In this article, we’ll explain whether – and if so, when and why – your dash cam can drain your car battery.
Can your dash cam drain your car battery?
Short answer: yes, it can. But it doesn’t have to.
Before we give the long answer to this question, we need to understand how a dash cam works. A dash cam is a device that allows you to record what’s happening in front of (and sometimes behind and in) your car while you’re driving. Simply put, it’s a camera that you stick somewhere on your car’s dashboard or windshield. Most of them (e.g. all BlackVue dash cams) record continuously while you’re driving, without you having to worry about turning it on and off.
However, because they record all the time, there’s a concern that it could drain your car’s battery (since most dash cams get their power from your car’s battery). While this isn’t a problem when you’re driving, it gets a bit more complicated when your car is parked.
Easy way to enable parking mode
If the dashcam is not hardwired or connected to an external power source, it will simply turn off as soon as you turn off the ignition. As you can probably imagine, this is not an optimal solution for a car owner looking for full dashcam protection.
That is why many dashcams can actually work while the car is parked – for BlackVue dashcams, this mode is called parking mode and it comes in two variants. Motion and impact detection mode (activated by motion detected in selected regions or by impact on your car) and time-lapse mode with buffered event recording (continuous recording at one frame per second, creating a time-lapse on playback + normal event videos on impact).
Special battery
Adding a power source to power your dash cam is pretty simple. All you need is a dedicated battery to power your dash cam, such as the BlackVue Battery Pack B-112 or the B-130A. The battery will charge your dash cam when the dash cam is in parking mode and the battery will recharge when you are driving.
Please note: While all BlackVue dash cams can enter parking mode regardless of whether they are hardwired or not, models from other brands may need to be hardwired to do so.
Built-in parking mode? Hardwired?
But what about the hard wiring of the dash cam? This is where the risk of draining your car battery is greatest. If your dash cam does not have a built-in voltage monitoring system or you do not have a hard wiring kit for parking mode, your car battery is completely vulnerable, as the dash cam will be constantly consuming power.
Many of the BlackVue dash cams offer a built-in parking mode. This means that they come with a built-in voltage monitoring system. You can hard wire your BlackVue to your vehicle’s fuse panel using a hard wiring harness with 3 wires. ‘3 wire’ refers to the wires labelled ‘GND’, ‘ACC’ (switched power) and ‘BAT’ (constant power). In compatible models, the dash cam itself can monitor the voltage level of your vehicle’s battery.
Hardwiring kit
What about dashcam models that don’t have a built-in voltage monitoring feature? In the case of BlackVue models, you can still enjoy parking mode thanks to an accessory called the ‘Power Magic Pro’. In short, the Power Magic Pro powers your dashcam in parking mode using your vehicle’s battery. This accessory comes with both a voltage cut-off and a timer and has an on/off switch. When the switch is on, the Power Magic Pro will supply power to your dashcam even if the vehicle’s ignition is turned off, until the voltage cut-off or timeout value is reached. On the other hand, when the switch is off, the Power Magic Pro will only supply power to your dashcam when the vehicle’s ignition is on (not in parking mode).
Although a dashcam can drain your car’s battery when your car is parked, there are easy ways to prevent this. You can purchase a parking mode hardwiring kit for your dashcam, a dashcam with a built-in voltage monitoring system or opt for a Battery Pack. The choice is yours!