E70 MY2012 camera in mirror???
 

Dear all,

I have searched the forum but come up empty. I have a pretty big (factory installed) front facing camera installed in the housing of the internal rearview mirror. It sits just below the rain sensor. The lowest part of the housing seems to have two "vents" pointing downwards.

What is this camera? How can I activate it? I do not have the option of Lane Change warning so why is the camera installed?

Please advise.
Kind regards
Knubblo

Look at the buttons around the headlight/foglight switch,there must be a strange button present.I believe that is for recognition of the speed limit signs and comes only with a HUD.I could be mistaken of course.

That is the light sensor for automatic highbeams. Turn the feature on in your CIC.

Picture of camera AND sensor
 

Attached is a picture which shows both a camera AND a sensor. The sensor on the side of the mirror and the camera below the mirror. What are these features? I have enabled high beam assist and I believe the sensor takes care of that, very much like the internal sensor in the mirror taking care of cars lights coming up behind me. But what is the camera for?

I already answered it, its for high beam assist, so it dims the highbeams when there is on coming traffic. The button by the fogs is to turn the hud off.

I do not have a HUD. If the camera is the High Beam assist, what the is the sensor next to it (left side on the picture)?

I have read the manual carefully and there is nothing in it stating the function, The only thing I can find is that the camera i supposed to be "lane Change Warning" but I do not have that option. I doubt that they put the camera in the mirror despite that.

Kind regards
Knubblo

Sensor for dimming of rear view mirror and side mirrors, based on ambient light, and light hitting the rear view mirror from behind. Sensor on the top is the rain sensor for the wipers

Ok. I am just trying to sort this out. The Drivers Manual is taking care of 33% of the problem

1) The automatic dimming of side mirrors and internal mirror is managed by a sensor in the mirror facing the driver, i.e. in the reflecting glass, centre placed there is a dot catching rear view light coming up from behind you and then dims the mirrors. Clearly stated in the manual.

2) My picture shows camera and a sensor facing forward from the driver, i.e. behind the rear view mirror. My guess is that (read the manual) the camera is for lane change warning and/or reading speed signs whereas the sensor is for managing the high beam assist.

I do not have a HUD, I do not have lane change warning and I have not found any setting in iDrive where I can turn on Speed Sign Reading´and/or lane change warning.

There is absolutely no reference to this camera and sensor in the manual other than than a short paragraph states that "a camera reads the road lanes" for lane change warning. If outside a lane, the wheel will rattle a bit.

Questions, if the camera is for speed sign readings, how do I enable it. If it is not, why is it placed there and what for.

Sorry for repeating my question, but I am serious. I am not trying to create unnessecary posts.

Kind regards
Knubblo

That is the correct location for the Lane Departure camera, but it doesn't look like the OEM part. Check out the diagram of the KaFAS camera here:
RealOEM.com * BMW E70N X5 40dX KaFAS camera
If you google the part number you can find pictires of the actual part and it looks different from what you have installed.

Is there any chance it's aftermarket?

Or perhaps part of this retrofit?
RealOEM.com * BMW E70N X5 40dX BMW Advanced Car Eye

Its a combination of the center dot, and the sensor on the back of the mirror.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D0bJSAcF8xk

That is the mirror with the camera you have no?

High Beam Assist Retrofit (FLA) - Bimmerfest - BMW Forums

the camera is for the highbeam assist, not for the line departure - there is brain module that analyzes the image coming from the camera, and if the brain is programmed to do line departure, it will, but in your case, it is only programmed to do the high beam - it looks for car lights, that are at a prescribed height from the ground, and prescribed distance from each other. the algorithm deciphers that the two lights are indeed headlights of the other car, and not just street lights (even though, it gets confused a lot of times) and shuts off the high beam... it also applies to motorcycle lights and cars with one light burned - i am not a programmer, i do not know the exact algorithm...

there are sensors that are just plain light/intensity sensors, that do not require identifying an object, just need to know if there is light, and how intensive it is... those are the dimming sensor, the light sensor, the rain sensor...

so, you got the highbeam assist...

yes I believe so. Ok. The camera is obviously for high beam assist but what about the sensor on the left hand side of the mirror in my picture?

