I bit the bullet and recently purchased and installed a 9.66 inch reversing mirror mounted, duel camera, wireless Android Auto/Apple CarPlay display unit (what a mouthful) in my 2013 auto. There are many examples available online at reasonable prices on Temu. I chose this particular unit because it had the features I need and at 9.66 inches it fits (but read on) between the RCZ sunvisors. Anything bigger, and most of them are, would bark up against the sunvisors and impede their operation.
Before you ask, the unit, described on the manual as a Mirror Link Car DVR is unbranded and came in a plain white box. Inside that box was the mirror monitor with integrated forward facing camera, which clips to the oem rear view mirror, a rear camera and mount, rear camera wiring loom, a 3m aux cable to take audio from the unit to the car's infotainment system, cig lighter power plug and cable and a manual. The unit is also capable of transmitting its audio via FM radio. The monitor also has a slot to take a micro SD card (256GB max) for camera recording.
As with most everything from China, the manual is next to useless!
The unit appears to be a quality item and seems to work as advertised. In short it provides forward and rearward facing cameras and wireless Android Auto or Apple CarPlay connectivity and all of the benefits they bring.
A couple of shortcomings became evident during installation: both the rear camera wires; and the aux cable are a bit short. By the time I ran the camera wires under the roof lining across the top of the windshield, down the A pillar, under the door sill and thru the boot to the very rear of the vehicle I only just had enough. The aux cable and power cable made a similar route but from the A pillar I ran both behind and across the dash and along the centre console: the cigarette lighter power plug to a power splitter I've fixed to the side of the forward console; and the aux to the jack under the centre armrest but it was too short by around 20cm. (I picked up a 3.5mm female to female connector and a short 3.5mm male to male lead and problem solved!)
The dash panels just pull off! You only have to remove two: the one closest to the door with the little cubby; and the one which extends from the centre console under the steering wheel and up to the one with the cubby. They are held in place with those clever metal clip fasteners, the same ones used on the reversing light/rear fog light assembly. Some of those clips will need to be superglued back onto their panels before refitting! The bit with the cubby also has a screw. No idea why. No other panels have screws!
I followed a YouTube video to understand how to access the reversing light/rear fog light assembly which, once removed, makes tapping into the reverse wires required to power the backup camera a breeze. For whatever reason, confusingly, Peugeot chose to use different coloured wires for the positives for the left and right side reversing lights. Why? A black negative earth lead goes to both left and right reversing lights. So splicing into the reversing light positive (one of the coloured ones) to provide power for the backup camera is easy but I had to drill a hole in the inside rear of the boot to get the wires from the outside of the car to the inside. I mounted the camera off to the side of the rear number plate and ran the camera wires behind the number plate and thru a hole I drilled behind the number plate, then thru the hole into the boot where they connect to the camera wires from the mirror.
The reversing camera is excellent and reduces my anxiety levels considerably when reversing. (The RCZ replaces a convertible MX5 where, when top down, the rear view was totally unobstructed and tbh, I initially found the RCZ a tad cavelike and consequently a PITA to reverse. And while I'm at it, why do both side mirrors not dip when you shift into reverse? Why only one? Is there any way to change it so that both mirrors dip? But I digress!). In fact the unobstructed, wide angle rearward image provided by the external camera, gives you a much improved view to the rear of the vehicle. A significant improvement over the image in the oem interior rear view mirror.
My default setup on this unit is a split screen with the image from the rear facing camera on one side and Waze, my favourite navigation app, on the other. Both images are pretty small, less than 5cm in fact but the display is still visible and usable.
I found glare and reflection on the screen to be an issue, particularly when I had the display set to the rear facing camera, full screen. I had difficulty training my eyes to focus on the image on the screen rather than the reflection on the surface of the screen. I've found that using the split screen display with the map on one side seems to solve the focus issue for me. Dunno why!
The monitor can display either the front or rear camera displays full screen or be split to show both front and rear camera images side by side or either front or rear camera display with the Android auto/Apple CarPlay display on whichever side of the mirror that suits you. Very flexible!
Regardless of which display option you select, when you shift into reverse the rear camera image focuses in, parking gridlines are overlayed and this image is displayed full screen. Together with the RCZ's audio proximity warnings and associated display on the oem navigation screen, all very anxiety reducing!
The forward looking built-in dashcam works OK but unfortunately the bulbous oem mirror limits the camera's field of view to one side somewhat. I'm still fine tuning the angle of the mirror to reduce reflections, minimise the intrusion of the bulbous oem mirror in the forward facing camera display/recording and maximise the amount of sunvisor adjustment. There has to be a happy medium but I have yet to achieve it.
My phone, a Samsung S21 connects simultaneously to both the car and the mirror which means that I get visual notification of a call on both the RCZ navigation screen and the Android Auto mirror, as well as the audio ring tone of course. I can still use the button on the end of the media source stalk to answer a call or I can press the pickup icon on the mirror. I don't know how this is possible or which, the car or the mirror actually connects to the phone and I don't care. But I like it! The phone audio comes thru the car's audio system and mutes any other audio source that may have been in use.
The prime reason for purchasing and installing this unit is voice recognition. It is the best feature and the one I really missed from other cars I've previously owned. Hands free dialing and pressing on the (very) little mic icon on the mirror and telling Waze the address I want to go to. Game changer! No more pecking away at that clunky Pug navigation keyboard interface. So bloody slow, archaic and infuriating.
