satchel prefect

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Hi folks,

I just installed a digital rearview mirror/dash cam on my car and wanted to share the result and some of my installation journey.

This is a Pormido PR998. It is a 3 camera system with an LCD display that doubles as a conventional mirror and provides a touch interface. It installs like a normal dash cam, but can show any of the camera feeds real-time on the display. By default, it uses an inverted version of the rear camera feed, in effect operating as a digital rearview mirror while recording footage on all of its channels.

On to the result.

Rear view, camera mode:

Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed after


Mirror mode--more or less like stock, but from up close to prevent background from blowing out image. From normal driving distance your view would be narrower but hopefully you get the idea of how much is blocking your view back there. Even moreso if you have a large child seat mounted in the center. The small bump you see at the top center of the rear glass is the rear camera, mounted to the upper plastic trim piece:

Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed before


The front camera, mounted behind the mirror (and side view of the monitor strapped to the factory mirror):

Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed front-inside


I mostly worked from this great thread started by @MachDoc : https://www.macheforum.com/site/thr...hardwiring-a-dashcam-and-radar-detector.5542/

For the rear camera wire, I went the low route, along the floor down the passenger side instead of the headliner. I also used the driver (left) side tube/boot from the roof to the hatch, using a zip tie to fish the wire through.

I viewed countless other threads and videos as well; apologies for not linking them all; I will just send a general acknowledgement to everyone who shared some knowledge on this. I was reading and planning for quite some time, so if you posted, the chances are it helped me, so thank you.

One thing that I didn't see mentioned anywhere is making a somewhat tidy hole with a grommet in the back panel for running the cable. You can see a close-up of the rear camera in the upper left corner, and the wire/coupler to the right of it:


Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed hole


I have been using this setup for a few years now, moving it from car to car, and it has not let me down. One thing that I am really impressed with, besides the unobstructed rear view, is how well it does wide dynamic range, which lets it capture lots of detail at night without getting blown out by headlights. I find this to be true of both the front and rear cameras.

I haven't driven much yet after installing on this car, but on other cars, the view is so wide that it almost makes blind spot monitors irrelevant. By the time a car approaching from behind you leaves the edge of the display, they start to become visible out the front side window. The display is also a touch screen that lets you pan up and down for a full 16x9 image, which means you can swipe down to check the view immediately behind your rear bumper, below the belt line where any mirror would be able to see.

Hope this helps. Ford: please consider including this technology as standard equipment on future vehicles, EV or not.

Update--Dealing with rain, trying an upsized rear wiper blade:

Rear camera is currently installed inside glass, mounted to the center upper trim piece. Even with treated glass, rain can be a problem. For this experiment, I used a sprayer to simulate rain. Here is what the factory wiper is able to clear:
Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed 20220930_164941


And with the Trico 15-G, using the lower wiper setting:

Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed 20220930_165423


Not great, but slightly better. Since the droplets along the top are spread out a bit more, it makes me wonder if water flowing off the sweep is pushing some of the smaller droplets away. If that's the case, the higher/faster wiper setting might clear it more. I will have to try that.

If worse comes to worse, there's always the option of disabling the monitor and using mirror mode:

Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed 20220930_170032


Incidentally, I didn't have this problem with the Ioniq 5, which has no rear wiper at all, but the roof spoiler does allow the passage of air between the rear glass and the roof. Many are skeptical about how well that works, but for this use case, it does seem to make a difference. The top band of the glass on that car stayed largely clear, and when droplets were there, they didn't bunch together as tightly as on the MME. Our EV6 seems to have no problem at all, with the rear camera mounted in the same spot.
 
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ripperAZ

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Awesome work. Thanks for sharing.
Jes sayin. Now you got me thinking about doing more work….
 

yngwenli

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This looks really affordable ($179 on Amazon right now). Almost tempted to just buy it and figure it out later. One downside I saw was you can't have it record with just motion (vs. bump/impact record, correct me if I'm wrong).

Maybe I need to reread that thread and look at how to wire it all up again and add that to the list of projects to work on.
 

Logal727

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Cool setup, not sure if I need it, I never use the rearview when backing up and switch to the wide angle camera on the back and never have issues
 

Ming

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I bought one a while back but have been lazy to finish adding the rear camera. Where did you mount it?
 


dtbaker61

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Hi folks,

I haven't driven much yet after installing on this car, but on other cars, the view is so wide that it almost makes blind spot monitors irrelevant. By the time a car approaching from behind you leaves the edge of the display, they start to become visible out the front side window. The display is also a touch screen that lets you pan up and down for a full 16x9 image, which means you can swipe down to check the view immediately behind your rear bumper, below the belt line where any mirror would be able to see.

Hope this helps. Ford: please consider including this technology as standard equipment on future vehicles, EV or not.

what a great mod!

I would hope the industry will consider this approach and ditch side mirrors completely....It would be a nice improvement for aero benefit, and might even reduce materials cost for the mfg.
 

phil

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I agree that Ford should do that.

The Chevy Bolt has had a rear-view mirror/camera for years, and it was one of my favorite features of that car. I don't understand why manufacturers are not doing this for many more models; I think it would sell cars.
 

