Question about new Car and Dashcam - Garmin Mini 2

Hope4jsl

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Hi, we just bought a new 2021 Ford Escape Hybrid. We went to Best Buy and bought the Garmin Mini 2 and I was planning on installing myself. I liked it because of the small size and simplicity. I also liked it because it could plug into the 12v or USB port and I wouldn’t have to try any hardwiring. I really didn’t even care about parking mode, my plan was for the Dashcam to shut off when I turned off the ignition.

What I didn’t realize was the 12V outlet and USB ports don‘t shut off with the ignition. Instead they stay on for a long time. It’s seems like about and hour and a half before it finally ****’s off the power. I haven’t been able to nail down the exact time, but it somewhere around that.

I set the the Dashcam to start parking mode after 3 minutes of non motion, so at least it won’t be recording the entire 1.5 hours. Then when it senses motion again, it starts recording again. This seems to be working as intended.

My main question is, will this 1.5 hours of running the parking mode hurt the battery? The car is started and shut down several times a day, so it would be running in the parking mode for several hours a day. Will this hurt the battery, or do I need to get somebody to try and hardwire it?

Thanks for the help!
 
Is there an option to have it turn off after a certain amount of time? The camera is going to be running the entire time in parking mode, but it just doesn't save the footage to the flash card unless there is an event.

I have a hardwire kit and I get 15 - 16 hours out of it without hitting the cutoff voltage. This is when I'm driving it every day during the work week for about 40 minutes. I usually hit the cutoff voltage on Saturday in the late afternoon/early evening if I haven't driven my car.

It doesn't sound like it's going to kill your battery, but I've heard newer cars can be more sensitive about other electronics drawing juice from the starter battery.

If you don't care about parking mode, then what's the big deal in just unplugging the 12V outlet when you park? If you do care about parking mode, then I would recommend biting the bullet and installing a hardwire kit.
 
Welcome to DCT @Hope4jsl :)

Any use of the battery 'hurts' it, so the real question is "how much?" Based on my experiences and of what I read from others, that kind of use might cost you 10% of the batteries service life at most, and probably less. So you'd need a new battery 4-6 weeks earlier than if the cam turned off. I don't think that's enough to worry about considering the added security it gives you. Long ago I did the math for my own much heavier usage and it came out to what would now be under $0.75 per day to run a cam continuously, and you're looking at less than this.

Only you can decide if it's worth it, but be assured that any 'harm' doing it this way will be very small. IIRC you can reduce the parking mode time in the app if you want. I'd check that for you but it's the middle of the night here. My Mini2 doesn't seem to have a sensitive enough "G-sensor" to activate itself when parked but it would likely catch larger events. Yours may do better. It's a nice little cam for driving though, good vids day & night and reliable.

Phil
 
Welcome to the forum Hope4jsl.

Some cars do have a always on socket in the dash others like yours one that is on a timer, if the timer is the case then the camera will keep recording as normal and then shut down when the timer kick in.
I personally only use 1 hour parking guard ( on timer build into camera ) that cover all my shopping and at home i have cctv on the car, i can always up the timer if i feel like it, the cut off are set to 12.2 so should allow for a much longer duration before the low voltage kick in.
Some cameras can have the low voltage in the camera itself, this is often cameras that are 12 volt input ( most are 5 volt USB input )
Some systems can start parking guard by no motion ( G - sensor ) others can do so by voltage drop from the when driving +13 volts to the 12. ? volts when not driving / charging.
Most systems today though use a 3 wire hard wire kit with +12V ACC / +12V always on and then of course ground, so the ACC wire is the trigger wire so to say.

1.5 hour of parking guard will not make a "dent" in your car battery (y) you would not have to drive for long to replenish what you have lost in that 1.5 hours of parking.
If your car are driven a few hours every day you should be fine in regard to parking guard even if the car do that the rest of the time, so your 1.5 hours duration X 2 - 3 - 4 should be fine.
You of course have to be mindful that you have to replenish what you loose, and the car battery charge pretty hard VS the dashcam only drawing little power, so chance are you should be on the winning side.

Some times the always on dash socket can be reprogrammed by the dealer / shop i am told.

In general a 12.2 voltage on a car battery is considered a 50 % discharged battery, you should not go below that as then battery life would start to really hurt ( car batteries not really meant to be discharged deep )
 
...I really didn’t even care about parking mode, my plan was for the Dashcam to shut off when I turned off the ignition............I set the the Dashcam to start parking mode after 3 minutes of non motion, so at least it won’t be recording the entire 1.5 hours...My main question is, will this 1.5 hours of running the parking mode hurt the battery? The car is started and shut down several times a day, so it would be running in the parking mode for several hours a day. Will this hurt the battery, or do I need to get somebody to try and hardwire it?
You post is confusing because you say you didn't care about PM but then you set it to start after 3 minutes. If you didn't care abt PM to begin with, why don't you just set it to NOT start at all? Am I missing something?
 
.....If you don't care about parking mode, then what's the big deal in just unplugging the 12V outlet when you park? If you do care about parking mode, then I would recommend biting the bullet and installing a hardwire kit.
. (y)
 
Thanks for the replies. I will probably just leave it like it is. Sounds like the drain won’t be enough to hurt anything.
 
You post is confusing because you say you didn't care about PM but then you set it to start after 3 minutes. If you didn't care abt PM to begin with, why don't you just set it to NOT start at all? Am I missing something?
Sorry about that. I guess I didn't get my point across very well. I initially didn’t care about parking mode, and still don’t really. The only reason I turned parking mode on was because I learned the 12v outlet didn’t shut off right away. So I chose to turn parking on just so the camera wouldn’t keep recording the whole 1.5 hours it was on and parked. The parking mode starts after 3 minutes of not moving. If my 12v outlet shut off with the ignition, I would be fine with no parking mode. Hope that makes sense.

I looked in my camera settings and the shortest amount of time that parking mode can be set for is 2 hours. So the 12v outlet seems to be shutting off before that anyway. Either way, I think I will leave it like it is and see how it goes.
 
Always good to play around and get familiar with a new toy, its the best part of it IMO.
My latest toy 1 month old, well i think i played too hard with it, so i am now working on getting it back in tune, which is a must if you want to kill flies at 100 yards.
 
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