This product is perfect for people who already have their phone mounted to their dash. The data connection is wireless, but you still need to hook up power somewhere. This is much less of a headache since you can find DC power anywhere in the back of a car, whereas in a wired video system you have to route that video wire all the way up to the front of the car somehow. Instead of a traditional install method of drilling and running the power wires behind the car's paneling, I did something a little different. I bought some flat DC wire (about 2mm thick) and connected it to a USB port in the rear of the car (2003 Honda CR-V). The company selling this camera kit also sells its own USB -> proprietary 4-pin cord which can plug directly into the camera's mating connector. However, the cord is too thick (and too long) for my intended use-case. I routed the flat DC wire such that it can fit through where the back hatch of the car closes. It still makes a good water-tight seal when closed and it doesn't crush the wire so it won't break after repeated opening/closing cycles of the hatch. I then clipped off the camera's proprietary 4-pin power connector and soldered the flat wire directly to it. The solder point is on the external part of the car so I covered it with some marine-grade waterproof heatshrink tubing. One last note about the power wiring here. The cord that ships with the unit has a built-in 12V->5V regulator molded into the cable. So if you hook anything directly into the camera power connector, it needs to be 5V (which is why I used USB in my scenario). There are a few other things I had to modify. None of the screws that ship with this unit are stainless steel, so they will all rust. This is especially bad in a place that has snow in the winter where the road salt will make quick work of those screws. There are 4 small screws for the upward/downward adjustment of the camera which I replaced with [18-8 stainless steel #2 5/16" Philips pan-head sheet metal screws]. There are 2 more screws which mount the camera to the license plate bracket and I replaced them with the same type of screw as above but 3/16" length instead of 5/16" length. You might be able to split the length difference and just buy a single box of 1/4" ones now that I think about it... The unit also ships with two M6 16mm black machine screws for the license plate itself. First problem with these is the same as above: they will rust easily. 2nd is that they are too short because the plastic mounting bracket is too thick. I bought 20mm length stainless steel screws to solve this, but you might need even longer if you use a license plate holder adding to the thickness. The unit also ships with screws for the included butterfly bracket which are also not stainless steel, but I didn't use that bracket so I didn't end up finding replacements for them. Lastly, the plastic bracket that mounts to the license plate sticks out way too far laterally from where you actually screw it into the license plate. This is a problem for the right side (for me) since it will cover my license plate registration sticker (Illinois plates). I simply sawed off the excess plastic (on both sides so it looks symmetric). I didn't understand why it was designed like this. Aren't license plate holes a standardized distance apart??? The excess is so much it makes no sense to me. Oh well. Anyway, after all these issues are accounted for the end result is rather good. I probably spent more than the cost of the camera on extra screws and installation gear, but the price of the camera is low so it made it all worth it. UPDATE: I wanted to address some of the other criticisms regarding lack of internet on some people's phones while using the camera. This is going to depend on the specific phone. iPhones have a setting called "WiFi Assist" which is on by default and should avoid this issue of the local-only WiFi connection from the camera blocking cellular internet access. However, if it's not working consistently or you have an Android phone there is a universal solution. When you're connected to the camera's WiFi, go into its WiFi settings and write down the IP Address and Subnet Mask. Then change the WiFi settings from Auto to Manual (or sometimes called "Static"), and type in the IP Address and Subnet Mask from before. The most important thing is to force the DNS settings to be blank (might be a separate setting you have to change to Manual too). This should make your phone aware that the WiFi connection is local-only and allow cellular data for external IP addresses.
