Anybody turned their GT's camera into a dash cam?

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Mazda,CX-5 GT
I was toying with the idea of buying a dashcam and then thought: Wait a minute this thing already has a camera built in from the factory, I wonder if there's some way of tapping into that through the OBD port to turn it into a dash cam? I know it's sort of possible because the dealer installed a recording device in it for a couple of weeks when it was shutting down the cruise/lane/high beam features (until service bulletin applied).

'18 GT
 
Need to somehow attach a recording device (hard disk) I'd imagine. Probably easier/cheaper to just buy dash cam...
 
The quality of the camera, at least the rear one since I haven't seen the front one, isn't good enough to be a dash cam in my opinion. I put my suction cup windshield dash cam in my car and the wire from it is not obtrusive at all. I am pretty happy with it. See if you can spot it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TvMbq8fhh6Y
 
I was wondering about the same thing using the 360 camera. It would be great if it could be done.
 
I think you*ll find it has nowhere near the range or quality of a stand alone good quality dashcam. It*s a proximity device that sits behind a plastic screen. Unless you*ve got loads of time and a healthy budget, you*d be better going buying a dashcam.
 
Need to somehow attach a recording device (hard disk) I'd imagine. Probably easier/cheaper to just buy dash cam...

Absolutely cheaper yes. The Mazda dealer installed a recording device in about 10 minutes as part of their diagnostic procedure as to why my auto cruise was shutting off so I'm not sure about the easier part. I didn't look at the time but it probably was some sort of micro SD device attached to the OBD port. Of course I had no access to it's output either but you'd think it would be easy for them to make that a consumer device (rear camera too).
 
IMO, it isn't worth the time and effort when you can get a good 1080p/30fps front and rear dashcam with a 256gb microSD card for under $250 on eBay/Amazon.

Not to mention the fact that most dashcams (even the cheap $40 ones) have features like emergency recording (push a button to "lock" the current recording), G-force/impact detection, motion detection, time lapse, and even GPS capability.
 
It would be bad enough trying to access the camera but then trying to get it to store data on the MZD card would be something else. What about the data that is already on it?
 
It would be bad enough trying to access the camera but then trying to get it to store data on the MZD card would be something else. What about the data that is already on it?

It would require an empty card to record a continuous loop. Built-in Nav would obviously be unavailable.

This would be a developer solution- not a DIY project. Something Mazda could offer requiring very little or no new hardware. Just software.
 
It would require an empty card to record a continuous loop. Built-in Nav would obviously be unavailable.

This would be a developer solution- not a DIY project. Something Mazda could offer requiring very little or no new hardware. Just software.

You'd be asking them to develop custom software so that you can forego the entire Navigation system to use a camera of unknown quality to act as a dashcam. I'm not a software engineer, but I'd assume that developing the software to get the camera to write to the Nav SD card on a continuous loop would be very expensive. It would also take a while to develop (if you could even get them to do it, I highly doubt you could), and it probably (most certainly) wouldn't work as well as a cheap dashcam.

Buy a dashcam and keep your Nav instead.
 
You'd be asking them to develop custom software so that you can forego the entire Navigation system to use a camera of unknown quality to act as a dashcam. I'm not a software engineer, but I'd assume that developing the software to get the camera to write to the Nav SD card on a continuous loop would be very expensive. It would also take a while to develop (if you could even get them to do it, I highly doubt you could), and it probably (most certainly) wouldn't work as well as a cheap dashcam.

Buy a dashcam and keep your Nav instead.

The infotainment system IS custom software. There are already device interfaces to the SD card and questionable-quality camera. A decent developer could have an app ready to test with a week or two of work. Camera quality will improve over time.

As for the Nav, it is not very useful without live traffic. I use Waze on CarPlay.

In the short term, an OTS dashcam is the only feasible solution IMHO. In a longer term, a built-in solution is much more elegant, especially for those not into DIY.
 
The infotainment system IS custom software. There are already device interfaces to the SD card and questionable-quality camera. A decent developer could have an app ready to test with a week or two of work. Camera quality will improve over time.

As for the Nav, it is not very useful without live traffic. I use Waze on CarPlay.

In the short term, an OTS dashcam is the only feasible solution IMHO. In a longer term, a built-in solution is much more elegant, especially for those not into DIY.

To improve image quality, you would need to replace the image sensor. Plus, they use fisheye lenses, so it will never look very good.
 
The 2014s used to have diagnostic codes which you could type in to enable the rear camera to be on all the time, not sure about the new stuff.
 
The infotainment system IS custom software. There are already device interfaces to the SD card and questionable-quality camera. A decent developer could have an app ready to test with a week or two of work. Camera quality will improve over time.

As for the Nav, it is not very useful without live traffic. I use Waze on CarPlay.

In the short term, an OTS dashcam is the only feasible solution IMHO. In a longer term, a built-in solution is much more elegant, especially for those not into DIY.

Ok, apparently you've changed the topic. Initially you wanted to tap into your own car's camera by getting a developer to spend a week or two of work on building an app that integrates the safety camera on the windshield with the SD card used for Navigation. My point was that even if you could hire a developer to do that, you'd be spending a LOT more on them than on a basic dashcam with the same function, while offering many more useful features.

Now, with this post, it seems you're talking about a long-term solution, which I agree could be a nice solution in the future. Even then, it's not worth considering until Mazda upgrades the quality of their cameras.
 
You'd be asking them to develop custom software so that you can forego the entire Navigation system to use a camera of unknown quality to act as a dashcam. I'm not a software engineer, but I'd assume that developing the software to get the camera to write to the Nav SD card on a continuous loop would be very expensive. It would also take a while to develop (if you could even get them to do it, I highly doubt you could), and it probably (most certainly) wouldn't work as well as a cheap dashcam.

Buy a dashcam and keep your Nav instead.

Same could be said about in-dash Nav systems 10 years ago, and then cars didn't already have the hardware already like they do now.
 
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