Is there such thing as a side view dashcam? (For your car doors)

[SawMaster]

Car polish does seem to work the same as Rain-X, and a lot of storm chasers do either way. I too have found the aerodynamics play a big part of how droplets form and dissipate, and places where droplets seem to 'adhere' while moving tend to collect droplets in the same place when parked with car polish/Rain-X. They're more random when parked without any treatment on the glass.

The back of my van collects crap like a magnet, and either way my rear cams suffer from the entire view being somewhat 'smeared' or droplets staying in place and jiggling as I drive creating spots where you can't see surrounded by clear areas. The side windows where my cams are suffer the same but to a lesser degree; those do benefit from car polish/Rain-X which helps the droplets slide off. The issue there is that as soon as one droplet clears, another forms in it's original place creeping along exactly like the last one did.

Lacking a wiper, it's all a matter of watching what happens with your car and hopefully finding a good place for both cam mounting and window clarity in the rain. If you're going to do a permanent cam mount it might be smart to first observe how your desired mounting location does in the rain. Regardless of that side cams are still going to be beneficial

Phil

 

[joe384]

Others can go ahead and try rain a repellent on the side glass and see what happens. Perhaps the aerodynamics of your car may be different than my pick-up truck and you'll end up with different results. Then again, maybe you'll eventually abandon the idea like I did and go back to just keeping the untreated side windows clean which I'm now convinced is the best approach.

I had already bought the rain repellent before you posted, so I thought I would start testing it anyway. Until my side cameras arrive I can't really give it a good test though.
I did take a picture of my side rear window done half and half. This was in the afternoon/evening after it had been raining and then stopped, I applied the rain repellent the previous day:



The real test will be video footage during and after the rain though. I'll post the results in another thread as this is a bit off topic.

 

[Dashmellow]

Maybe you'll have good luck with it in your vehicle. It's certainly worth a try. Can't hurt anything either.

 

[joe384]

I fitted my two b1w. I opted to put them in the top middle of the rear quarter window.
I tried to get them both on the same position each side but the windows were fogging up quite a bit so it made it tricky.
I need to find a level carpark with lots of features so I can check they are level and good position

I also realised I am missing a bit of coverage (10%) front drivers side because my front a129 is too far to the left (I've got a massive rain sensor)
I am also unsure how I should aim them vertically, I want to capture someone's face if they key my car so a little experimentation is needed

 

[TonyM]

I am also unsure how I should aim them vertically, I want to capture someone's face if they key my car so a little experimentation is needed

Use the B1W wifi app. Stand outside the car as if you were keying it, and watch the screen preview on your phone.

 

[joe384]

Just a small update on my side camera installation... My A129 + side view B1Ws doesn't give me full 360.
This is because I've got a massive rain sensor and the A129 is too the left of it rather than the centre of the windscreen.

I noticed my 0906 has got a slightly wider FOV, enough to get the missing sections, so I have mounted that and will test it for a few weeks.
I still need to get the side cameras perfectly aligned (they have really good coverage anyway, I am just a perfectionist)
I power the side b1w's from a pair of power banks. Running 2 b1ws I get about 18-20 hours which is enough for 2 days driving and parking (I dont run them overnight)
I just swap over the power banks every 2 days so always have one on charge.

 

[joe384]

Just an update, I have been experimenting with the positioning of side cameras.

This is the view of a car parked in the space to my left. It is the same model (so same size) and I have the camera in the middle of the rear window at the top.



If move the camera towards the pillar near the door, you get a bit more coverage of the front of the car, but not much.

I also moved the camera to the back of the window and then started tilting it so it would get more of the front. At quite an extreme angle I was able to get my wing mirror in the shot.
I need to consider as well if a car parks the other way around or if longer cars park next to me. I think it's going to take a lot of testing.
If I want to start tilting I may be able to get some 3d printed wedges but obviously I need to make sure I don't loose too much at the rear side.

 

[joe384]

This guy here has put the side view cameras right at the back of the rear window

However there is a fair bit overlapping at the back and I suspect there is more of a blind spot close to the car at the front wings.
This is why I am thinking tilting the cameras might work out better in terms of coverage.