Mrn

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I have a similar mirror on my Prius and love it. It's about half that price from several years ago and continuously records a front view but locks the few minutes when it detects an unusual bump. Rough roads are particularly annoying.
 
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satchel prefect

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...One downside I saw was you can't have it record with just motion (vs. bump/impact record, correct me if I'm wrong)...
Yes, I think the parking mode is quite primitive on this setup. A far cry from the Korean ones that incorporate radar and pre-buffering, etc. I haven't tried the parking mode myself. If I found myself in a situation where I needed constant surveillance, I would bring along a high capacity portable USB charger and use it to power the system, recording continuously. It would still have the impact events saved, which would make it simple to review the footage later.

Cool setup, not sure if I need it, I never use the rearview when backing up and switch to the wide angle camera on the back and never have issues
I am also on board with using the car's built in reverse camera for parking. For me, this setup is for driving forward with a much better view than a normal mirror can provide, while also serving as a multichannel dash cam.

I bought one a while back but have been lazy to finish adding the rear camera. Where did you mount it?
I mounted it on the horizontal plastic trim at the top of the hatch opening. See the arrow here:

Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed before-cam

I have a similar mirror on my Prius and love it. It's about half that price from several years ago and continuously records a front view but locks the few minutes when it detects an unusual bump. Rough roads are particularly annoying.
I haven't had any problem with false impact events, though I did notice there is a sensitivity setting for this.
 

MW1515

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I went from a Bolt to the MME and was surprised the MME didn't have a digital rear view mirror like the Bolt. I loved that no matter how tinted your back window was or how much stuff you had in the back you could always get a great unobstructed view. The resolution at night wasn't that great though, headlights were pretty much the only thing you could see. Hopefully your system is better at night.
 
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satchel prefect

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I first experienced this on a modern ICE Blazer and was hooked immediately.

As for the Pormido, it does quite well resolving detail around bright lights at night (not my review):

Pormido D50 review with footage

Ford Mustang Mach-E Digital Rearview Mirror Installed night sample

I tried out a few different brands and models back in 2018 when I was shopping for these, and this unit was by far the best in this regard. I've installed four of these on friend and family cars and they thankfully all perform well.

One slight wrinkle: a top inside mounting, such as my setup, is not in the swept area of the rear wiper. I found that with the untreated, mildly dirty glass, it was a problem. I've now thoroughly cleaned (including clay) and coated the glass, so hopefully it will be better. I am considering installing a longer wiper blade as well. Rain was a non-issue in the Blazer with its externally mounted camera.
 

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I really wanted this type of dash cam to work. I was so confident that it would work that when I installed it I pulled out all of the wiring for my existing front/back dash cam.

But, alas, I'm going to return it. The recordings were good, and I'd go so far as to say stunning so that wasn't the problem. There were two major problems that caused me to return it. 1) Sun blowout. If the sun is anywhere in view it just blows out the camera and makes the rear view mirror portion of it useless during that time. 2) Glare. I have the white interior in my car and the glass on the mirror is flooded with white glare no matter how I pointed the screen making it hard to see the screen during the daytime.

This is a great idea and I could probably mitigate the glare with a cobbled screen protector but the sun blowout isn't fixable. I need to have a rear view 100% of the time.
 
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HuntingPudel

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<SNIP>
One slight wrinkle: a top inside mounting, such as my setup, is not in the swept area of the rear wiper. I found that with the untreated, mildly dirty glass, it was a problem. I've now thoroughly cleaned (including clay) and coated the glass, so hopefully it will be better. I am considering installing a longer wiper blade as well. Rain was a non-issue in the Blazer with its externally mounted camera.
Do you have the stock rear wiper blade or have you changed to the Trico 15-G? 😊🐩
 
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satchel prefect

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I really wanted this type of dash cam to work. ...
There were two major problems that caused me to return it. 1) Sun blowout. If the sun is anywhere in view it just blows out the camera and makes the rear view mirror portion of it useless during that time. 2) Glare. I have the white interior in my car and the glass on the mirror is flooded with white glare no matter how I pointed the screen making it hard to see the screen during the daytime.

...
Regarding sun blowout, when I compared a few of the early generation models a few years ago, the Pormido PR998/D50 did better with WDR implementation than others. At the time, I was mostly looking for night time performance, but having lived with it for a few years, I can't recall any time when bright sun caused an issue with Pormido.

I have noticed occasional issues with glare if anything bright was visible between the front seats, but a simple tilt fixes it for me. Sorry to hear that doesn't work for you.

If you weren't using the Pormido, it may be worth a shot. I would normally assume that most of these products use a lot of the same hardware, but I found it to be much better than the others when I did my comparison.

Is flipping it to mirror mode from time to time an option for you, or does your daily commute have the sun behind you most of the time?

Do you have the stock rear wiper blade or have you changed to the Trico 15-G? 😊🐩
I have the stock rear wiper and am considering upgrading to a longer blade. Is 15" the longest anyone has successfully used? My local Autozone has 16" single Duralast blades but I was in a rush and didn't have a chance to get a good look at the connector to see if it would work. I may yet give it a shot.
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