Hi all,
I've just installed the Garmin Dash Cam Mini on my 2014 A7 and I'm very pleased with it.
I thought I could share some pictures on how I hardwired it, since I could only find bits of information here and there, and I hope someone else can benefit from this thread.
I've never hardwired anything on any of my cars before, but it was very easy, once I made sure where to tap in the fuse box.

I decided to go with the Garmin mini for a couple of reasons:
- It's very small
- I like Garmin products in general and I'm confident they will constantly update software and firmware
- The video quality is very good for the buck (it's 1080p)
- very easy to use, and the phone app is very well done.
- there's a shot button that will take a picture at the time it's pressed and also will record a video starting 30 seconds before to 30 seconds after.

few cons:
- no screen on the back (the unit uses the smartphone as screen and connects to it via wifi, but sometimes it takes couple of attempts to establish a connection - not an issue really, it is not immediate but connects all the times)
- the video quality is good (1080p), but not enough to clearly read license plates on cars around you, unless you stop at a light and the car you want to take the picture of is right in front of you.
- the transfer of longer videos to the phone is extremely slow. In that case it's better to take the sd card from the dash cam to your home computer and transfer the files manually. However for those 1 minute clips the wifi transfer works just fine.

These are two 1 minute clip I took from my car (the first video lacks sound because I deactivated it) - please note the upload to youtube degrades the quality of the videos... the original files look better.


There's some glare when the sun is low on the horizon. Garmin sells polarized lens, which I ordered it but I haven't installed it yet.

Now to the installation. I bought the garmin Parking Mode Cable to do the hardwiring, and tapped the fuse box on the driver's side.
I strongly suggest to watch this video on how to tap fuses, I followed it in order to do a clean job.







The camera is hidden behind the mirror, I don't see it while I'm driving






It was extremely easy to dress the cable. I didn't have to remove the pillar cover, since I just pried little on the seams to tuck the wire. Then I hid the wire in the door gasket.



I bought these fuse taps on Amazon
you just need 1 standard size tap one and 1 mini.
Also you need a 5amp mini fuse and a 7.5amp standard fuse

The parking mode cable has three wires - Ground - Battery - Accessory.
These are the fuses I tapped into.
The Homelink (#10) fuse from column A (mini fuse) for the ACC wire (the manual says it is a 5amp fuse but it is 7.5amp in my car... go figure)
The Horn (#7) Fuse in column C (Standard fuse) for the Battery wire
And the bolt for the ground wire.



Here some pictures when I finished:



Remember to use a lower amp fuse for the wire you are tapping (5 amp after the 7.5amp homelink fuse)

Here I used a 7.5amp after the 15amp Horn Fuse

 

This is extremely detailed, thanks for putting together! Def looking at dash cam options.

 

Very easy DIY.
Now I'm looking to install a Garmin dashcam in the rear liftgate. Dressing the cable inside one of the hinges looks to be quite a challenge.

 

I created an account to thank you for the detailed post. My audio SQ5 from 2019 now has the same dashcam, used two existing 5amp fuses, split those into two additional 5amp fuses for the dashcam.
All works perfect now!