How many dash cams are there in the USA?

[old4570]

Perhaps one reason they are not more popular is the Quality of the cams ...
As long as people rubbish the cheaper more affordable cams ( with good reason ) , I see good reason for resistance .
I would have thought 1080 would have been more mainstream by now and the price of cams would have come down ..
But there is an almost the opposite trend ...
Cheap nasty cams still prevail the lower end ( price ) and the better cams ( true 1080 ) seems to be increasing in price ..
I would have liked to have seen 1080 cams drop bellow $35 USD if not hit the $25 USD price range .. ( Much like CD / DVD drives )
I guess as long as people buy cheap nasty cams @ $12USD to $40USD , why change anything ?
ARE WE (?) a large enough consumer group to DRIVE change ? , are we even prepared to do so ?

 

[jokiin]

expectation

.
I would have liked to have seen 1080 cams drop bellow $35 USD if not hit the $25 USD price range ..

reality

.
I guess as long as people buy cheap nasty cams @ $12USD to $40USD , why change anything ?

see the problem?

 

[dash riposki]

Yes, the better survey is how many vehicles have dash cams that actually work.

I look in other big trucks, and i think less than 10% of commercial, large trucks have them. Whether or not they work when they need to, is another story.
I'm also seeing an increase in commercial vehicle recording systems, (Installed by the company), but again, I think the percentage is between 5-10%.

 

[TonyM]

I've only seen maybe a handful of cameras while driving around over the past year, but, in supermarket car parks there are ALWAYS one or two cameras on display and that's only walking past a small number of the total cars parked there. Halfords (very popular UK shop for motorists and cyclists alike) have sold them for a while. Just about every fuel station has had one of those bargain bucket things in at some point. Citroen are now offering a built-in dashcam, called the Citroen ConnectedCam, available on new C3 models. I think there is a lot of interest but some folk aren't willing to take the plunge yet for whatever reason.

I often keep an eye out for other cars with cameras installed here in the UK. Spotted two amongst 20 cars in a town parking area yesterday. The suction-mounted DOD-style cameras seem to be rather popular here.

 

[TonyM]

once you've had one it's hard to drive without one

And once you've had two or more, it's hard to drive with just one!

 

[Deleted member 46308]

And once you've had two or more, it's hard to drive with just one!

It is generally only the beginning

 

[SawMaster]

Yep. I had planned only adding a rear cam then somehow GB sent me 2, so why not? And since I had 3 sides covered then it made no sense not to cover the last side But the side coverage is short so I really could use a couple more.....

Addicting , ain't it?

Phil

 

[Deleted member 46308]

Yep. I had planned only adding a rear cam then somehow GB sent me 2, so why not? And since I had 3 sides covered then it made no sense not to cover the last side But the side coverage is short so I really could use a couple more.....

Addicting , ain't it?

Phil

See

 

[old4570]

expectation


reality


see the problem?

Nooo ( To the first )
I really would have thought that 1080 would have become more prevalent , and by doing so drive the price down ..
Looks like there just has to be a massive stockpile if 480 / 720 chipsets out there !

( You will love my next cam review - its a dusy )

 

[Dashmellow]

It is generally only the beginning

No kidding! Currently running my usual fleet of four cameras plus any one of three different beta test Mobius cams.

I might have to go for six soon as it looks like I need to compare two beta testers at the same time.

As for how many dash cams there are in the US I think many of us DCTers who have multiple cameras in our vehicles, we are kind of our own dash cam demographic now.

 

[Deleted member 46308]

You would not get a pass anyway as I have seen pictures

 

[Dashmellow]

Nooo ( To the first )
I really would have thought that 1080 would have become more prevalent , and by doing so drive the price down ..
Looks like there just has to be a massive stockpile if 480 / 720 chipsets out there !

( You will love my next cam review - its a dusy )

There is a lot more to the price of a dash cam than the resolution of the chip and sensor. A lot depends on the lens quality, component quality, build quality, firmware development and support etc., etc. 1080P cameras have been available and popular for quite a long time. My first dash cam purchase six and half years ago was a 1080P camera.

 

[jokiin]

Looks like there just has to be a massive stockpile if 480 / 720 chipsets out there !

the race to the bottom has many competitors and is far from over

( You will love my next cam review - its a dusy )

trust me, no matter how bad it is I can assure you I've seen worse

 

[jokiin]

There is a lot more to the price of a dash cam than the resolution of the chip and sensor. A lot depends on the lens quality, component quality, build quality, firmware development and support etc., etc. 1080P cameras have been available and popular for quite a long time. My first dash cam purchase six and half years ago was a 1080P camera.

