New owner: dash cams and other tips

First thing, get the Honda Link app. It’s free.
Useful for
-Finding car (shows it on a map)
-Seeing state of charge, time to full charge, notification of charge stopped (as in problem charging or some one unplugged you if public charging)
-Preconditioning with unlimited range (as opposed to the key fob’s short range)

As to dash cam. After market ones are much less expensive. It’s easy to hide the power cable under headliner and down A pillar when installing behind rear view mirror area. Very inexpensive if you’re a DIY type and use an “add a fuse” to connect power. Haven’t tried getting a line back to a rear camera but any competent shop can do it. If you don’t want to DIY, I’m sure you can beat that price going to a shop.

I’m sure you’ll get some good advise from the more seasoned posters here. I sure did. Also read through this forum. Lots of good info here.

Consider a 220v Level 2 charger. The included 110v one is painfully slow. Mine took 13 hr to fully charge when battery was depleted to 0 miles EV. Also let’s you precondition without losing any range. A good idea for the frigid north where cold will dramatically reduce your EV range.

Vic, welcome to the club. I’ve had my US model for 2 1/2 weeks and love it. Hope you enjoy yours as much as I am.

 

Forgot to mention.
The Canadian models come with a battery heater and I’m guessing that a level 2 charger will keep your battery warm while plugged in thus keeping the battery from cold soaking in the dead of winter and giving you more power and range when you leave home.
Anybody know this for sure?

 

I bought my dashcam from Amazon as a lightning deal (an Aukey, about $50). It's worked just fine but I like the Rexing dashcam on my other car better. If I had to do it over again, I would probably purchase the ROAV by Anker. I've been impressed by Anker products and nearly all the listed dashcams are from brands I've never heard of before (probably Chinese domestic brands rebranded for sale on Amazon). I only saw the ROAV after purchasing the Aukey (I've bought computer cables from Aukey before). Installation was pretty easy but I plugged the camera directly into one of the USB ports.

 

I agree on Anker products. Top notch.

 

While we are on the honda link app subject. The car must be using cellular service to connect to internet to communicate with the app on the phone right? So is the service a subscription service that will expire?

 

You are correct that it’s communicating over cellular. However there is no information from any Honda source at present that a subscription is being offered. So it’s free I guess until Honda says otherwise.

 

Thanks KentuckyKen. Not having anything info is a concern. I believe in the old saying 'there is no such thing as free lunch'. Hate to see a letter in the mail that say join or lose the app.

A bigger concern is what other information the car is sending and to whom.......

 

I agree megreyhair. On that note, the TCU (Telematics Control Unit) is on the CanBus so it has potential access to every single sensor and operating unit on the car depending on what features Honda specified and also enabled. So it’s possible for it to be sending cellular data to Honda on virtually anything and everything! The first thing that comes to mind is location, speed, how ACC is set, etc., but it could be anything. For example, it could even read the LKAS data to send the last time you had a steering input (could that be used against you if you had an accident?). We just don’t know and we are forced to trust Honda to keep it safe, private and to deidentify the metadata if they share it. So in my mind, we are giving up some privacy to use Honda Link. But how would we know if it sends it anyway? Privacy is becoming an ever rarer commodity in the internet of all things. George Orwell’s 1984 in a Clarity??

 

Re: Honda link subscription, the glossy I picked up from my local Ottawa dealer last night says the subscription is free for the life of the vehicle - surprisingly.

 

We've found with the Volt that if the MIL comes on you can press the OnStar button and have them read you the code(s).
So you see sometimes stuff can be used for good.

 

Unlike GM, the Clarity TCU does not have voice capability, although we can set it to attemp an emergency call through our phone in the event of a crash.

 

Great information for our Canadian friends. Wish we could find it in writing here in the US.

 

To be clear, OnStar is a subscription service and the "voice capability" is a human assistant available 24/7.

In our case, the service was complimentary initially (to get us hooked).

My bigger point was that connectivity with the vehicle network potentially enables stuff.

 

Yes, your two way voice communication with your On Star rep was what I was referring to. Your required subscription pays for that personalized service and the use of the Telecom’s cellular network.
The Clarity connects to Honda’s server by 2 way data only link by using using cellular networks too. And we too enjoy some good benefits from our Honda Link app but at the potential loss of an unknown amount of privacy and data security.
I’ll throw a WAG out here and speculate that our Honda Link is free and may be free for life (as in Canada according to one post) because it is merely short, intermittent data bursts that don’t use much cellular bandwidth and so is cheap enough for Honda to pick up the cost for us. And of course Honda gets a tremendous R&D benefit from all the meta data collected.

I much prefer my free Honda Link remote features, plus free road side assistance (8 yrs for me), and free crash detected emergency calling through my phone to having to pay monthly for On Star. The On Star cost over 8 years would pay for my 8 yr Honda Care 0 deductibles extended warranty. Thank you Honda.

 

I've used the Z-Edge Z3 Plus for awhile. I think it has a good picture (especially in the day), but the one issue I have is the internal battery. It seems after about 2+ years or so the battery doesn't stay charged so it can't remember the date. However, it makes me want only 1440p or higher resolution and this has a 155 angle view. So I suggest getting a 155 degree wide of an angle or wider and 1440p or higher, otherwise it's hard to see license plates of nearby vehicles. That's just my opinion.