Though the main driving force behind getting this system was to help my wife adapt the Civic easily, its been an added advantage for me too. The overall visibility around the vehicle is amazing, even at night, that helps in navigating around much more independently
BHPian sarathlal recently shared this with other enthusiasts:
The White Tiger is nearing 90000 kms as of now, and has been a loyal companion all the while. Recently the power steering pump gave a small scare, but luckily super efficient folks, Mr. Sumesh and friends at the HASS, has succesfully restored the pump back to its full glory. Ever since ceramic coating was done (Details here: Civic Maintenance Thread), it has been fairly easy on regular exterior maintenance as well.
Though these were few wishlist items for the Civic, I did not really pursue any of them seriously; until recently when I did a real sit down on the 360 degree camera requirement. And finally took the decision to put one in, one of the first aftermarket item being done on the Civic. Apprehension was mainly due to the need to take off part of dashboard, door panels etc.
There are loads of units available in the market, varying in size from 8 to 11 inches that are suitable for the Civic. I applied the following filters for narrowing down;
1. Ease of use, responsive (Used to the pixels)
2. Latest possible hardware
3. No wire cutting or splicings whatsoever
4. Least intrusive and minimal disruptions
Zeroed in on few units, but unfortunately nothing from a known brand that fits the requirement and provided value for money worthiness. Sony have couple of really good units, but they support only two cameras and not 360. Whole point of attempting this was the 360 camera views, so had to dismiss this. Another problem I saw was, the units from relatively known brands were very slow, very lethargic and very low screen quality. Finally after a lot of checks, opted for a brand called as Geesonic from the sea of choices available. Me and my friend visited multiple shops on multiple days to arrive on this decision.
Its an 11.5 inch, Android 14 based unit that comes with 6GB RAM and 64 GB storage. 2K resolution and HD 360 degree camera support. In addition to this, had to buy the dashboard adapter with spacers that will house the unit onto the dashboard. The unit comes with series of features like wireless android auto, carplay, apps like Netflix, Youtube, DSP etc.
The installation was smooth as well. After removing the existing OEM unit, it was a direct plug and play of the wire systems to this unit. No wires were cut or spliced for this activity. I did not opt to have automatic lane watch function while engaging the indicators, since this functionality needed wire splicing on the indicator shaft wires.
Though the main driving force behind getting this system was to help my wife adapt the Civic easily, its been an added advantage for me too. The overall visibility around the vehicle is amazing, even at night, that helps in navigating around much more independently. The perks of having a modern entertainment unit was huge. Kids now have another reason to be in the Civic. Screen being big, Google maps navigation is super easy. GPS antenna is really good, audio setup is good and adapts seemlessly with the existing speaker units. Its super fast operations so far, no lag for any action and video quality is superb. It also offers option to have the videos recorded in loop mode, which enables all four camera feeds to be recorded onto a single file of 3 mins interval video clips. And luckily, though its a huge screen, its not protruding out off the dashboard is not coming onto the area of driving view.
360 Degree view
Recording perspective
Unit pictures
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