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for $500, you're on your way to buying an OE type backup camera/navigation screen upgrade for your radio. i'd rather have that than a license plate camera.

i have a backup cam/navigation in my truck and use it all the time. i can't backup my wifes camry for the life of me. always looking at the dash for the camera.
You're about 1/3 of the way there. My wife has a 2004 Lexus RX-330. To do it right would run about $1,500. That includes all the dash kits, adapters, labor and a new head unit.
 
Overpriced.
You can get a wireless backup camera system with a dedicated view screen for under $100 on Amazon.

Yep, or eBay. Here's a typical example, with a mirror that has an internal hidden monitor that shows up when you go into reverse. No video wires necessary, since it uses wireless units. Just hook the mirror to accessory power and hide the receiver, and hook the backup camera/transmitter to the backup lights.

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As for the old farts here bragging about parallel parking, I'm one too... but I'll never buy another car without a backup camera.

Not only can you parallel park safely right up to the inch, but I can't count the number of times that I've been backing out of a dark parking spot at night, and was saved from running over an idiot walking behind me, because I could see them in the IR camera output in time.

Not to mention how handy they are backing up to a trailer hitch.

If nothing else, everyone should have one to prevent accidentally running over a child, which is why these things are going to be mandatory soon.
 
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Chances are if your car is old enough to need to ADD a backup camera to it the $500 price tag may be a bit out of ones league.
I know this is the case with me lol.
 
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It uses a proprietary screw. That deters opportunity thefts where a thief sees it and steals it. But like anything else on your car, if a thief is determined, they'll steal. I'd just put a drop of crazy glue on the screw, making it much harder to come off.
Thread locking goop would be better. It can still break free but makes it a lot harder. A little camouflage with a school or dealer logo over it might help as well.

My guess if a their really wanted to steal it they'd also break in and steal the OBDC dongle as well.
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Yep, or eBay. Here's a typical example, with a mirror that has an internal hidden monitor that shows up when you go into reverse. No video wires necessary, since it uses wireless units. Just hook the mirror to accessory power, and the backup camera/transmitter to the backup lights. Done.

Except for many cars the rear view mirror isn't replaceable easily. Not only does mine have a custom mount, but the garage door opener is built into it as well.
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Chances are if your car is old enough to need to ADD a backup camera to it the $500 price tag may be a bit out of ones league.
I know this is the case with me lol.
Depends. My car is 10 years old but am seriously considering adding this to mine. The ability to use my iPhone rather than add yet another device is a big selling point, as is bluetooth.
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You're about 1/3 of the way there. My wife has a 2004 Lexus RX-330. To do it right would run about $1,500. That includes all the dash kits, adapters, labor and a new head unit.

Exactly. Many cars have their own bus for the radio so it's not as simple as dropping in an aftermarket unit in a DIN opening.
 
According to NHTSA: "On average, there are 210 fatalities and 15,000 injuries per year caused by backover crashes. NHTSA has found that children under 5 years old account for 31 percent of backover fatalities each year, and adults 70 years of age and older account for 26 percent." Citing to http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811144.PDF So it's a pretty common accident that causes bodily injury or death, and disproportionately affects the young and elderly population.

To put it into perspective, 210 deaths is only 7.5 days worth of deaths due to alcohol impaired drivers, but hey it's illegal and people still do it. And if you're going to play the children card over 1k a year a killed due to alcohol impaired drivers. That's kids in the cars (~20%), kids walking or biking on the sidewalk, etc. So if you really want to do something about vehicle deaths, how about you support legislation that brings a harsher consequence for DUI,DWI, & repeat offenders.
 
Wow. OK. Who's this marketed to exactly? It's certainly not people that buy new cars. Even the cheapest of the cheap cars now have backup cameras and proximity sensors available, if not standard. In fact, a lot of packages that include such features even save you money on car insurance, so it makes sense for such devices to be built-in as opposed to aftermarket. If not standard, the package that adds such a feature would be around $500 anyway. So then, it must be for people with older cars. Are people with older cars a smart market to target with a $500 device? Also, speaking as a person who lives in San Francisco, people here steal things from and off of cars all the time. Once word gets out about what these things are and what they look like, what's going to keep people from getting them stolen? You can't babysit your car 24 hours a day. WTF?
 
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Neat.... but why is the dianostic port need if it communicates via Bluetooth ?

