AUTO-VOX W7 Backup Camera: Don’t Throw Out Your Rear-View Mirror Just Yet

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For years, backup cameras and parking assist were the type of features you’d only see on high-end cars. Even thinking about those features now, I start to hear the piano music that so often accompanies commercials for luxury sedans and the like. Fortunately, technology moves quickly and these features are no longer reserved for the high end.

Even relatively modest cars now come with backup cameras as standard, but that only applies if you’re buying a new car. What if you’re driving a car a few years old and want the features without an upgrade? It’s possible and perhaps even easy to add a backup camera like the AUTO-VOX W7, though in this case, you may be better off sticking with your good old rear-view mirror.

What’s In The Box?

This seems to be a newer iteration of the AUTO-VOX W7, as the box looked different compared to what I’d seen in older photos and it didn’t include everything I’ve seen in other reviews.

The main two items you’ll find in the box are the camera itself and the display. Aside from that you’ll find the power adapter, wireless transmitter/power source, suction cup mount for the display, a manual, and a warranty card.

It seems older models came with a wireless button to activate the camera, but that was not included with my review unit.

AUTO-VOX W7 Specifications And Features

The camera the AUTO-VOX W7 uses to show you what’s behind you is meant to sit on your license plate, meaning it’s exposed to the elements at all times. Because of this, AUTO-VOX has made sure it’s IP68 certified in order to hold up to the weather.

This means the camera is meant to withstand abuse from dust, dirt, and sand, and can be submerged in water for a maximum depth of up to 1.5 meters for as much as 30 minutes. Of course, if the camera is attached to your vehicle and is underwater for this long, you’ve got bigger problems to worry about.

The camera is rated to operate in temperatures ranging from -4 degrees Fahrenheit (-20 Celsius) to 149 Fahrenheit (65 Celsius). For storage, you can push those extremes even further from -22 Fahrenheit (-30 Celsius) to 176 Fahrenheit (80 Celsius).

In order to see what that camera sees, you’ve got a five-inch diagonal TFT wireless display. In addition to showing the camera feed, this will display six adjustable parking lines to give you an idea of how much room you have to safely maneuver.

According to AUTO-VOX, you can mount the display on either the windshield or your dashboard. A swivel on the mount allows you to adjust the display for easy viewing, no matter where you’ve mounted it. We’ll see how well these actually work later on.

Installing the AUTO-VOX W7 Backup Cam

Actually installing and mounting the AUTO-VOX W7 is a relatively straightforward process. All you need to do for the display is remove the protective film from the adhesive on the back of the mount. Stick the mount to wherever in your vehicle you want the display to sit, let it take hold, then attach the display to the mount.

Finding the right spot for your dashcam or backup camera can be tricky, but here, mounting the camera is similarly simple. Most people will want to place the camera on or near their license plate for the best line of site. You can do these either with the adhesive backing on the mount, or by attaching it to one of the screws attaching your license plate to the vehicle.

In my case, since I was attaching the camera to an SUV, I used the adhesive and mounted the camera to the bumper. This is because mounting it to the license plate would have required extensive cable rerouting, as the cable was too short to route simply.

This is where the installation gets tricky, because in order for the camera to activate when you need it, you need to wire the camera to your backup lights.

Integrating The Backup Cam With Your Backup Light

The actual installation for the AUTO-VOX W7 should be relatively simple: all you need to do is attach the positive and ground wires from the wireless transmitter to the corresponding wires running to your backup lights. Unfortunately, this wasn’t as easy as it could have been in my case.

To attach the cables, you’ll need to access your backup lights, which usually means removing one of the rear light assemblies from your vehicle. This is simple in most cases. For example, all I had to do was remove two bolts and pull the assembly out. You should be able to find out how to do this with your vehicle online.

Attaching the wires should be easy to, but at least for me, that wasn’t the case. AUTO-VOX includes two clips to make wiring simple. In theory, all you need to do is slide the clip over one of the wires running to your backup lights, insert the same colored wire from the transmitter, then use pliers or a similar tool to press down the metal tab. This is supposed to cut through the plastic on the wires and connect them.

In my case, neither clip cut through the casing of the wire running to the backup lights. They didn’t even cut through the casing on the wire from the transmitter. I thought that I might be doing something wrong, but after watching a few videos online I saw that this was indeed how these clips were supposed to work.

Being no stranger to dealing with wires, I simply stripped the wires, joined them, then covered them with electrical tape.

Adjusting The Settings

Before taking the AUTO-VOX out for a drive, I navigated thought the settings. These are accessed using a trio of buttons located on the side of the display.

You can adjust the brightness and contrast, as well as whether you see a normal or mirrored image of what is behind you. You can also adjust whether or not you see the lines for parking assist, as well as the size of them.

These options are handy, but unfortunately, I couldn’t find the setting to make the camera usable.

Using the AUTO-VOX W7 Backup Cam

With everything set, it was time to try out the camera in action. I started my vehicle, put it in reverse and… nothing happened. At first, I thought I’d made a mistake in the wiring, but then an image popped up on the display.

I put the vehicle back in park and the image turned off. Once again, I shifted into reverse. And again, I waited roughly one to two seconds for the image to turn on. Okay, I guess it just takes a while. I backed out of my driveway, eye on the display, and couldn’t help but notice the disorienting lag between motion and seeing it happen on the camera. The camera might have only been a little over half a second off, but it was noticeable and distracting.

I put the car into drive and headed down the road. As I accelerated, the mount for the display gave a brief second of warning, then fell to the floor. As with a dashcam falling, this can be dangerous, so I pulled over and mounted the display again. It fell off again a few minutes later. This was after letting it sit the entire time I’d been attaching the transmitter to the backup lights.

The display eventually stopped falling off once I jury-rigged it a bit, but for the rest of the afternoon, try as I might, I couldn’t get used to the lag. This is inherent in these systems, but I’ve never seen a backup camera with such a noticeable delay.

The lines for parking are handy, but I can’t find them very useful when I distrust the camera so much. It’s like driving with a tiny time machine, always backing into the past. I know AUTO-VOX can do better because I’ve seen the company do better with other products.

Should You Buy the AUTO-VOX W7 Backup Cam?

After all of the trouble I had using the AUTO-VOX W7, it’s not easy to recommend this camera. Some of my issues, namely the mount not sticking, could have possibly been remedied by mounting it on the windshield instead of the dashboard, but that would still leave the overall sluggish feeling of the camera.

Compared to the AUTO-VOX V5, which I reviewed at the same time as the W7, the backup camera felt buggy and unfinished. Part of this might have been resolved with the option to use the camera wired instead of wirelessly. While “wireless” makes a good marketing term, it didn’t seem to work especially well in this case.

If you’re looking for something that handles what the AUTO-VOX W7 is meant to, I’d recommend a dashcam with a rear camera, like AUTO-VOX’s own V1 or V5, for example. Considering those models aren’t much more expensive than what you’d pay for the W7, you’re getting much more functionality and an overall smoother experience.

Source: makeuseof.com