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2nd run of camera switch that show a front image on the touch screen

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As interest appears to be sufficient to justify another production run of the front/rear camera switch WhiteP85 and I developed a few years ago, I'm now getting estimates for another run of 100. Basically a second Tesla camera is mounted on the front of the car and the switch changes the image on the touchscreen from rear to front whenever the driver wants to see low obstacles like curbs that might damage the front bumper. Here's a pretty detailed description on Teslarati about the first version. In order to install the kit one needs a 2nd Tesla rear camera, 3 Tesla camera cables (the same ones that connect the rear camera), and a few miscellaneous parts.

I'm getting estimates now for production of the PCB that makes it all happen. Should have them in 30 days.
 
Count me in too.

As to people for looking for installation, there's probably a place like this in your area with good reviews. I've bought things off the internet and had them do the install. It's just not worth my time and effort, and sometimes frustration. I will also take this one and the instructions to this installer and I'm looking forward to that day.

Thanks for all of your innovations @artsci. If I may be so bold as to request another one: a recording device, with an accessible memory card slot, for the front and rear cameras -- if that's at all possible, and there's demand to make it worth your effort. I have a dual dashcam but it would sure be good to be able to add a recorder to the vehicle's rear camera and an added front camera.
 
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Artsci and his crew tried to decode the video signal, but it's not in any usable or standard format to allow recording or injection of some other standard video signal. Also, even if it was a standard signal, writing usable dashcam software would be a quite a large undertaking for this project, IMHO. Sure you could record the signal to memory card but that's still adding more hardware, more software and at a minimum you'd need to build in automatic file rotation, maybe motion detection (or parking mode), settings of some sort (date/time?), a user interface (even if it's just buttons), etc. I believe Artsci is simply taking the existing V1 PC board and getting it reproduced, so no chance of re-engineering it.

Also, both the front and rear cam are extreme fish-eye view lenses, which aren't great at capturing detail beyond a couple of feet. So in addition to writing dashcam software, the onboard code would need to optically correct that perspective into a usable image compared to a regular dashcam. Or people would have to convert the saved videos after-the-fact, reducing the utility of such a device.

And then someone has to support it and update it when people start requesting more features or there are bugs (note: add USB port or Bluetooth for firmware updates!). The front camera switch is just a dumb switch, that's set-it-and-forget-it.. and really isn't meant to be a dashcam, so trying to make it into one I think isn't a great idea. Nobody is making any money on these things and several people are putting in lots of personal time and R&D to get these products out to the community just because they are awesome products. It's easy to say "oh, just add recording" but in reality, that's a huge undertaking all by itself. Leave the dashcam software to the dashcam makers. ;)
 
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Artsci and his crew tried to decode the video signal, but it's not in any usable or standard format to allow recording or injection of some other standard video signal. Also, even if it was a standard signal, writing usable dashcam software would be a quite a large undertaking for this project, IMHO. Sure you could record the signal to memory card but that's still adding more hardware, more software and at a minimum you'd need to build in automatic file rotation, maybe motion detection (or parking mode), settings of some sort (date/time?), a user interface (even if it's just buttons), etc. I believe Artsci is simply taking the existing V1 PC board and getting it reproduced, so no chance of re-engineering it.

Also, both the front and rear cam are extreme fish-eye view lenses, which aren't great at capturing detail beyond a couple of feet. So in addition to writing dashcam software, the onboard code would need to optically correct that perspective into a usable image compared to a regular dashcam. Or people would have to convert the saved videos after-the-fact, reducing the utility of such a device.

And then someone has to support it and update it when people start requesting more features or there are bugs (note: add USB port or Bluetooth for firmware updates!). The front camera switch is just a dumb switch, that's set-it-and-forget-it.. and really isn't meant to be a dashcam, so trying to make it into one I think isn't a great idea. Nobody is making any money on these things and several people are putting in lots of personal time and R&D to get these products out to the community just because they are awesome products. It's easy to say "oh, just add recording" but in reality, that's a huge undertaking all by itself. Leave the dashcam software to the dashcam makers. ;)

You have it so right:)
 
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