And after all that, I was trolling AliExpress last night and found several Android Auto/Apple CarPlay "plug and play" headunits for the RCZ, all with much larger displays and most at very reasonable prices too. Some of them had two camera inputs too! Oh well!
Before you ask, the unit, described on the manual as a Mirror Link Car DVR is unbranded and came in a plain white box. Inside that box was the mirror monitor with integrated forward facing camera, which clips to the oem rear view mirror, a rear camera and mount, rear camera wiring loom, a 3m aux cable to take audio from the unit to the car's infotainment system, cig lighter power plug and cable and a manual. The unit is also capable of transmitting its audio via FM radio. The monitor also has a slot to take a micro SD card (256GB max) for camera recording.
As with most everything from China, the manual is next to useless!
The unit appears to be a quality item and seems to work as advertised. In short it provides forward and rearward facing cameras and wireless Android Auto or Apple CarPlay connectivity and all of the benefits they bring.
A couple of shortcomings became evident during installation: both the rear camera wires; and the aux cable are a bit short. By the time I ran the camera wires under the roof lining across the top of the windshield, down the A pillar, under the door sill and thru the boot to the very rear of the vehicle I only just had enough. The aux cable and power cable made a similar route but from the A pillar I ran both behind and across the dash and along the centre console: the cigarette lighter power plug to a power splitter I've fixed to the side of the forward console; and the aux to the jack under the centre armrest but it was too short by around 20cm. (I picked up a 3.5mm female to female connector and a short 3.5mm male to male lead and problem solved!)
The dash panels just pull off! You only have to remove two: the one closest to the door with the little cubby; and the one which extends from the centre console under the steering wheel and up to the one with the cubby. They are held in place with those clever metal clip fasteners, the same ones used on the reversing light/rear fog light assembly. Some of those clips will need to be superglued back onto their panels before refitting! The bit with the cubby also has a screw. No idea why. No other panels have screws!
I followed a YouTube video to understand how to access the reversing light/rear fog light assembly which, once removed, makes tapping into the reverse wires required to power the backup camera a breeze. For whatever reason, confusingly, Peugeot chose to use different coloured wires for the positives for the left and right side reversing lights. Why? A black negative earth lead goes to both left and right reversing lights. So splicing into the reversing light positive (one of the coloured ones) to provide power for the backup camera is easy but I had to drill a hole in the inside rear of the boot to get the wires from the outside of the car to the inside. I mounted the camera off to the side of the rear number plate and ran the camera wires behind the number plate and thru a hole I drilled behind the number plate, then thru the hole into the boot where they connect to the camera wires from the mirror.
The reversing camera is excellent and reduces my anxiety levels considerably when reversing. (The RCZ replaces a convertible MX5 where, when top down, the rear view was totally unobstructed and tbh, I initially found the RCZ a tad cavelike and consequently a PITA to reverse. And while I'm at it, why do both side mirrors not dip when you shift into reverse? Why only one? Is there any way to change it so that both mirrors dip? But I digress!). In fact the unobstructed, wide angle rearward image provided by the external camera, gives you a much improved view to the rear of the vehicle. A significant improvement over the image in the oem interior rear view mirror.
My default setup on this unit is a split screen with the image from the rear facing camera on one side and Waze, my favourite navigation app, on the other. Both images are pretty small, less than 5cm in fact but the display is still visible and usable.
I found glare and reflection on the screen to be an issue, particularly when I had the display set to the rear facing camera, full screen. I had difficulty training my eyes to focus on the image on the screen rather than the reflection on the surface of the screen. I've found that using the split screen display with the map on one side seems to solve the focus issue for me. Dunno why!
The monitor can display either the front or rear camera displays full screen or be split to show both front and rear camera images side by side or either front or rear camera display with the Android auto/Apple CarPlay display on whichever side of the mirror that suits you. Very flexible!
Regardless of which display option you select, when you shift into reverse the rear camera image focuses in, parking gridlines are overlayed and this image is displayed full screen. Together with the RCZ's audio proximity warnings and associated display on the oem navigation screen, all very anxiety reducing!
The forward looking built-in dashcam works OK but unfortunately the bulbous oem mirror limits the camera's field of view to one side somewhat. I'm still fine tuning the angle of the mirror to reduce reflections, minimise the intrusion of the bulbous oem mirror in the forward facing camera display/recording and maximise the amount of sunvisor adjustment. There has to be a happy medium but I have yet to achieve it.
My phone, a Samsung S21 connects simultaneously to both the car and the mirror which means that I get visual notification of a call on both the RCZ navigation screen and the Android Auto mirror, as well as the audio ring tone of course. I can still use the button on the end of the media source stalk to answer a call or I can press the pickup icon on the mirror. I don't know how this is possible or which, the car or the mirror actually connects to the phone and I don't care. But I like it! The phone audio comes thru the car's audio system and mutes any other audio source that may have been in use.
The prime reason for purchasing and installing this unit is voice recognition. It is the best feature and the one I really missed from other cars I've previously owned. Hands free dialing and pressing on the (very) little mic icon on the mirror and telling Waze the address I want to go to. Game changer! No more pecking away at that clunky Pug navigation keyboard interface. So bloody slow, archaic and infuriating.
And after all that, I was trolling AliExpress last night and found several Android Auto/Apple CarPlay "plug and play" headunits for the RCZ, all with much larger displays and most at very reasonable prices too. Some of them had two camera inputs too! Oh well!