Reread my previous post, I explained it to you already.

Red: Dimms mirror & light of dashboard
Blue: Rain Sensor
Yellow: High Beam Assist


What is lane departure warning, and how does it work? | ExtremeTech

Dimming is at the front of mirror...black point! Red one is highbeam assist! That 'camera' I have on my 2008 one forum says it is ultrasonic parking sensor... I think it is acc distance sensor for automatic braking! On e53 there is no that white eye but nirrors are dimming from that black point on mirror!

Sure it is. You have ACC on you 2008 :rofl:
I have done the HBA retrofit, the red is NOT the camera for HBA

I need to do retrofit for my mirror, because I need homelink! All mirrors on ebay has no acc sensor and plastics are ordinary there not as mine... may be that is ok...may be acc sensor has separate wiring and I can get one of the home link mirror and just plug..if not, will be wasting of money!
So...what is red circle there? I have HBA as well in my car!

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LOL...why is the sensor circled in red confusing so many forum members? It is as been stated repeatedly when asked...it is one of the two EC (electro-chromatic) auto dimming sensors.

The original poster correctly identified the "black dot" on the face or the interior rear view mirror...but kept rejecting/ignoring the explanation of the EC's ambient light sensor on the back side of the mirror (faces the windshield and is the one circled in red).

The auto dimming of the interior rear view mirror (and the side mirrors if optioned) uses both the front and rear facing sensors to operate with in its prescribed parameters. The sensor (circled in red) which faces the windshield is an ambient light sensor...it regulates the intensity at which the auto-dimming will occur. The ambient light sensor will adjust the dimming parameters lighter or darker when headlights from a vehicle behind the car shine on the sensor embedded on the face of the mirror. The dimming affect is not as dark when in an urban/city environment with well lit streets versus a dark unlit road/highway.

You can see the ambient light sensor in the same location of an interior EC mirror used PRIOR to the additional technology of high beam assist and rain sensors, etc:

Sorry my fault...did not read all explanations :)
But my question still remains! I am not at home right now for one month...and I am thonking to purchase home link mirror with compass! But I am not sure about wiring now! That sensor in plastic mirror holder...can I get home link mirror and I shall plug in sensor as well? I have not seen in my life those connections!

I have this mirror:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...f228bcbb5c.jpg
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...831623c30a.jpg

But on ebay all of them like this:
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...dd4e2c7d45.jpg

Can I retrofit sensor system on homelink mirror...

Is this for an e53 or e70 X5? If e53...some of the features like highbeam and lane departure probably won't work since the e70 uses a totally different communication bus.

But for an e53...you can add mirror with HOMELINK buttons or auto dimming because they only require 12volt power and are independently contained in the mirror. Those features don't communicate with a control module somewhere else in the com-bus.

If you have an e70...again the HOMELINK and auto dim is located in the mirror, so only 12 volts needed to operate...which should be already in wiring harness. The side mirrors though...will not dim if they aren't EC and connected to the interior mirror through the wiring harness running to the door (or however the e70 sends data over its com-bus).

If you have an e70...then some of the options mentioned in this thread like lane departure and highbeam assist may require more since it involves communication with other components outside the mirror or components located on the windshield (rain & light sensors).

Thank you! I have E70 2008 with out lane reader!

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There is no adaptive cruise control or lane assist or speed limit info in an E70 2008. The driver assistance package came much later.

Lane assist came later...but active cruise control was already before 2008! You can see on older dashboards in the middle two cars blinking for acc! You can watch on youtube how works 1st generation acc on 7er series! One video is from NL and Russia if I remember correctly!

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cruise control $544 option nice work on the e70,e71.
I can remotely activate the function cruise control.

http://s018.radikal.ru/i520/1708/98/802bfbc468e5.jpg
http://s018.radikal.ru/i507/1708/fe/76017c3edc56.jpg

I think a checksum for the dashboard in Tool32, then write in the dashboard.

E70 MY2012 camera in mirror???
 

Lane assist came later...but active cruise control was already before 2008! You can see on older dashboards in the middle two cars blinking for acc! You can watch on youtube how works 1st generation acc on 7er series! One video is from NL and Russia if I remember correctly!
What about automatic braking?

