Origins of B40 A118 cameras?

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What are the origins of the "Chinese generic" B40 A118 cameras? Who came up with them? Was it VIOFO, but they weren't called VIOFO back then or something?

When I bought our first dash cameras in 2015, I bought a pair of the "Chinese generic" A118C's under the SpyTec name or something. These were really popular back then, but there didn't seem to be a specific person or company behind their design, and I didn't recall hearing anything about VIOFO at the time? But the B40 A118 forum is now under VIOFO, so is it a correct assumption that they're the originators of the design but just weren't officially organized as or called VIOFO back then? Curious to understand how exactly this format of camera came about. Thanks :)
 
the B40 was originally a limited release public model, 4 different factories had access to it, it is not a Viofo design
 
the B40 was originally a limited release public model, 4 different factories had access to it, it is not a Viofo design

Was the "B40" housing SG9665GC in addition to the original 4 factories? With all the different B40 variants that popped up I recall a lot of confusion among buyers and potential buyers about what they were purchasing? I think that is the problem when manufacturers adopt "public housings" for their products, especially if one like SG wants to produce a higher quality item than the market may already be familiar with.
 
we originally did the SG9665GM and SG9665GPS which were based on the original B40 from one of the 4 factories which used the Novatek 96650 + Aptina AR0330, it was a bit of a market test at the time to see how it would go, we then bought the housing and did our own PCB for the SG9665GC which used the Novatek 96655 + Sony IMX322, eventually everything got upgraded, even though we bought the same main housing we had to change the plastic as the public version used a lower temp material which wasn't suitable for our market
 
we originally did the SG9665GM and SG9665GPS which were based on the original B40 from one of the 4 factories which used the Novatek 96650 + Aptina AR0330, it was a bit of a market test at the time to see how it would go, we then bought the housing and did our own PCB for the SG9665GC which used the Novatek 96655 + Sony IMX322, eventually everything got upgraded, even though we bought the same main housing we had to change the plastic as the public version used a lower temp material which wasn't suitable for our market

Yeah, I'm familiar with much of that as would any member here who has been following along with you and your products. I guess what I'm really talking about is the more casual buyer who only seems a look-alike product and has no idea that anything is different except perhaps the price. A similar thing may be happening in the marketplace where a buyer might compare certain Viofo products and Street Guardian products and feel confusion about the differences (other than price) since the cameras look essentially identical.
 
I think in the case of SG9665GC versus A118/B40 they looked very similar if you didn't pay attention to the lens housing/lens assembly, all the other models don't have that close association but I'm sure there are still people out there that don't get it
 
I think in the case of SG9665GC versus A118/B40 they looked very similar if you didn't pay attention to the lens housing/lens assembly, all the other models don't have that close association but I'm sure there are still people out there that don't get it

Probably quite a few. Interesting to hear about the SG9665GM. I completely forgot about that one.
 
we started that project back in 2013, lead times on some of this stuff is very long unfortunately, there's a lot of back and forth changing things etc
 
the B40 was originally a limited release public model, 4 different factories had access to it, it is not a Viofo design
So what was the "B40" and what was the "A118"? Was there an A117 or 116, or was the A118 the first of its kind?

When you say "public model", it sounds like this was some sort of open source project that people put together and then sold off to the different factories to produce? The firmware is very very similar between the "generic" A118 and the Street Guardians I've owned, so I'm assuming it's the same code base, and at some point other manufacturers such as yourselves picked up the design and started enhancing it with the better processors, sensors, lenses, and better firmware, and eventually your own housings, etc. That's how I originally came to purchase a SG9665GC v2, because I really liked the B40 A118C's I bought, but wanted better performance.

Just trying to understand the history of this "lineage" of dash cameras.

If Viofo weren't the originators of the design, then I guess they're just another company like Street Guardian doing their own thing building off of the "public" B40/A118 then, correct?
 
B40 is the original version which was around first, it's the model number of the housing, it wasn't a public model in the normal sense which any assembly factory can purchase, it was a limited model that was available to few factories, A118 is a model number applied by Viofo, they used the original variant of the product, some other supplier did their own PCB and it was sold at a lower price, majority of the ones you've seen in the market in the last few years are this lower cost version, we had our own version and from what I know only Viofo continued to use the original version, they did some small changes to improve it later on in its life but I don't think they have had any of their version made for probably a year or so now
 
This is helping but still confused! :ROFLMAO:o_O

So is my "SpyTec B40 A118C" a Viofo? Hadn't heard of Viofo or seen them mentioned on this forum in 2015. I assume I have the lower cost version of the A118C done by someone else. At one point the "SpyTec" models were called out for having reasonably good quality control so that's what I bought, but just the packaging said SpyTec. They're a company that sells home and car security products in New York, so I know they had absolutely nothing to do with the design, but were just resellers.
 
Spytec were buying off Viofo (actually they were only known as Foxoffer at the time), some products would get a Spytec logo, some didn't, but yes Spytec were just resellers, don't know if Spytec ever sourced the same product off other suppliers, only Foxoffer/Viofo were doing the original version, the others out there like Auto-Vox do the copy version
 
Ohhhhhh.... Okay so Viofo was Foxoffer. I think I'd heard of them, or at least seen them mentioned before.

So the B40 was the original limited release public model. Period.

-----Viofo/Foxoffer came out with the "A118" (based on the B40), hence "B40/A118C"
-----Street Guardian came out with the SG9965GC (with the same B40 housing but upgraded guts)
-----I'm sure there were a few others??

But all based off of the original "public" B40. Correct?

That would explain a lot of confusion seeing multiple model numbers.
 
that's pretty much it, I think more confusion happened once the copy version that had no support hit the market, that was just an attempt to cash in on the hard work of others and the big loser in that was the unknowing consumer
 
Yay! :p So who came up with the B40 then, besides "public"? I assume it was some sort of an open source type project. Originated in China?
 
Yay! :p So who came up with the B40 then, besides "public"? I assume it was some sort of an open source type project. Originated in China?

@jokiin is the authority on this subject but the fact is that the "B40" plastic housing is but one example. There have been and are many generic (and some brand name) cameras coming out of China that share the same plastic housings. The tooling to create a unique plastic injection mold can be very expensive. By sharing the same housing design among various manufacturers who may use different components on the inside of the product, the cost is reduced for everyone.
 
Yay! :p So who came up with the B40 then, besides "public"? I assume it was some sort of an open source type project. Originated in China?

it's not open source, there are design houses that just make housings, others that do the PCB etc, when I first saw the B40 it was at a trade show and was a hand sample, it had never been mass produced, I thought the design had merit though which is why we decided to do it, it progressed from there
 
Okay, so then some sort of industry reference design that various companies purchased and built their own products off of?
 
Okay, so then some sort of industry reference design that various companies purchased and built their own products off of?

this is nothing exclusive to dashcams, a great deal of products that come out of China are built in the same way, it helps to reduce costs
 
Not surprised. I do work in electronics and have seen a lot of that, although I haven't really done circuit and chip level stuff in years.

So I guess the most likely answer to the question of where the B40 reference design came from then, is by someone within the industry close to or within either Novatek or Aptina, and as a way to sell more of those chips and sensors! (follow the money!) ;)
 
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