Road Angel Halo Pro Hardwire Hack
I recently got my hands on a Road Angel Halo Pro dash cam system which also has a rear camera for full coverage. The main unit comes in a fancy box along with the rear camera, extension cable for the rear camera and a power lead that plugs into the 12v auxiliary socket, or the ''cigarette lighter socket" as it used to be known. You also get a tool that helps you to run the power cable behind the rubber trim so that you can hide the cable as it runs from the main camera behind the reverse mirror on the windscreen to the 12v socket somewhere around the middle console. You just have to remember to plug it in each time you start your journey and unplug it when you have finished otherwise it will be on all the time possibly draining the battery and taking up unnecessary recording space on the SD card, although with most vehicles, the 12v will only be live when the ignition is turned to aux or when the ignition is on.
Dashcam Hardwire Kit
With the Road Angel, as well as other dash cams, you can purchase a separate hard wire kit which eliminates the faff of having to plug and unplug the 12v socket each time you make a journey or have something else plugged in. Most of us would want that anyway and the cynic in me tells me that it's a ploy by the manufacturers to get more money out of us. In the UK, these are around £25 or £50 if you get it fitted. In the US they are around $40 or $80 fitted.
Parking Mode
The idea behind the hardwire kit is that there is 12v permanently powering the main camera which is then on standby monitoring it's onboard sensors for any sudden jolts which could be your car being hit by another vehicle or a shopping trolly! The camera will immediately start recording if that happens so you will have evidence. Both cameras also have motion sensors which will start record if any objects or people come close to the car. This is called "Parking Mode"
With the hardwire kit, the camera can sense when the ignition is on which will the put the camera in full mode meaning it will start real time recording from both cameras to the SD card and take snapshots of any sudden bumps, although this is usually when you go over speed humps or potholes, but it's there if somebody goes into you.
The Hardware Kit
So what's in the kit? You get another power lead with a plug on one end that goes into the main unit.
The other end has three wires-
Black - which is 12v negative
Yellow - which is 12v permanent
Red - which is 12v ignition on
You also get 3 small leads the same colour as above along with 2 fuse connectors. These are to make the hardwire connections in the fusebox as well as a ring connector on the black wire so you can connect to chassis -ve somewhere.
So what's the difference between the hardwire in the kit and the wire you get with the 12v plug on?
That's what I wanted to know, so I took the liberty of dissecting the the plug which was easy. Just unscrew the ring holding the fuse and the nut and bolt going through the centre. I was expecting to see some sort of miniature 12v to 5v converter, but no, just the three black, yellow and red wires! The 12-5v conversion is done in the main camera unit itself and not the cable. The black obviously is the 12v negative and the red and yellow wires were soldered together on the 12v positive centre pin. When the ignition is turned on, the dashcam is immediately put into full recording mode. All we need to do is cut the yellow wire and connect it to a permanent +12v to put it in parking mode.
This means you don't need buy a hardwire kit - you already have it, or most of it anyway.
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| 12v Halo Dash Cam plug taken apart showing yellow and red wires soldered together. |
Hardwire connection
There are a number of ways to do this. One way would be to keep the plug and the red and black wires connected in the plug. This would provide the "ignition on " part of the connection as the aux 12v would be powered only when you turn the ignition on. You would then need to carefully cut into the outer sleeving of the cable and pull out the yellow wire and find a permanent +12v somewhere to connect it to. That would be it, your dashcam would be hardwired with all the added "benefits".
The way I did mine was to cut the plug off completely. My car has three aux sockets so I was going to use the aux socket at the back of the car to provide the ignition switching. I was able to prise the 12v aux socket out so that I could splice into the wiring directly and using an inline fuse holder with the fuse from the original plug. I connected the red lead to the +12v lead that feeds the centre connection on the plug and the black to the -12v outer. I did it this way so that there was no chance of the plug and socket being knocked or damaged with it having to be permanently plugged in, and also the socket was free for other things to be plugged in if needed. As there is also a rear camera, I routed the cables in the head lining rather than trying to hide it in the trim. This made for a neater install with no wires on view apart from the short lengths that attach to the main and rear cameras coming out of the head lining.
Permanent 12v
So where can you find a permanent 12v without having to get a wire from the inside of the vehicle to the fuse box or battery? Look no further than the interior light! Use a multi tester to determine which lead is permanent 12v. I broke into the dashcam power lead near to the main unit and isolated the yellow lead. Once I had removed the interior light fitting, I was able to get at the lead there which I had previously fed into the head lining. I spliced into the permanent 12v of the interior light and attached the yellow wire with an inline fuse so that the dashcam now had a permanent 12v supply. Re fitted the interior light unit - job done!
Just make sure that there is not too much voltage drop on the interior light permanent 12v. The Halo Pro will automatically switch off if the permanent voltage drops below 11.8 volts. This is a safeguard to prevent draining the battery to the point where the vehicle wont start. You can actually set the cut off level in the settings, 11.8v being the lowest.
In Conclusion
You already have the hardwire lead, it's just that the red and yellow wires are joined in the 12v aux plug. They simply need to be separated.
Only tackle this if you are confident and know that you could damage your vehicle if you hack into it's wiring and get it wrong. You can't do any damage to the Halo, just make sure that the black wire goes to 12v negative. Red and yellow go to 12 positive, yellow permanent, red ignition.
It may also be possible to hardwire other dashcams using the same method. Some leads have a 12v to 5v converter so you would have to watch out for this.
That's it. Hopefully you will save some money.
Caught on Dashcam.
My dashcam captured this driver deliberately overtaking a vehicle in order to jump a red light. Resolution has been lowered significantly in this clip. The original quality from the camera is actually very good.
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