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Dash USB Wiki

Turn a Raspberry Pi into a smart USB drive for your GM vehicle's built-in dashcam (Surround Vision Recorder). The car limits footage to a rolling 2 hours no matter how big the drive is — Dash USB snapshots the recordings before the car deletes them and archives everything to your own server. A web UI lets you review and back up footage — no SSH, no config files.

Install in one line

No prebuilt SD card image yet. The install path is: flash stock Raspberry Pi OS Lite (64-bit), SSH in, and run the one-liner below. A prebuilt image will come later — for now this is the only supported install route. Full step-by-step in Getting Started.

On a Pi already running Pi OS:

sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -y
sudo -i
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Sentry-Six/Dash-USB/main/install-pi.sh | bash

Refresh the apt cache first — Pi OS images bake in package lists that go stale as Debian publishes point releases, and a stale cache makes the install hit 404 errors.

Then open http://dashusb.local and the Setup Wizard takes you the rest of the way.

What you need

Tier	Boards	Notes
Recommended	Raspberry Pi 4B, Raspberry Pi 5	USB 2.0 OTG — fastest archiving, best web UI responsiveness
Should work	Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W, Raspberry Pi 3 Model A+	USB 2.0 OTG, slower archive speeds

The Pi 3 Model B and B+ will not work. Their single USB channel runs through an onboard hub chip that provides Ethernet and the four USB-A ports, which leaves the micro-USB port power-only with no OTG support. The 3A+ omits that chip, so its micro-USB port is wired straight to the SoC and can act as a USB gadget.

Plus:

• A high-endurance MicroSD card, 256 GB or larger (512 GB recommended — GM records roughly 5 GB per hour of driving, all of which Dash USB keeps until space runs out)
• A USB-C data cable (not charge-only) — Pi to any of the car's USB-C ports
• WiFi network with internet (for first-time setup, updates, and archiving)

Your vehicle needs GM's Surround Vision Recorder feature (the built-in rolling dashcam on newer GM EVs and ICE vehicles). Confirmed working on a 2026 model — the car accepts the Pi's USB 2.0 gadget even though GM's spec sheet says USB 3.0.

Quick Links

Page	What's on it
Getting Started	Install in 10 minutes
Setup Wizard Guide	Every wizard step explained
Archive Methods	CIFS, rsync, rclone, NFS
Notifications	Push notifications to your phone
Privacy	What we send, when, and why — and how to opt out
Troubleshooting	Things that go wrong
FAQ	Common questions

Links

• Site: sentry-six.com
• GitHub: Sentry-Six/Dash-USB
• Releases: Latest
• Discord: Community chat
• License: PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 (source-available; free for noncommercial use)

Dash USB is the GM sibling of the Tesla project Sentry USB, from the Sentry Six project. Not affiliated with General Motors.