Cars are becoming more safer as technology like brake assist or lane departure are incorporated in vehicles as standard features. But what you won’t find in the majority of cars are built-in dash cams. For a Honda CR-V owner, even if you are lucky enough to have Honda Sensing it doesn’t prevent you from getting into an accident. It could have all the warning systems and work perfectly, you could still be in an accident. Finding the best dash cam for your Honda CRV will help you protect your investment if you happen to get into one.
- Dual Dash Cam at 1440P/1080P with 170 degree wide angle
- Parking Mode will record any shocks or vibrations
- 3 Inch IPS screen
A dash cam won’t necessarily help you avoid an accident, but it will help you recover your losses. Being able to clearly provide video evidence of an incident is paramount for insurance companies or law enforcement. You don’t want to leave it up to your word versus theirs. A proper dash cam set up can protect a valuable asset and be one less headache if your actions are questioned.
The Honda CR-V is one of the most popular SUVs on the market, known for its reliability and longevity. When choosing a dash cam, every Honda CR-V owner should be looking for WiFi Capabilities, G-Sensor, and Image Quality. We will also be going over how to install a dash cam in a Honda CR-V.
Installation
Installing a dash cam in your Honda is straight forward. Before you begin, you should decide how you are going to power your device. The two most common options are through the cigarette lighter/USB or the car’s fuse box. The fuse box option is what is called hard wiring which allows you to power the dash cam without the keys in the ignition. We will dedicate a section to this later.
Front Mount
Mounting a front dash cam in a Honda CR-V is easily done near the rear view mirror. The only thing to look out for is to see if your Honda has the Honda Sensing feature. This is a camera sensor that assists the driver with braking, lane departure and other safety features. Be sure the dash cam is not in front of the sensor. In our testing, there is plenty of room in front of the rear view mirror where you aren’t obstructing the Honda Sensing sensor and the dash cam is hidden from the driver’s view. Most dash cams can be placed here with 3M tape or a suction cup.
Dash Cam Cable Management – Front
One action you’ll want to do is hide the cables. It’s a simple task and it will make your car a lot more neater than having a cable dangle down from the dash cam. You’ll want to start routing the wire from the dash cam up into the roof headliner. You should be able to pry an opening with your fingers while also pushing the cable in the space.
Make your way towards the driver’s side if you are planning to hard wire because the fuse box is located there. Otherwise, go towards the passenger side. Transitioning to the A-pillar should be easy as most people can force the wire through with minimal effort. Your Honda should have weather stripping which is a soft black rubber following the A-pillar. You can hide the wire in that as the rubber is flexible.
As you make your way down towards the driver’s side, you may have to remove a side panel. Your dash cam may have come with a panel remover tool, or you can use a flat screwdriver with a towel wrapped around it. Once there you should have access to the fuse box panel.
If you are on the passenger side, you can route the wire underneath the glove box, removing panels where needed. As you make your way to the center console, you could have the wire be exposed in its last length to the cigarette lighter. We recommend taking the extra time to remove the side, center console panels or the panels next to one’s seat, to properly hide the cables.
Rear Mount
If you’ve chosen a dash cam that has both a front and rear unit, you need to have an idea where you want to mount the rear unit. The tricky part about the Honda CR-V is that the rear window is part of the trunk, as opposed to many sedans that have the two separated. In other words, when you mount the dash cam on the rear windshield, it will move when you open the trunk. No worries though! We find that mounting directly below the third brake light on the top is the best spot. Other common areas are towards the corners of the rear windshield.
Dash Cam Cable Management- Rear
We will now need to route the wires towards the rear of the car. Similar to the front unit, we recommend routing the wires along the headliner but this time in the opposite direction. If the front unit’s cables are going towards the driver’s side, then route the rear unit’s cable to the passenger’s. This way, the cables aren’t stacked together in the headliner.
Hide the cable in the top part of the A-pillar and then transition to the weather stripping that runs all the way to the rear. Any additional pillars can have the wire pushed through the top. You can do this all with no tools.
Once in the rear, there are now two methods you can choose. One is easier than the other. For the easier method, there’s only one panel that potentially needs to be removed. The trade off is there will be a little bit of cable hanging between the vehicle and the trunk when fully opened. The panel that may need removing is towards on top most side panel in the trunk. The cable needs to make its way through that panel in order to get to the trunk’s weather stripping where it will hide before reappearing to bridge the gap to the windshield. You will want to leave a little bit of slack as the trunk needs to open and close.
The harder method is to route the wire through the rubber hose. You need to partially remove the top roof panel in the cabin so you can snake the wire through. Under the panel there will be an opening to that hose where you can guide the wire. From that point, there’s only one trunk panel that needs to come off in order to install the rear unit.
How to Hardwire your Honda CR-V
Hard wiring your Honda CR-V is easy and anyone can do it. Hard wiring is the process of powering your dash cam through your car’s fuse box. Doing this, you free up a cigarette lighter and you can utilize more of the dash cam features. You’ve paid for it, why not use it? Parking mode is a perfect example of a feature that is underutilized. When you leave your car normally, the dash cam has no power source and won’t record, but with parking mode, it can detect motion, shocks or vibrations and record any incident. Powering your dash cam through the fuse box allows you this flexibility.
