I sure do like having front and rear cameras.

So I got home from my pool (like 8-ball, 9-ball) league Saturday night, it was drizzly, I was tired, and my neighbor was having a party so there was no parking available.

I didn't want to park way down the street from my own house so I just stuffed it in front of my driveway.

I have a decent sense of spatial awareness, and have always been pretty good at knowing where my corners, bumpers, wheels, etc. are, but something about the sightlines and hood on this pig... 2 years in and I really have no idea where the front end is.
I always think I'm way closer to objects in front of me than I really am.

Took a little jockeying but really wasn't difficult being able to see my bumpers clearly a couple inches away from the cars in front and behind.

I don't think I would've even attempted this without the cam on both ends, and the bigger 10" screen of the Kenwood certainly helped.

So if you're upgrading the HU and undecided, or contemplating adding a front cam... Do it.

 

Yes I agree! I added a front cam when I upgraded my HU to the ILX507. It is a great tool for tight space situations.

 

YES yes I need to add mine
Just ordered the daista hu
need to add the front camera
where did u order it and was it hard to install urself?

 

I paid the professionals to do my install.

I just don't have the patience or motivation for that kinda' stuff anymore, I'd rather go surfing and pick it up when it's done (and done perfectly)

Any money I saved installing myself would probably be spent at the chiropractor anyway from throwing my back out during the install.

I think the actual camera part is pretty easy, it's routing the wire through the engine bay and into the cab that's time consuming.

 

I can second that lol
Should be some swell on thanksgiving!
not much but little bump on the radar.
Where did you buy your front camera and button Im looking at the one from trailgridpro

 

Done perfectly. Good one. Until you hear the rattles from all the clips they broke removing your head unit. Most of those places couldn’t care less about their work. The horror stories I could tell you. Everything from 10 door clips out of 12 broken and never replaced, to my neighbors car getting flat bedded to the stealership because the dude installing his remote start hacked into the immobilizer.

 

I ordered mine from TrailGrid Pro. It has a cool multi-view feature that gives 3 different perspectives. I thought it was a little pricy at first so I hesitated purchasing for a while. After pulling the trigger it is a valuable-add on and a very good unit IMHO. *edit* I installed it myself and it really wasn't that difficult.
Alpine Multi-View HDR Front Camera (

$400 HCE-C2600FD Multi-View Front HDR Camera System

HCE-C2600FD)

 

I’m running a Kenwood DMX 957XR. Bought a cheap 50 camera for my TRD pro and hid it in the grill. I can program it to come on automatically at whatever speed I want or turn it on manually. It’s a great feature for sure.

 

I can just about guarantee there'll be fun waves on Thanksgiving... Since I'll be in the desert!

Hopefully the little nuggets I got this weekend will hold me over.



I got the cam from the stereo shop.

I started walking out to the parking lot to take a pic and see if I could get a name off of it, but then I remembered my truck ain't here 'cuz I rode my bike to work today.

It's a very small unobtrusive little cube, not positive but I think might be this one. Hertz HM CAM C01 Compact wired marine backup camera with IP67 certification at Crutchfield

 

That's how mine was set up at first, it'd come on when you go below 5MPH and then turn off when you hit 12MPH.

I turned that feature off after awhile, very useful feature sometimes but it started annoying me.
Sometimes if I were doing something else - changing music, making a phone call, whatever... when the front cam came on the screen it would drop out of whatever I was doing and I'd have to start over.
I don't need to see the back of every car I stop behind at a light.

I have one of the steering wheel buttons programmed as a "Press & Hold" through Maestro to bring up the front cam, or there's a CAM button on the HU.

Once the cam is on screen you can toggle between Front/Rear on screen.

I also like being able to turn the rear cam anytime now, instead of only when in reverse. Used it while hitching up my trailer yesterday to watch the ball/receiver line up.

 

How does that work? Changes the zoom or how wide an angle it captures, or what?

