Bluetooth SD card or Reader

Answer

New Member
Joined
Jan 22, 2013
Messages
22
Reaction score
0
Country
Canada
Was wondering about file transfers... Since my Android phone doesn't have an SD card reader and the ITB-100HD dash cam doesn't have a screen, if something happens and I need the video right away, I'm stuck.

So I was thinking about using a Bluetooth SD Card (SDIO) or a Bluetooth SD card Reader so I would be able to transfer the video to my phone on the spot using Bluetooth.

Anybody doing this or know if it would work fine?

Any other options?
 
Using bluetooth isn't going to work I'm afraid. SDIO cards might use the SD card form factor but the fact is, the chipsets in the camera can ONLY use SD memory cards. They're not capable of supporting other hardware such as bluetooth, wifi, etc cards. It's a lot like the PC Card/Cardbus (PCMCIA) system which originally started out as being for memory cards and later expanded into supporting the PCI bus for general expansion.

As for a wireless card reader - look at wifi rather than bluetooth and you'll have more luck. You'll need to find one that's Android compatible in some form.

If you want to copy files away from a computer, if your phone doesn't support USB OTG (on the go) - which would mean you could connect a SD card reader to your phone - then I would look at either:

* Getting a cheap used MP3 player or phone that supports USB OTG and use it to back up the video file(s) you need to the phone/devices internal memory or memory card (try to find one supporting USB 2.0 rather than 1.1 as it'll be much faster).

* Buying a card copy device designed for photographers etc backing up memory cards in the field. These range from one button press devices that just back up the entire card (would take a while) to devices with an LCD screen allowing you to browse the file system and select a file to copy.

* Selling the camera and buying one with wifi capabilities


I have been thinking about this myself, so I will do some research on devices and report back. I have an iriver H300 media player that supports USB OTG but it's USB 1.1 so quite slow.

Hope this helps!

Edit: What android phone do you have? It might already support USB OTG in which case you just need to buy a USB OTG cable (and potentially another cable to supply additional USB power depending on the phone) and a single-slot SDHC card reader and you're good to go.
 
I have a Nexus 4 so no OTG, for now at least.

I'll look into wireless readers. Seems it would be a good alternative to carry in the car just in case I need a video on the spot. I'd still use my home computer to review video or that other stuff, but I just want the possibility to get a video out of the SD card anytime/anywhere.
 
I just came across this unique adapter (thanks to this post): http://dx.com/p/sd-to-microsd-transflas ... r=21074969

This opens up a variety of options for me. I have an 8GB Sansa Clip+ MP3 player that's running Rockbox. I need to confirm that Rockbox will copy files between the card and internal memory (it certainly works on the main memory), but if it does, I have a very small solution for copying files from the camera's SD card to the Sansa Clip+'s memory. The adapter/player could live in the glove box and as a bonus I could use it for music playback too (once I wire in a line cable).

The adapter would allow copying on other devices I have with an exposed slot, such as old phones (if they'll accept SDHC).
 
Last edited by a moderator:
You should think to the Itronics ITB-250HD which have wireless. Using the Android application you can watch live video, the camera recordings, transfer videos on your smartphone. Because more and more people have smartphones I think this is the future of the dashcam, the Wi-Fi and this is good: first to keep the camera smaller as possible, than a Wi-Fi should be cheaper and more durable than a display. Unfortunately until now the software is only in korean and can be downloaded only from korea.

enjoy,
Mtz
 
Yeah, I also thought about the WiFi cams, mainly the BlackVue DR-500. But the price tag was way to much for just "another" car gadget, I got the Itronics for about half the price.

I might end up getting an old smartphone that has OTG capabilities later down the road if I really want access to the videos anywhere. Until then, seems like there's no easy way!
 
Back
Top