GuardTrak GT2S model details and info

[Lowen]

I so want one

 

[Dashmellow]

I'm very excited to hear more about this product and see what it looks like. I'm sure I speak for many by saying that I appreciate the enormous amount thought, time and care you're taking in bringing a product like this to fruition.

I have a question about the mount though that applies to my personal needs but may well be of interest to other potential users of this camera. I live in a state in the US that requires an inspection sticker directly behind the rear view mirror which prevents me from mounting a dash cam in the prime location most drivers prefer to place a camera. Instead, I usually mount whatever camera I deploy to the right of the rear view mirror and turn it slightly to the left to achieve the desired FOV. Many cameras on the market are designed to tilt only in an up/down axis but not left/right assuming a center windshield placement. So, of course, I want to know if the mounting scheme for the GT2S will allow for a left/right adjustment as well as up/down?

Edit: I should clarify that turning the camera towards the left really seems to require a ball joint mount or other multi-axis adjustment scheme because one usually needs to level the camera after tilting it down and turning it to face slightly to the left.

 

[Dashmellow]

If the viewing angle is wide enough and you mount fairly near the centre, it wont matter. Unless you have OCD and I can say that because I do

From my experience, I'm afraid what you are suggesting is not true. When the camera is not center mounted, even with a wide lens you lose a fairly good chunk of the lane to your left if you place the cam to the right of the mirror. More importantly, for me personally, I have to be careful about camera placement because the inspection sticker I previously mentioned can end up obscuring the FOV and this requires placing the camera even more to the right of the mirror than I would prefer. A wider lens exacerbates the inspection sticker problem so I have to tolerate having at least a small portion of the sticker in the image in order to capture a more or less equal FOV of the road ahead on both sides of the vehicle.

 

[bn880]

This camera sounds pretty awesome. In terms of marketing what is your target price range (MSRP) for this model so far?

 

[Dashmellow]

You know your windscreen better than I do, so point taken. In my car Im lucky to have quite a clear field of view when mounting.
I had now idea what an inspection sticker was until I googled it. Another thing to consider and surely a bit of a pain.

Yes, here in the US most states require a once yearly vehicle emissons/safety inspection that requires a sticker on the windshield and you can get a pretty hefty fine if the police happen to notice that your sticker has expired. In most US states as far as I am aware, the sticker is placed on the very upper or lower left corner of the windscreen but unfortunately where I live it goes right smack in the middle of the windscreen behind the rear view mirror. By coincidence my next inspection is in a few days since my month is October and I am going to ask my mechanic if he can get away with placing it a little to the left of center when he places it.

 

[Dashmellow]

I love the new avatar you just posted Jim but I will definitely miss the old one, especially considering our interests here at DCT.

 

[Dashmellow]

Lol

Your wish......... is my command.

Ha! That's great! Where do you find this stuff?..........Maybe it's really your car! If it is I hope you'll let us see the footage.

 

[Dashmellow]

its why I have a dashcam........


once the police return the video I hopefully can show it, well at least to my cell mates.....

Looking forward!

 

[jokiin]

looking good

If you want i can translate for you so it will have Danish language too.

thanks for the offer, I'll probably leave translations until I have an agent in a particular country and the need is there (translating the menus is a fair amount of work for our engineer), if that situation arises and I don't have anyone to help though I'll let you know

 

[jokiin]

I'm very excited to hear more about this product and see what it looks like. I'm sure I speak for many by saying that I appreciate the enormous amount thought, time and care you're taking in bringing a product like this to fruition.

I have a question about the mount though that applies to my personal needs but may well be of interest to other potential users of this camera. I live in a state in the US that requires an inspection sticker directly behind the rear view mirror which prevents me from mounting a dash cam in the prime location most drivers prefer to place a camera. Instead, I usually mount whatever camera I deploy to the right of the rear view mirror and turn it slightly to the left to achieve the desired FOV. Many cameras on the market are designed to tilt only in an up/down axis but not left/right assuming a center windshield placement. So, of course, I want to know if the mounting scheme for the GT2S will allow for a left/right adjustment as well as up/down?

Edit: I should clarify that turning the camera towards the left really seems to require a ball joint mount or other multi-axis adjustment scheme because one usually needs to level the camera after tilting it down and turning it to face slightly to the left.

as I mentioned it won't suit every situation (a one size fits all was next to impossible) unfortunately but we will do similar spec cameras later in a different form factor to try and cater to some of those other needs

have you got a picture of the inspection sticker, how big it is etc? I'd imagine in some cars it can't go top center of screen as it's impossible to mount there (check out some of the new Merc's with all the junk they have around the mirror area)

 

[jokiin]

though I always forget to mount low enough that my windscreen wipers clear the section of screen that I have picked.

Spare 3M sticker will be included for those kinds of mistakes

Member sludgeguts posted a picture of how he mounted a similar form factor camera in an unconventional way. I have attached the picture.

Would be possible to mount like that although GPS reception would likely be a problem

 

[Dashmellow]

as I mentioned it won't suit every situation (a one size fits all was next to impossible) unfortunately but we will do similar spec cameras later in a different form factor to try and cater to some of those other needs

have you got a picture of the inspection sticker, how big it is etc? I'd imagine in some cars it can't go top center of screen as it's impossible to mount there (check out some of the new Merc's with all the junk they have around the mirror area)

Thanks for your reply jokiin. I'll see if I can't post a photo of the inspection sticker, perhaps tomorrow as it is just getting dark out where I live but the sticker is about a 3 inch square and is just behind the mirror.