I suspect what he may have meant was something along the lines of 1080p chipsets becoming so prevalent that it would drive the price down to the point where the lower grade stuff wasn't even viable, kind of like what happens with memory where an 8GB card costs the same as a 4GB card so that effectively ends the life of the 4GB card, same sort of thing we see in computer processors, video cards etc

 

[Dashmellow]

I suspect what he may have meant was something along the lines of 1080p chipsets becoming so prevalent that it would drive the price down to the point where the lower grade stuff wasn't even viable, kind of like what happens with memory where an 8GB card costs the same as a 4GB card so that effectively ends the life of the 4GB card, same sort of thing we see in computer processors, video cards etc

I guess so, but memory chips are more of a replaceable commodity item whereas dash cam DSPs are multi-function processors that are constantly being modernized and improved with features and capabilities. The prices of older chipsets with probably fall but people will opt for the ones with the new features and performance and manufacturers need to recover their development costs.

 

[jokiin]

I guess so, but memory chips are more of a replaceable commodity item whereas dash cam DSPs are multi-function processors that are constantly being modernized and improved with features and capabilities. The prices of older chipsets with probably fall but people will opt for the ones with the new features and performance and manufacturers need to recover their development costs.

probably closer to what happens with mobile phones, there's really low end dual core processors used in cheap Android phones that aren't very capable but they still find themselves some market share from people that basically shop on price and/or have lower expectations/requirements, have to keep in mind that a great number of members here (particularly the regulars) are more interested in the cutting edge of where the tech is going and are not really representative of the wider market demographic

 

[Dashmellow]

probably closer to what happens with mobile phones, there's really low end dual core processors used in cheap Android phones that aren't very capable but they still find themselves some market share from people that basically shop on price and/or have lower expectations/requirements, have to keep in mind that a great number of members here (particularly the regulars) are more interested in the cutting edge of where the tech is going and are not really representative of the wider market demographic

I agree, that sounds like a better analogy. And like I said earlier in this thread, we DCTers are kind of our own demographic now. Virtually every dash cam I have seen in another vehicle has been a cheap generic type.

 

[country_hick]

A prepaid phone at $20 with a 5mb camera and a $3 ebay mount is a viable option. It gives coverage until a solid dependable product comes along. Granted it does not give the best video but it is good enough to show what happens.

There is to much cheap chinese junk around. I hate to buy a dash cam for good money and find it is faulty. Shipping it back to china is a huge gamble and very expensive. The minis would lose their wires, the mobius 1 C lens went out of focus, the mobius 2 is not ready to go yet. Other brands have similar issues. The reviews keep showing problems with most models. Waiting until the next good dash cam comes around and is proven to work well keeps many out of actually buying a better dash cam. I would hate to buy 2 or 4 dash cams and find out they were problematic trash.

Quality control is not yet up to snuff for most brands. If it was we would not have multiple threads showing how to adjust focus and showing a focus shift from the summer heat.
Also, living where we can get -40 degrees the operating temperatures of most cams are not up to the job. To me extreme temperatures means -40 not 150. Winter cold is more important than summer heat to me.

 

[Mtz]

Yes, cheap smartphones are much better made than cheap dashcams. You can use without any problem a cheap smartphone, but with a cheap dashcam you never know that it is recording if the LCD is not always on.

Maybe you don't see so many dashcams because some of them are hidden like A119 and you are looking for a visible suction cup style?

You will start to see many dashcams in USA after Apple will release a Full HD dashcam for $500. Samsung will start their version and then other people will discover great dashcams at half price. But the only reason I see no Apple dashcam on the market until now is because of visibility conflict: when you have an Apple product others must see it from the space and maybe some of people want a hidden dashcam.
An Apple must be great mounted in the middle of the windshield to make you feeling so proud you have it compared to other people which are hiding their dashcams because are so poor to afford an Apple dashcam. Then the Apple haters will put their Samsung dashcam with curved LCD in the middle of the windshield just to show how much they hate Apple.

enjoy,
Mtz

 

[jokiin]

Note: I have no way to verify this but the supplier claims to have sold 250,000 of these https://www.walmart.com/ip/Pilot-Automotive-Dash-Cam/42104314 to Walmart in 2014