Device to upload footage to the cloud

[ABakerSmith]

Hi, I’m looking to start a project to create a device which would plug into (ideally) any dash cam and to automatically upload footage to the cloud and make it easily retrievable from any internet connected device.

The idea being you don’t need to remove an SD card to get the footage. I’m aware of products that exist which can directly upload to the cloud, like BlackVue, Nexar, or Thinkware, or the WiFi Nextbase cameras which work with their viewer app. However, you obviously need to buy specific products.

If the technical problems can be solved, then my goal would be to turn this into some kind of business, but I first wanted to gauge whether this is actually a problem people have? Your thoughts would be much appreciated! And if this is something you’d like to use, what kind of requirements would you have of it? (Or if I missed that this already exists!)

 

[Nigel]

However you do it, it will take a long time, and people are not going to sit in their cars for 20 minutes every time they arrive home just so that they can put their video into an archive that they most likely will never look at.

Some dashcams come with a wifi app that can already download selected videos into the phone, from where they can if required be uploaded to a cloud, Youtube, Instagram, iCloud, https://dash.envsion.io/ , etc. Potentially you could improve on the app functionality, but you still need to only upload selected videos in order to keep time reasonable, and send them to the desired location, not necessarily your cloud. For dual and triple channel cameras it would often be good to either upload the matching videos as a group, or combine them into a single video, none of the common dashcam apps do that sort of thing.

 

[kamkar]

Yes as long as you rely on the slow wifi in a dashcam, your 1 hour recorded drive will take 1 hour and 10 minutes to upload if you have a good internet connection and that is not slowing your down too.

The idea are fine, but personally i say call me when i can get a flatrate 5G sim card ( cheap ) and put that directly into the dashcam, cuz i will admit i am getting old and more lazy and i have been shuffling micro SD cards around for nearly a decade now.
BUT i will rather keep doing that then wait for a 10-15 MB/s transfer speed over wifi.

PS. if dashcams just got better faster wifi, i might turn that on in my apartment and put a wifi repeater in my kitchen or bedroom window to reach the car 20 M below in the back yard.

PPS: i will never use the cloud, but to my computer or NAS i will move stuff.

 

[jokiin]

Hi, I’m looking to start a project to create a device which would plug into (ideally) any dash cam and to automatically upload footage to the cloud and make it easily retrievable from any internet connected device.

how are you proposing to interface with the camera?

 

[SawMaster]

If you take the data directly from the SD output port, then this might work. Of course you'd need to get it sent to the cloud at least at that speed or provide a buffer memory. If priced right I think a "plug-and-play" thing like this would be somewhat popular, but most of us really have no need for this.

Phil