3 Channel Dashcam Installation Tutorial

I've recorded a detailed 3 channel dash cam installation on my 2026 Prius PHEV and wanted to share.

Obviously watching it would help me out but I feel like this is the group that would find it most useful as well.

It's a 2 part video with the second part being focused solely on the rear camera. The second video will be available for viewing today in just a few hours.

Would appreciate support from those of you who are interested! More videos to come!

Thanks!

 

Hi velvet, sorry I missed this comment I am new to this site and don't come on here often.

Did you end up checking out the video? I did a part 1 and 2 (for the rear camera install).

In this setup, only the front camera is 4k. the interior and rear cameras are 2k. The viofo A229 I think has 4k front and rear but is missing some other functions of the a329 so I went with it being the newest model despite losing some image quality in the rear. I bet you the next model will have it all. Also with the 3-channel system, I only get 4k30 in the front whereas if you run only a 2 channel system you can get 4k60 in the front (probably better for getting clean licence plate shots)

To answer your question of whether or not I like the 4k.... This is my first dash cam so I don't have anything to compare it to. As someone who dabbles in photography with some higher end equipment, I would say the quality of any dash cam is poor in comparison. I mean look at even little cameras like GoPro's or the DJI Pocket - If those cameras exist then why can't a dash cam match their quality?

Nonetheless, the functionality is seems to be ok. I like the parking mode feature and image quality is decent. You are not getting licence plates clearly unless a vehicle is close enough though. But, they do have a front telephoto option now that likely solves that.

I'm not sure what you mean by battery parking. If you mean having an external battery source for power which some people do, no, I didn't do that. It is hardwired (fuse tapped) to my fuse box where it runs off the car battery. The hardwire kit and the camera have a battery health monitor that you can set to shut the camera off when your battery gets to a certain level.

The parking modes have some options that take very little battery, as well as impact detection so you can have it in sleep mode and only turn on when something bumps into the car. I have set mine to 1fps timelapse for 12 hours then it turns into sleep mode where it will turn on and record a video if it senses an impact. And then i set the battery monitor to shut off if the battery gets lower than 12.4v. I am considering changing this to 12.2v but so far it is working well and I want to be conservative to maintain battery health.

Anyways, to reiterate... I am very happy overall with the functionality and the image quality is decent (I assume on par with most current dash cam options). It will serve its purpose well.

one thing to note is that I have noticed it gets very hot on one side of the front camera where the SD card, interior, and rear cam ports are. I think this is because it is constantly writing to the car in high bitrate. I read many other people making note of this. They also mention in the manual that if your interior car gets to over 60 degrees celcius then they recommend only timelapse mode not to overheat the camera. so if you park in the heat for example.

So i have yet to see how it performs in the hot summer weather but we'll see. It is also able to record to an external SSD drive so I will likely set that up which maybe will help??? who knows.

I did put out a short video showing some of the footage as well so you can find that on my youtube channel if interested.