.https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...4cd215f03d.jpg
This is very nice vin decode site you can see even your car interior 360'
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1e440307cb.jpg
Here is cruise control braking option in my 2008.
https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...1cc7eeda2d.jpg
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Just because some of the preperation was there, doesn't mean the feature ever functioned. Show me the radar sensor on any pre-lci E70....

Remember...some options where not available/offered in the USA market whereas they were available in Europe and other markets. ACC is one of them...it was offered in Europe long before here in the states...which is what Gatojurko is probably referring to (plus he's in Latvia). :)

Here's a video of Edwin (from the Netherlands) showing an e38 7 series how ACC worked in that model. Again, the US market didn't have this option...but even back during the days of the e38 7 series...Europe did have active cruise control (click link to watch short 3 min video): https://youtu.be/vO5AdLOXeWs

I fully understand that, but thats the 7 series, show me the same for the E70

Dynamic cruise control on 2007 E70:

https://youtu.be/EfcYgmk9LiA

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Thats a retrofit, it didn't come that way. Only the LCI E70 with the 8 speed transmission got ACC as an option.

This appears to be correct. Based on the part database...it does appear that ACC (adaptive cruise control) only appears for the e70 facelift models (6 & 8 speed trannys):

Is this also true of the compass? I want to upgrade to a mirror with Homelink but I haven't seen one w/o the compass and was worried that it would require the car was prewired for it. If power is in the mirror and none of these items needs to talk to anything outside the mirror I should be good to go right?

If past design elements carry over...then yes...the compass feature is also contained within the functions of the rearview mirror and doesn't require communication with modules outside the mirror and should only require power through the existing harness.

I've seen e38/e39/e46 owners install the e53 compass mirror with no problem and no additional wiring as well as the rearview mirror from an e46 convertible which has the homelink buttons built into it...and no additional wiring was needed for either of those features to function.

https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/obj/NAjVk9u
Setting magnetic deflection zone:

• Switch on ignition.
• Using a suitable tool (1), press push-button in area (A) of mirror (2) until a number appears in compass display (B)
• Press push-button repeatedly until number of desired zone appears
• Wait until direction display appears
• Magnetic deflection zone is now set

https://www.newtis.info/tisv2/obj/NAjVk9u

Calibrating compass:

• Switch on ignition.
• Using a suitable tool (1), press push-button in area (A) of mirror (2) until ”C” appears in compass display (B)
• Drive vehicle 2 to 3 times in a circle at approx. 10 mph
• Calibration process is completed when direction display appears

But since there's no vehicle info about your e70...I would also refer you to the part database so that you could also check the 11 digit BMW part nbr because there are some mirrors that have a date range in regards to compatiblity with an unknown model year/build date:

Here's some info from the BMW TIS that can be used if help is needed with the wiring harness for things associated with the interior rearview mirror and other powered items from above the headliner. For more detail about any connection, just copy & paste the nbr into the site's search box:

There are mirrors with homelink and compass! That is not for E70..but fact is!
I need mirror number 9 something like that I think...because of that sensor!!! But there is written those mirrors came started 2010 march! I am confused now!https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...a027b81a27.jpg

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E70 for Griff :)

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https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...bd9c97be23.jpg

Thanks to my wife who just made a picture! This is my car's mirror 2008 with that expensive sensor! I am thinking may be it is possible to pull out that mirror leg and push it to the new one mirror! Of course do not forget about wires!

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https://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/201...959d54a268.jpg

It is extremely difficult to do this. Initially I purchased a mirror with just the FLA camera thinking to add it to my exisiting mirror which already had EC/DWA/GTO/Compass but after opening up the mirror, the entire circuit board is different. I ended up selling and purchasing a mirror which had the following options

EC - Electrochromatic (dimming
DWA - clown nose for alarm
GTO - Grarage door opener (home link)
Compass - self explanatory
FLA - Fernlicht assist (auto high beam)


https://xoutpost.com/bmw-sav-forums/...-retrofit.html

If you are going to do it, make sure you get a mirror from an E70, not an E65 which has different options within the FLA and doesn't work properly with the E70