 

[Kicker0927]

Give it another 3-6 months and you’ll see a 360 cam setup released. ThinkWare is working on one now. I’m all in for an all around system too, but I’m waiting it out rather than piecing something together.

 

[TonyM]

This guy here has put the side view cameras right at the back of the rear window

However there is a fair bit overlapping at the back and I suspect there is more of a blind spot close to the car at the front wings.
This is why I am thinking tilting the cameras might work out better in terms of coverage.

Those positions make sense since his rear side windows are fixed, similar to the setup in my car. The sides of the car taper in towards the rear, which affects the angle of the cameras, hence the greater overlap at the back than the front.

Also bear in mind that the DR900S has a wider field of view than some other dashcams.

 

[Butterfly]

I had to tilt mine so it covers almost all the vehicle, I just loose a bit of the back of my vehicle. But when it came down to night time people walking around your vehicle, I can see the whole person walking from front to back or back to front. Most of the time, people would look at your front and rear seats windows. So I set it up to prefer this position. I could just set it like the guy with the Tesla, but because my vehicle is larger, I loose a lot of my front portion of the vehicle, and a person's complete figure cuts off at a certain near distance from the vehicle.

 

[SawMaster]

There are a few 360 degree dashcams on the market now- it's nothing new- but they all inherently and unavoidably suffer from roof pillar and headrest view blockage. The only good solution requires multiple cams and these are usually best mounted high to the car's glass and pointed somewhat downward. The actual usable horizontal FOV of most dashcams maxxes out at about 120-130 degrees with most being narrower, which means placement can become dictated due to a need for overlapping coverage. The overlapping is also going to begin some distance away from your car so even 4 cams can't get everything. There's no perfect solution short of having more cams than is practical to keep up with, and even then they cannot prevent damage- they can only record the event to assist police and insurers in finding and holding the culprit accountable. In the end my workvan will have 6 primary cams with another pair as 'backup' for front and rear, and according to my calcualtions even that will leave some holes in close-up coverage. That means at best having 4 cards to deal with and with my specific plan there will be 5 or 6 of them because of my cam choices. Is it going to be worth it? Is it going to become too much of a chore to maintain? I dunno, but I do want better than I have now so...

Phil

 

[kamkar]

A true side camera system, should have wider than normal FOV.
In my experiments with the K2S as side system i have found the lenses are a tad narrow for this kind of use, so up close to the car you don't have coverage, that only happen when you stay 7 - 8 feet from the car.

I am not saying 180 degree fish eye lenses, but a bit more than the 130 / 140 degree would be nice.

 

[SawMaster]

There was an older dashcam which had two lenses angled away from each other. Something like that centrally mounted on the side would probably do good coverage if it were done with modern hardware.

This Spring I'll be moving my K2S to the rear sides as only remote cams can work well for me there with my vehicle and it's layout. It's going to require some disassembly of my shelving so probably an all-day job with all the gear that is stored there. I will probably also do a powering revision then too so I can use my jump-pack/inverter to power my parking cams, or I may just get another AGM battery and dedicate it to that purpose.

IMHO powering so many cams for parking is the larger problem compared to FOV coverage. The average car battery would see even a low cut-off voltage in an hour or two of parking, and Cellink-type devices would struggle to stay charged with many people's shorter driving time habits, making them less than ideal. I don't think most folks would be happy always swapping powerbanks around either as one time of forgetting will probably be the day you need your footage. But for driving protection side cams that's not a problem, and this is really what dashcams are meant to be doing.

Phil

 

[joe384]

Those positions make sense since his rear side windows are fixed, similar to the setup in my car. The sides of the car taper in towards the rear, which affects the angle of the cameras, hence the greater overlap at the back than the front.

Also bear in mind that the DR900S has a wider field of view than some other dashcams.

Yeah, I just re-installed a rear camera so I will take a look at the footage and see how much overlap there is with the side cameras.

