4. Start Driving and Mapping
You're in the driver's seat. Now what?
We just recommend that you drive like you normally do, and simply keep the dashcam mounted properly. The dashcam will automatically stop mapping when it's no longer day time. If it's raining or snowing, focus on the road and the dashcam will take care of the rest.
The dashcam draws power from the car battery. Depending on your vehicle, it may start booting up when you open the door of the car, when you turn the key in the ignition or when you press the start button. It may take about 60 seconds for the lights on the dashcam to turn on.
There are three lights on the front of the Hivemapper Dashcam.
If you mounted the dashcam correctly, these lights are facing you on the left side of the dashcam. When the dashcam boots up, these lights illuminate. All three lights may be red at first. They turn green once the dashcam has connected to your phone, found a GPS lock, and is collecting images.
Some phones will automatically pair to your dashcam when you come into WiFi signal range. Other phones will require you to pair manually. You can pair manually by opening the Hivemapper App and selecting "Connect to dashcam" on the dashcam tab.
Even if you have a phone that automatically pairs to the dashcam, it still may not happen right away if you are connected to another WiFi hotspot such as your home router. In this case, the phone will pair to the dashcam once you start driving and lose connection to the other WiFi hotspot.
It may take a minute for the dashcam to get a GPS lock. This light may also turn red if your vehicle is in a location with poor signal. Tall buildings, overpasses and parking garages can all interfere with the GPS lock. If you are in a location with clear lines of sight to the sky and you still don't have a GPS lock, make sure the dashcam isn't next to anything that could interfere with the GPS signal.
No. Your dashcam collects imagery by default. It will automatically start mapping when you start driving and automatically stop mapping when you stop driving, unless you tap "pause" on the "Dashcam" tab of the Hivemapper app.
The reason that you might not want to collect imagery while driving is because you on private property or a sensitive location. These situations are why the "pause" button exists. If you tap "pause" on the Dashcam tab of the Hivemapper app, your dashcam will not send imagery to your phone until you tap "start" again.
When you're on the "Map" tab of the Hivemapper app, you may see the roads around you shaded in different colors, ranging from bright pink to pale pink to black. This indicates how recently the specific tiles of the map have been mapped.
- Bright pink: These tiles were recently mapped by a map contributor.
- Pale pink: These tiles were mapped by a contributor, but a while ago.
- No-pink: These tiles have never been mapped.
This information may be relevant to the rewards you will earn while mapping. Tiles refresh to a max earnings rate after a certain period of time, which is currently every seven days across all regions. If a tile is mapped again before seven days have passed, it will yield rewards at a lower rate. For this reason, when you are otherwise impartial between two routes that will take you to the same destination, you may wish to take the route that has been mapped less recently.
Note: Rewards are calculated separately for front-facing and side-facing dashcams, as well as for vehicles traveling in different directions.
Some users want to keep a copy of the imagery they generate for personal use. Currently, there are three requirements for recording footage onto a USB drive:
- 1.USB flash drive with USB-C adapter
- 2.Flash drive formatted to FAT32
- 3.Folder on flash drive called
recording(case sensitive)
This video shows how to format a flash drive to FAT32 on Mac.