 

This is the 4th vehicle on which this shop has done work for me, and workmanship and attention to detail on all have been outstanding. Done perfectly. That's why they keep getting my business.

I was a little worried because when I went in with my last Tundra I found out the owner of 20+ years had retired and sold the business.
Almost turned and left, but I got a good feeling from my conversation with the new owner so I gave 'em a shot.

I was very pleased to find out that they are holding to the standards set by the previous owner.

I was having some trouble after the fact, one turned out to be something I did dickin' around with settings, causing Android Auto connectivity issues, and the other was the gauge pack not working due to my model year/maestro/OBD compatability issues... neither of which were their fault or their problem. The owner went above and beyond to solve my problems.

 

Tiny lil' thing...

 

Nice docking, Cap’n.

 

Not gonna' lie, I was pretty pleased with myself.

Showed my wife the next morning, at first she didn't believe that's where the cars were when I parked.

 

Front cam is the best thing I've added to this truck for sure. I'm running a Sony head unit with a second cam input, I went with an AutoVox brand one on Amazon, heard good things about Natika as well. $50 for a cam and a couple hours to run the wires and you're in business.

 

I'm assuming you have the Maestro UI to go with that Sony.

It's really handy having one of the Press & Hold (secondary function) steering wheel buttons programmed to bring up the front cam. I have the UP button on the left side steering wheel cluster programmed so anytime I want the cam I don't even have to take my hands off the wheel. The UP button made the most sense 'cuz it kind of pointing in the direction of "looking forward".

 

I do indeed have a Maestro but right now it's just flashed/programmed to the default settings, that's a super good idea though cause right now when I'm parking I have to press the home button and then the cam 1 button on my head unit. I flashed my Maestro a bunch of times (lol) trying to fix something that turned out to be my own physical error, I'll have to flash it again and set it like that, thanks for the tip!

 

Ha! I did one of those errors too! I was pretty glad that I sprung the extra $59 for the RR2, as it lets you flash via bluetooth instead of having to pull the unit.

Yeah, it's super handy, I have the "Press & Hold" buttons so the UP is front cam, VOLUME UP is the gauge pack (Trans Temp) and VOLUME DOWN is TPMS.

 

What's Maestro? Is that part of the headunit?

 

Did this plug in directly to the head unit? The product page shows some clip; I'm reading there's also an adapter for an RCA connection, but my understanding is that RCA can only do 480p if utilizing only the yellow connector. Wouldn't that diminish the quality of the camera?

 

It's an additional item/cost but worth it imo. It's basically a little black box that plugs in behind the head unit and retains all the factory functions in addition to adding new functions like gauges/data that are available to be read off the OBD system. iDatalink is the company and Maestro is the product. The Maestro units are compatible with nearly all vehicle makes/models so if you end up selling the truck, chances are you can pull the radio and move it to your next vehicle fairly easily.

Yeah I wish I had the bluetooth version but since I ordered from Trail Grid Pro I only have the non-bluetooth version. Thankfully the radio is super easy to pull unlike some vehicles.

 

It is plug and play. I can't recall exactly which connection type but everything was labeled so it was very straight forward. As far as image quality, it beats the OEM rear camera by a mile.

 

That is a tight fit. Good job.

 

Thinking about doing this with a trailgridpro Sony Hu and add on front cam. Curious if updating it will break my keyfob remote start though as I assume all that runs through the service connect?

 

Can confirm the key fob remote start still works. I bought the Sony XAV-9000ES from TrailGridPro, they’re awesome. I didn’t get the front cam from them cause I added one later I got off Amazon but in retrospect If just buy it through them too cause the one I bought had a large connector that made it a pain in the ass.

 

Great to hear. Thinking on the 9500 but still have to save up. Just spent all my upgrade money on a diamondback HD and rci skids. Next year hopefully radio and new wheels/tires or radio and new bumpers. Too many upgrade options.