In about a month, I am going to start building my own dashcam. I originally posted a thread on Dashcamtalk with what I am looking for, followed by a few manufacturers saying that my view was a minority and then several other people chiming in saying they are looking for the same thing.

In my present view, the makers of these proprietary dashcams are offering very little extra value over what it is possible to make oneself. Many of them use open source software but proprietary components. For someone who understands how to build the components themselves and use the same or similar software, one has to ask where the value add is?

I am going to be adding a Raspberry pi and embed it somewhere behind the stereo set and then add a USB battery pack that can be turned on (park mode) if I so desire and charged from the alternator while the engine is running. The screen for the Pi will be connected to the video in to a stereo set with a single-pole switch that mimics the signal for the transmission reverse. I will be using a tiny bluetooth keyboard/mouse to control the Pi and will have full WiFi capacity with full software control which means I can sync video with my home network when I return home and a bunch of other stuff easy to do in Linux that seems to elude builders of these devices.

The stereo I am planning to get is a Power Acoustik PD-454B 4.5" screen which is an oversized single DIN unit. I previously had a 7" mechanized stereo and as expected the motor capacity failed in a year. I vowed with the money I spent (it was expensive then) that I would never again buy a unit with a motor. I realize that the text quality won't be the greatest, but I think it will still be readable and I'm not exactly going to be editing documents with it.

I'll post some more info as I continue developing it. There are a bunch of threads out there where people have built these, so it isn't exactly groundbreaking.

Dkr.