 

[egonvdv]

This guy here has put the side view cameras right at the back of the rear window

However there is a fair bit overlapping at the back and I suspect there is more of a blind spot close to the car at the front wings.
This is why I am thinking tilting the cameras might work out better in terms of coverage.

 

[ranova]

I have 2x DR750S-2ch in my Model 3. I mounted the sides at the rear passenger window frame at the top right when you are looking at it from the outside. While its not the most aesthetically pleasing, it allows me to rotate one or both of the cams inward so I can live view my dogs in the car when I leave them in the car with Dog Mode enabled. I will rethink the sides (due to curtain airbags that I forgot about) and try the way they have it mounted in the blackboxmycar video depending if I can also see my dogs when its rotated. However, Im worried about thieves breaking that window (which may damage the camera) since its car break ins are pretty widespread here in California

quality of the side cameras turn out pretty good (videos are not perfectly synced):

picture of the setup and one of it rotated inwards (yes its upside down but thats not an issue since I can just turn my phone upside down)

 

[joe384]

Loving dog mode

I have fixed rear passenger windows since my car is a 3 door.
The frames are recessed slightly so if I put the dashcam on the window it shouldn't give issues with the curtain airbags.

I did some experimenting over the weekend. Having the camera in the blue spot (basically similar to what you have now) has pretty good side coverage.
I also tried the green spot and started to tilt it so to compensate for the missing visibility to the front sides.



Blue Spot:



Green Spot (Tilted towards front slightly)



I am thinking of getting some angled wedges to experiment a bit more

 

[joe384]

I was bored at lunch time so I found a 3d model of my car and overlaid some 116 degree cylinders (my cameras have about a 116 Horizontal FOV, 140 diagonal)
I am not sure if the model size is accurate, but even so it allows you to see the effect of changing the position and angle.

First is as far forward on the rear side as possible. Not too bad coverage.

Towards the rear of the window you get overlap at the back:

Angled at 15 degrees, you can compensate for some of the bad coverage. This makes the wiring simpler (for me at least) and is probably a good choice if you don't have fixed rear side windows. I'm not sure if a plastic wedge sandwiched between two 3m pads will make it less stable though. The blind spot at the rear starts to increase.

Angled at 30 degrees, this is too much and I suspect quite a lot of the inside window will appear in the frame. Also > 32 degrees the rear FOVs will diverge, and you lose complete 360

 

[Dashmellow]

I was bored at lunch time so I found a 3d model of my car and overlaid some 116 degree cylinders (my cameras have about a 116 Horizontal FOV, 140 diagonal)
I am not sure if the model size is accurate, but even so it allows you to see the effect of changing the position and angle.

First is as far forward on the rear side as possible. Not too bad coverage.
View attachment 50366
Towards the rear of the window you get overlap at the back:
View attachment 50368
Angled at 15 degrees, you can compensate for some of the bad coverage. This makes the wiring simpler (for me at least) and is probably a good choice if you don't have fixed rear side windows. I'm not sure if a plastic wedge sandwiched between two 3m pads will make it less stable though. The blind spot at the rear starts to increase.
View attachment 50369
Angled at 30 degrees, this is too much and I suspect quite a lot of the inside window will appear in the frame. Also > 32 degrees the rear FOVs will diverge, and you lose complete 360
View attachment 50370

Quite some time ago, another member created some very similar graphics which led to a debate about what is and what is not possible regarding 360º four camera dash cam coverage. I've learned from my personal experience that the FOV coverage one can actually achieve will in all likelihood be different than hypothetical graphics like this may suggest. There are many optical variables involved that really can't be verified with an on screen hypothetical graphic. For example, one thing I learned is that tilting a wide angle camera lens downwards, which will always be required with dash cams, will provide a view that will be rather different from the perfectly horizontal orientation implied by the graphics. The wider the lens, the more this is so. Of course, there is the size and height of your vehicle, the available options for placement, window frame design and the fact that FOV specs reported by manufacturers may in fact be inaccurate or estimated (often).

The best thing is to actually try the set-up in real world conditions to know what you'll be able to achieve.