Specific Dashcam Setup Help

[nashbrydges]

Hi y'all,

I've read all of the threads I could find here with the "dashcam" and "wifi" keywords and couldn't find anything related to my question so here goes another dashcam post..

Here is what I would like...

- Dashcam (preferably wifi)
- Raspberry Pi (use dashcam wifi connectivity to offload footage automatically to the Raspberry Pi so if cam gets stolen, footage has been backed-up - some script may be needed to connect to and download files periodically from dashcam)
- Once back home, the Raspberry Pi would connect to home wifi and another script would offload the saved footage from the Pi to my Synology NAS
- Both dashcam and Raspberry Pi would be powered by the LVB which is supplied by the HVB but would still install a low voltage shutoff (just in case)

The purpose for this Rube Goldberg-ish setup is to try to automate footage archival and make sure that I am not 100% dependent on a SD card that can flake out or be stolen. This doesn't help with carjacking (so unlikely to happen when I live it's not worth mentioning) but still trying to 1) keep costs down without the need for a monthly LTE or cloud storage plan and 2) to allow for immediate backup of footage should something happen to the cam or card.

This feels as close to a cloud connected dashcam as I can get without paying all that data cash (especially in Canada) and seems like the most hands-off way to get footage archived safely.

Has anyone done anything this weird or complicated for their dashcam setup? If so, I'd love to hear about it and what gotchas may have been uncovered in the process.

It just seems incredibly silly to me that an expensive dashcam can be completely negated (unless you spend big $$$ on data plans and LTE connectivity) by simply removing a SD card or the cam itself. Hell, my home security footage has this design built-in where even if my home cameras are stolen, the footage hasn't gone bye-bye with them.

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[rhfritz]

Garmin Dash Cam 67W?

 

[ack154]

I really don't think you're going to be able to do the pi thing... unless it's with something I'm just totally unfamiliar with (certainly not impossible there).

The problem I see is getting the dashcam to see the pi as its own cloud backup. Surely you could create a hotspot with the pi that the camera connects to - but the camera is likely to be looking for some specific part of its own service to offload the footage too, hardcoded website/port combo or whatever. Not just some random wifi connection with some attached storage. So, my brain tells me you'd basically have to write some custom firmware for the camera to tell it to connect to something else and copy its data there, or some really specific software on the pi so that it pretends to be whatever cloud service the camera is looking for.

Then again, this sounds like an overcomplicated solution to a problem that just doesn't really exist. Sure, I have no doubt people steal dashcams either for its own value or to cover up stealing something else or an accident or whatever - but how common or likely is that, really? And more important, would it be worth that amount hassle?

Beyond that, you'd want to look for one of the cameras that already has external storage where you could run a cable to a different space in your car (glove box?) for the storage to live there - something like BlackVue's new "box" setup. That way if someone stole the camera, thinking they have your footage, they're not going to think to take everything it's connected to. I saw mention of another camera with an external SSD option too but forgot what it was.

 

[flapjake314]

if you're trying to catch someone breaking into your car stealing your dashcam, your setup likely doesn't work in that the video files are batched and likely not "streamed" into your backup pi. offsite cloud seems to be the solution to this. not to mention your pi setup can be stolen too (and how useful really is this video, it's likely some homeless guy trying to get your spare change right, the most expensive part is going to be your smashed window).

if you're trying to catch a moving accident / hit-and-run it's much easier to just buy a giant SD card and you'll have months of recording before it overwrites your video. further, all cameras have a "lock" feature (some automatically after impact, some you press a button after the accident) that prevents the most recent video from ever being written over

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