Can't bluetooth send images ? Plus GPS can determine the cars speed that way any car could use it... May not accurate, but just how accurate do u want to be ? If u'r moving slowly, you know how slow u'r moving.

The diagnostic port tells the camera when the car's gear is shifted in reverse.
 
Except for many cars the rear view mirror isn't replaceable easily. Not only does mine have a custom mount, but the garage door opener is built into it as well.

There are also clip-on mirrors that fit over the stock one. Or you can use a separate monitor. Or if you have a late model Garmin, there are wireless kits to display on those. Etc. There's always a way.

For example, I bought a used motorhome last summer. For about $60, I got a 5" clip on monitor and wireless camera setup from eBay. But it caused the stock window mirror to fall down. Hmm. Then I remembered my youth when mirrors were attached to the window frame instead, so I bought a $10 new old stock mirror for a Jeep, screwed it into the front of the headliner, and clipped on my digital mirror. Looks and works great.

Depends. My car is 10 years old but am seriously considering adding this to mine. The ability to use my iPhone rather than add yet another device is a big selling point, as is bluetooth.

I'm amazed at some of the replacement mirrors on eBay now. Some even have an Android homescreen, can do Airplay, have built-in GPS and Bluetooth, etc. They're like little smartphones put into mirror bodies... only much less expensive.

Camera can't be inside the car by the rear window?

Unless it's a vertical window at the very back, you would not be able to see things below the trunk line. Which is their whole point : to be able to see right at your rear bumper (and below in case a child is laying down).
 
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That's great, but won't car companies start building this in their cars eventually? Just like those Tom-Tom sat navs?
My 2008 already had it built-in and automatically switch the monitor when in reverse. But it doesn't work when in drive.
 
You all expect a high quality back up camera, 180-degree view, connects via Bluetooth that's not eBay quality and has collision avoidance for $65???? Smh
 
To put it into perspective, 210 deaths is only 7.5 days worth of deaths due to alcohol impaired drivers, but hey it's illegal and people still do it. And if you're going to play the children card over 1k a year a killed due to alcohol impaired drivers. That's kids in the cars (~20%), kids walking or biking on the sidewalk, etc. So if you really want to do something about vehicle deaths, how about you support legislation that brings a harsher consequence for DUI,DWI, & repeat offenders.

Why can't we do both? Why can't we take into account both the magnitude of a problem and the tools available to us to solve it when deciding on issues. Does the NHTSA rule say "we had $1,000,000 budget, and we chose to spend it on backup cameras instead of addressing DUIs, which we considered doing something about but decided not to at all"? No, it doesn't. One has nothing to do with the other, and they are not at all mutually exclusive. This is such a stupid argument and a false equivalency.

Sure, the DUI problem is a lot greater. It's also a lot more complicated and difficult to address. We can have a whole debate about the many experiments and trials being done all over to address it - there is no shortage of emphasis on it.

The law doesn't say consumers have to use the rear backup camera, but that's not really quite the point. Whether or not users want to use it, the alarm will sound and the beeping will warn drivers when they are about to hit a kid on a bike. Whether drives want it or not, the system will be working. They would have to deliberately try to break the sensors and cameras if they want it to not work - that's not at all the same as ignoring a BAC law.

These things have to be looked at economically. For something that costs an additional $100 or so per car (much less over time), we can save 210 lives. That means every new car buyer spends less than $0.50 per life saved. That is really really cheap. In terms of doing something that will have an immediate impact at an insanely low cost, it doesn't get much better.
 
Chances are if your car is old enough to need to ADD a backup camera to it the $500 price tag may be a bit out of ones league.
I know this is the case with me lol.
I know you're talking about yourself, but this mindset seems pretty prevalent through the comments and it smacks of a society that it driven by superficial, material wealth and an attitude of 'disposability'!

I imagine there are millions of people driving around in cars that don't have backup cameras who could easily afford a one time $500, because they're not spunking $400+ per month (average new car payment in the US) on a new car!!!

Our 2011 and 2012 Subarus will run for years to come and I have no need to replace them, but neither have backup cameras. Admittedly I probably wouldn't go for this option, but I am thinking about an after market CarPlay head unit with camera to give me all the toys I need without dropping $35K on a new car.
 
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Besides, I learned to drive--and parallel park--without a rear view camera and have done just fine for 20 years.
Me too but the point is something might enter the dead zone (ie, what you cannot see through the back window and review mirrors) while you are reversing. In principle your are supposed to scan your perimeter 360º constantly while reversing to detect such things but in reality that isn't really possible.