Hoping you will offer a ball joint mount of some kind as that seem to offer the most flexible adjustment solution. If small enough and integrated with the camera itself, it could possibly be a "(a one size fits all") mounting scheme. I have yet to see one for a dash cam that is really ideal but some quality small ball heads for photography tripods offer good examples of how this could be done.

 

[kamkar]

No problem Jokiin
up here in the Cold region of euroupe we all learn english in school, it is allso common on products to only use either Danish - norwegian or swedish to cover all 3 contries ( in the good old days we where all Danish )

questions:

The SD Cards is 32 gb max ?
Would it be possible to have the display indicate speed ( big White numbers on a black background ) as a option to LCD off ?

LCD OFF – Selectable 15 seconds, 1 Minute, 3 Minutes, GPS speed or OFF

 

[jokiin]

up here in the Cold region of euroupe we all learn english in school, it is allso common on products to only use either Danish - norwegian or swedish to cover all 3 contries ( in the good old days we where all Danish )

I am talking to someone from your part of the world at the moment

Would it be possible to have the display indicate speed ( big White numbers on a black background ) as a option to LCD off ?

LCD OFF – Selectable 15 seconds, 1 Minute, 3 Minutes, GPS speed or OFF

That may be a possibility, thanks for the idea

The SD Cards is 32 gb max ?

2 x 32GB so 64GB total

our dual camera product we're working on will support larger sizes, that's more of an enthusiast type product, that's 2 x SDXC so whatever size is available, plus USB HDD support up to 2TB

 

[glider]

Hoping you will offer a ball joint mount of some kind as that seem to offer the most flexible adjustment solution. If small enough and integrated with the camera itself, it could possibly be a "(a one size fits all") mounting scheme. I have yet to see one for a dash cam that is really ideal but some quality small ball heads for photography tripods offer good examples of how this could be done.

I've found the Garmin ball joint to be a pretty good, simple design. If jokiin can emulate this design, I think that would great. The Garmin ball has just enough friction to hold the device firmly in a car environment, yet you can still easily reposition it without having to loosen and then tighten a nut. I lot of other ball joints on smartphone holders require the user to loosen a nut, which is less convenient and makes the ball joint bigger than it needs to be.

Also, another suggestion is the option for an accessory clamp that clamps to the rear view mirror bracket, instead of mounting to the windshield glass. The clamp could be similar to a handlebar clamp used for bicycle lights or similar.

 

[Street Guardian USA]

I wonder how well the gt2s would work on a small plane. My friend just bought a Cessna 150. I'm trying to get him interested in using a DashCam. The plane's wind shield is round, but at least the actual gt2s camera is tiny. There is limited room up front for the black box, let alone my feet when I'm in the co-pilot's seat I'm going to try using my vico-WF1 via suction cup mount when we fly to Palm Springs in a few weeks. (as a test) I'm pretty sure I'll have to mount it inverted on the dashboard (flat metal) The plane has one cigarette power adapter. He's using a DUAL SUB power adapter. One charges the iPad, one charges the more accurate bluetooth GPS module.

 

[Dashmellow]

I wonder how well this would work on a small plane. My roommate just bought a Cessna 150. I'm trying to get him interested in using a DashCam. The plane's wind shield is round, but at least the actual gt2s camera is tiny. There is limited room up front for the black box, let alone my feet when I I'm in the co-pilot's seat I'm going to try bring my vico-WF1 along via suction cup mount when we fly to Palm Springs in a few weeks. (as a test) I'm pretty sure I'll have to mount it inverted on the dashboard (flat metal) The plane has one cigarette power adapter. He's using a DUAL SUB power adapter. One charges the iPad, one charges the more accurate bluetooth GPS module.

That sounds very cool! -- And if afterwards you post a dash cam video from a real Cessna 150 over at RCgroups, those guys would wet their pants!

 

[DashCamMan]

The specs and small size are quite impressive. Looking forward to seeing some videos.

 

[Xybone]

Perhaps you should send some free samples out... coughcoughcough
just kidding, can't wait to see some test footage
how much are you going to be selling this for?

 

[fkhuebner]

That's what i'm waiting for! Good job so far! The technical specs sounds great, hopefully the video quality lives up to its promise. I like the built-in GPS, not such an external box with additional cables like others have. What i miss, is a WiFi-module and some Apps to connect. But i can live easier without that, than with external GPS or bad video quality, especially at night or under difficult circumstances. Or with reflections from the Dashboard, here i hope of the built-in IR cut filter.
Have you plan to built-in WiFi to your extended future 2-chan-model?

Once that's done we will be doing a small production run and will send some of the first completed product out to the people that will be assisting with some field testing, we'll look for any anomalies and anything we need to fine tune before we get stuck into mass production, I'd expect we'll possibly be a few firmware versions

Let me know, if you need a field tester with some expierences..., due to my study of computer science, it hopefully will be no problem to juggle with some firmware versions... ;-)

Because we write our own firmware we can support any language, so we can localize the product to any market for language, system defaults etc, we supply an English version, you give us back the translation and we can include the language, (our engineer draws the line at Arabic languages though, too hard for us to check it for accuracy)

thanks for the offer, I'll probably leave translations until I have an agent in a particular country and the need is there (translating the menus is a fair amount of work for our engineer), if that situation arises and I don't have anyone to help though I'll let you know

Nevertheless, if you need a translation to german language, poke me. I'll be ready to do so.