Hey guys, I finally received my new JCW and I've been looking into different dashcam options, and wanted to share my solution in case someone else wants to do something similar.

Car photo cause why not



I've never had a dashcam before but decided this was a good time to get one, since this is the nicest car I've owned. But after wading through the market of huge, unsightly, mount-to-the-windshield-with-suction-cups dashcams, I was really unhappy with all of the standard options. I didn't want to deal with having a cable in my cigarette lighter plug, or running a long wire along the headliner to the fusebox, and I didn't need a big touch-LCD screen or anything fancy. I just wanted out-of-sight automatic recording whenever I was driving. And then if, god forbid, there was an accident, I could easily pop out the SD card and review it.

I was pretty discouraged but then I found the Mobius Action Cam, which is a nice little camera that is marketed kinda-sorta as a goPro alternative, but one that lots of people use as a dashcam. It is pretty darn small, and has a fair amount of accessories and stuff that let you customize your setup.



It would probably have been fine to just mount it as-is somewhere on my windshield, but I wanted to not be able to see it at all while driving. The mobius can be easily taken apart, and you can move the lens away from the body - as you can see here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9qx5fgy8f28

(Sorry the rest isn't better documented, I was kind of in a hurry to get it all installed).

My plan was to place the guts of the dash cam inside the bulbous plastic surround of the rain sensor and windshield attachment area as seen in this photo (directly behind the mirror). BTW this is not my photo/car, it was taken from google images.



That plastic surround is made up of two halves that are fairly easy to pry apart, and there is a fair amount of room in there.

For power, I tapped into the circuit that (I'm pretty sure) powers the rain sensor. I measured 12.5 ish volts on that circuit, so I spliced a 5v voltage regulator into the camera's USB cable. I literally just shoved the power/ground leads into their respective slots in the connector near the rain sensor and it works great. Here is the regulator with the optional wide angle lens:



Like I mentioned before, I wanted easy access to the SD card so I bought a microSD extension cable. It goes from microSD (What mobius takes) to standard SD (which is a little easier to grab from behind the mirror without looking). The ribbon cable was like 20" long so I had to fold it over on itself several times and tape it down and out of the way.



It ended up being a little crowded in there, but it all fit. This image shows the circuit board (inside plastic housing on left), capacitor (inside plastic housing on right), excess SD extension cable (inside plastic housing in center), voltage regulator (left), SD card adapter (right), and wide angle lens (bottom left)



Here is a closer view:



Here I am trying to make sure that the other half of the plastic surround will snap in smoothly without anything getting in the way:



Here are a few pictures of everything installed. The SD card extension is a little bulky, but it can’t be seen my the driver (and not really by the passenger either). It is also pretty hard to see from outside of the car unless you are specifically looking for it.





The lens could be stealthed up a bit, I’m considering 3d printing a little housing to at least cover the base/circuit board and the wire attachment. But we will see.

So now it will start recoding any time the car is unlocked, and will record 3 minute videos (length can be changed) at a time, and will automatically overwrite old files when the card gets full. With a 32gb card you can store roughly 4.5 hours depending on your settings.

The best part so far was when I was reviewing some footage from when I took the car in to a local shop to swap the stock wheels out. The guy got in the car and proclaimed, "This is a fancy *** mini!" to himself and got to work.

Overall I’m extremely happy with it!

 

Very nice, and a well executed project.

 

Dayumn... that's a lotta love.

Sure is executed nicely.

Just curious to know the man hours invested.

Was something like this not up your alley?

Plus, it is WiFi with your Mobile Phone.

 

Or this, which is Also Wifi Capable with your smart phone...

 

Thanks guys, I appreciate it.

LormaD, it took probably 3 hours or so of taking things apart, putting them together, and installing in the car. But there was a lot of research beforehand.

I had looked at the cams you posted, or ones like them, (they are nice cams) but there were a few things that I didn't like about them.

The first one wouldn't fit around my rear view mirror because of the rain sensor housing being so large. It also would have required routing a cable all the way around the headliner, down the a-pillars, and down to the fuse box (which I didn't want to deal with).

The second one looks like it would be visible to the driver almost no matter where you mount it, and requires taping (or suctioning?) to the windshield, which makes it much more visible from the exterior, which I was also trying to avoid. And again, the wiring issue.

I do like the option to connect the cams to your phone though.

 

Don't get me wrong, you did an OUTSTANDING JOB.

I would like to see and monitor in real time as part of my DVR options. I am thinking about getting it for 3 of my vehicles but have not decided which way to go.

But as my Favorite Driving vehicle that I own, I definitely like what you did with the JCW.

Can you show where you spliced for voltage please... it sure saves a lot of time instead of running voltage down to fuse box. Only thing, I guess, is you cannot record while the vehicle is off, right?