Has anyone upgraded the back up camera

Not worth the time, effort, or frankly... the discussion. You're backing up a tiny car, not streaming Pornhub in 4K. I don't understand why everyone has to be staring at a screen 24-7. Just use your mirrors! The camera is good when parallel parking and you want to get ½" from another car... otherwise? Useless.

 

Are you sure a better camera would provide a better image on the screen? To connect up to screen I would think you would need wiring diagram of current plug and know what wires to connect to on plug also. I haven't heard of anyone here changing camera though, but would be interesting to see what happens. Found this kit for you, not sure if this kit has the cameras you want though.
TOYOTA PRIUS OEM Integrated Backup Camera System | Buy | OEM Integrated Backup Camera Systems | Car Integrations

 

You could upgrade the camera, but then you'd have to upgrade the head unit too. It doesn't have an input for a hi-res camera. It would have to be a different signal type to support hi-def, and that might require different wiring from front to back.

So... not impossible, but it would be a big commitment with lots of other changes required.

 

What leadfoot said. Feeding a 4K source into a 720P display, for example, won't give you a sharper picture.

I agree that the image is pretty bad, especially in low light. Most times, it's fine for its purpose, which is to avoid running over a kid. I'd think about an aftermarket camera and display like the ones that go on your rear view mirror.

 

I'm sure it would be better with a better camera. It's actually very good in daylight, with the moving guide-lines. But at night - forget it - I put my side windows down and use the mirrors.

If you find a better camera, please let us know.

 

Except that the camera is brilliant in good light - just poor in low-light, or no light.

 

The complaint seems to be same or similar to a very common one, that the NTSC-format video from the stock camera is poorly scaled by the head unit for display on the (much higher resolution) XLE screen. Nothing to do with exposure control.

 

You should drive a Prime once. While the screen is indeed huge, the backup camera view takes up just the top 25% of the display, with the rest blacked out, limiting your view to the same as the base screen size. It’s amazingly bad.

 

We have the small screen on our regular Prius and the 11.6" screen on the Prime. The Prime isn't any better as far as I can see. In fact, the small one might be a tiny bit sharper.

It is amazingly bad, but I see no benefit to having the full 11.6" screen available to the camera just so we could see more of the sky and maybe even under the car. More up and down range is not any help at all. It would help to have designed it with a landscape orientation for the screen rather than the stupid portrait orientation. Then you could actually increase the camera resolution to something that would show some detail.

 

[QUOTE="It is amazingly bad, but I see no benefit to having the full 11.6" screen available to the camera just so we could see more of the sky and maybe even under the car. More up and down range is not any help at all. It would help to have designed it with a landscape orientation for the screen rather than the stupid portrait orientation. Then you could actually increase the camera resolution to something that would show some detail.[/QUOTE]

fair point. My bigger issue with the Prime screen is that CarPlay is similarly limited to just that too 1/4 or 1/3 of the screen. Other makers, like Subaru, that have vertically oriented screens use the entire screen for CarPlay.

even the Prime’s own navigation screen is subpar, wasting an inch on the top for a fixed image of a car.

 

I'd like to chime in here. I had an aftermarket headunit with an aftermarket camera and it was super clear. Unfortunately my car was totaled and I'm waiting for a new car. I'm thinking about trying the below in order to avoid having to rewire the new reverse camera.

You could theoretically use any aftermarket camera with the below adapter harness.

https://a.co/d/gcYBdlI

A lot of aftermarket headunits retain oem rear camera functionality so I figured I could just use this adapter to use the stock wiring already there.

I'm assuming if you have the stock headunit, you would have to run a CVBS camera like below to connect to the harness. It's a nice wide 180 wide camera and has the option to remove the parking lines from the camera and allow you to use the stock lines from the stock headunit.

https://a.aliexpress.com/_mON27RK

And to finish it off, use the below bracket to keep the stock location and angle for the aftermarket camera. The clip looks just like the one that was on my 2019

https://a.aliexpress.com/_msGUvri

These options will be limited by the resolution of the headunit tho which I'm not sure of but at least you get a wider view camera

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.

 

it's not completely static, the little headlights turn on when it's dark out

 

The best car camera I've ever seen - not for resolution, but for its uses - was on Honda Accords. Three completely different camera views to choose from, ~170 degrees (sweeping the lane of a parking lot for example), narrower-focus, and straight-down. With the straight-down mode I could park an Accord within less than once inch from a metal pole or another bumper.

The turn signal camera was also excellent. This was all back in 2012.

I don't think they do that anymore. Toyota 2019? Nah, bro, we don't even want to be considered 'good.'

 

You could always swap in brighter LED reverse lights so that its brighter and improves the image.

 

This is the wideview camera I had on my 2019. Its a 175 degree horizontal view. Very nice for when backing out of a spot and can see pedestrians or other cars that would otherwise be in my blindspot

Posted via the PriusChat mobile app.