At this point, you will need your own hard wiring kit. Many kits are built to be plugged into your actual dash cam so be mindful of the connection you have in your dash cam whether that be mini USB, micro USB, USB-C or otherwise.
Choose whether you want to use a fuse that is always-on, or only on when you start your vehicle. You can use a circuit tester to see what fuse is “hot” when the car is off, or you can refer to this diagram.
Honda CR-V Dash Cam Features You Need
Parking Mode
Honda CR-Vs are known to last forever, but whether your car is 15 years old or brand new, you’ll want to know what’s happening to your car when you aren’t present. A simple errand like grocery shopping at the nearby Costco can result in car doors being opened into yours, or the occasional parking bump. And at night in my driveway there aren’t many people walking by so I would rather have motion detection ready on my dash cam to catch anyone acting suspiciously.
Parking mode is great for a variety of situations but is primarily there to protect your vehicle when you aren’t. Most people only spend a few hours in their vehicle a day; what about the other hours? Thankfully, most dash cams come standard with parking mode, but not all parking modes are the same.
Ensure your dash cam has motion detection, which obviously detects any movement on the screen. Without motion detection, parking mode will detect vibrations or shocks to the car, but not anyone peering in.
Rear Coverage
You may be on the fence on getting a front and rear dash cam setup. It is understandable as the installation process is a little harder and you wonder how necessary it is. Addressing the first point, yes, the installation will be a bit more difficult. But that leads us to the question, is it worth it?
Speaking from experience, if you have children in the car, than a rear camera is necessary. Getting rear ended in an intersection is traumatic enough alone, but having children in the back multiplies the trauma. Whiplash, concussions and any other injuries are important to address immediately. Having eyes in the back of your vehicle will keep you at ease that you’ve recorded what exactly happened for insurance, law enforcement or the courts.
G-sensor
While most dash cams have this feature, it is important you double check. G-Sensor is a sensor that is in the unit that understands when the vehicle is involved in an accident or collision. The dash cam should be recording at all times, but the G-Sensor will save and lock the accident footage. If this doesn’t happen, you have to remember to download and save the footage before the camera erases the old footage.
This happens a lot with minor collisions were no one was hurt and you want to show the insurance company but footage from two days ago is no longer there. Having a G-Sensor will separate the footage into a different folder that cannot be overwritten.
APEMAN 1440P&1080P Dual Dash Cam
The APEMAN Dual Dash cam setup has a 1440P front unit and a 1080P rear unit resolution. We really like this dash cam because of its cost effectiveness. It leaves out the specific luxurious features and concentrates on delivering the basics.
For one, the front unit has a wide angle view at 170 degrees. This is great to ensure you are capturing the entire road ahead of you. This also does have G-Sensor that will automatically save footage and separate it into a different, safe folder for future review.
The dash cam does say it has motion detection in the title, but that only means if it detects motion to the car such as an accident. It does not detect if someone is walking by. This may matter to some or it may not. Otherwise, we recommend getting a large 128 GB SD card. It does come with a 16GB, but that will only hold a few hours of footage before loop recording kicks in.
Image quality is great both in the day and at night, we recommend locking the exposure as the auto exposure isn’t accurate.
BLACKVUE BV-DR900S-2CH
The BlackVue DR900S is the full, complete dash cam solution for any driver. This is a front and rear setup with the front filming in 4K and the rear filming in 1080P. The front films at a respectable 162 degree angle with the rear at 139 degrees. It includes loop recording and G-sensor.
What sets this apart is its cloud capabilities. Yes, if this is your first time hearing about this, dash cams can connect to the internet. You have the potential to remotely view your dash cam live, at any time. You can also see its location, and even have a two-way conversation with anyone who is in the car. Be mindful that you will need to have a mobile hot spot for it to connect to the cloud.
Besides the cloud features, this dash cam has a relatively small form factor that conforms to the car. BlackVue offers plenty of hard wiring options from being powered solely off of battery, or you can hook it up to your fuse box.
VIOFO A129 Duo Dual Lens Dash Cam
The VIOFO A129 is another dual dash cam that is a solid choice for those who are looking for a few luxury features, like WiFi to make life easier when reviewing footage. The VIOFO films front and rear in 1080P at 30 FPS. It comes with a 2 inch LCD screen for quick playback and altering settings, but it does come with WiFi capabilities where you can access the dash cam through a smartphone app.
It comes with GPS tracking that will attach speed and location data to the video file, as well as ensure the footage is correctly timestamped. Parking mode is also included and offers buffered parking mode, which will save footage from 15 seconds before an accident and 30 seconds after. This mode includes true motion detection, detecting anyone walking across your car.
Night footage is exceptional as the F/1.6 lens allows tons of light to hit the sensor. Hard wiring is also easy as VIOFO has specifically made one for their own A129 kit.