They talk about distracted drivers these days- every time I drive by a brand new car going down the highway at night with a giant fully illuminated touch screen shining bright in the car cabin I can't help but think we've missed the point.
As long as you are not driving down the highway backwards, you can switch this screen off.
 
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If the guy in this video driving that 328i in that custom blue color does not have a reverse camera and then buys an aftermarket part costing more than the reverse camera, I would think he would qualify as a genius.
 
Then why would Honda make a back up camera standard on almost all their cars now, instead of waiting till 2018. I don't think it is a race to the bottom. Its a race to see how many tech features they can shove into a cheap car. Bluetooth is standard on all Kias now, I believe. I was also stating that even if they don't legislate the cameras, it will happen anyway from competition. I'm all for it.

Because the rule has a phase-in schedule:
10% of the vehicles manufactured on or after May 1, 2016
40% of the vehicles manufactured on or after May 1, 2017
100% of the vehicles manufactured on or after May 1, 2018​

Consider the supply-chain and manufacturing timeline of an average vehicle. Most models are replaced with a new version every 6 years or so, with a mid-cycle refresh every 3 years or so, give or take. Take the Honda Accord for example, which was last updated in 2013 but is still being manufactured and sold in great numbers today. Honda obviously had notice this rule was coming. This means for the Accord they released in 2013 and would likely still be manufacturing into 2019, they needed to already have the designs and everything ready to go for full compliance back in 2012 probably. This is why it is prevalent today, even if not yet strictly required.

As for the race to the bottom argument, check out goodcarbadcar.com. It has some good stats. Pretty consistently, the cheapest most basic models are the ones that sell the highest. The margins are better on cars that are better equipped, but the sales are lower. There is money to be made on both sides of the market; I do not debate that at all that there is also competition with the higher-end features. However, the sales data shows that a large percent of buyers are simply choosing whatever is most affordable, which suggests they would go lower if they could. For this market, it is a race to the bottom and its the governments job to ensure that bottom isn't so low that its harmful to the general public.
 
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According to NHTSA: "On average, there are 210 fatalities and 15,000 injuries per year caused by backover crashes. NHTSA has found that children under 5 years old account for 31 percent of backover fatalities each year, and adults 70 years of age and older account for 26 percent." Citing to http://www-nrd.nhtsa.dot.gov/Pubs/811144.PDF So it's a pretty common accident that causes bodily injury or death, and disproportionately affects the young and elderly population.

I'm well aware these accidents happen. The question was where is the evidence that people will use backup cameras if provided. From what I've seen people quickly ignore them thus making the addition of a backup camera have no impact on the safety of others around vehicles backing up.
 
Their market is aftermarket luxury cars. A lot of them don't have a backup camera, and really, once you have one it's hard to go back. My 2012 E93 didn't have one, so I had it installed. Like everyone else on this forum I don't need it and learned to parallel park by braille, but I also don't need leather heated seats, a convertible, a really loud stereo, and iPhone 6, and an in-car iPhone 4s.
 
I see they took the Apple pricing philosophy with them when they left...

Streaming video negotiated with bluetooth...very small cameras...very tight design to fit parts...probably many custom built parts...they took a lot more from Apple and the price is equally appropriate.
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Doesn't Bluetooth have a slight delay? That's not good for this.

Bluetooth is near instantaneous...it just has crappy bandwidth. I seriously doubt the video is streaming over Bluetooth, it's likely wi-fi after Bluetooth negotiation.
 
Ok, two things are lost on me:

1. How is a backup camera going to warn you about an imminent collision in front of you? ("the driver should stop the car completely" means the impending crash isn't coming from behind") And if you're supposed to mount it in front, why call it RearVision? Are you supposed to buy two (see below)?

2. $500 for a backup camera with a wide field view and a logic circuit?

This will fail.
 
That's great, but won't car companies start building this in their cars eventually? Just like those Tom-Tom sat navs?

AFAIK it's required by law in the US on May 1, 2018. It's already required in a lot of other markets. The market for this product is not great. Yes people have used cars and whatnot, but only so many people with used cars want to plunk down $500 for a bluetooth backup camera.

I see this not going far.
 
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  1. Expensive
  2. Can be easily stolen
  3. Not very useful
  4. Most new cars already have it
  5. Potential customers already backup without a camera, so why spend $500 in one?
 
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