 a month to have dash cam recording services plus another +$250-$300 for the camera and then the camera is not hidden which is the point of the thread to have something integrated where it's secretive or non visible to anyone else.

As Shawn mentioned above the Roadie can be hooked up to the raspberry Pi and you can have the same via dashcam footage access via Roadie app without paying for any LTE service.

I have the basic plan. There is no $20 monthly fee. It records while you drive. The fee Blackvue charges is only if you have more than 1 their devices. But yes you obviously have to pay for the dashcam itself and it's $400-$500.

 

[X.l.r.8]

Add to that 99% of the time you never review the footage. Unless something actually happens you are never going to watch it. Unless you have a lot of free time having a live view service is nice but not worth paying for. I spent the extra on the camera and sometimes the blue light is reassuring to know if something happens, it’s recorded. If you manage to make it truly invisible how will you know it’s working?

 

[jason.tv]

Add to that 99% of the time you never review the footage. Unless something actually happens you are never going to watch it. Unless you have a lot of free time having a live view service is nice but not worth paying for. I spent the extra on the camera and sometimes the blue light is reassuring to know if something happens, it’s recorded. If you manage to make it truly invisible how will you know it’s working?

can make a blue power light where the headlight switch is to display it's powered on or recording; people usually add the "cool down switch" mod in this location.