The OWL Cam - developed by engineers from Apple, Drop Cam and Microsoft

Could be hope, but most of the time with distressed sell-outs, takeovers, and the like product support gets dropped for the old stuff which the new owners think was reason the company was going under. They'll probably sell off any patents, design rights, and the "Owl" name then turn their backs on whatever is left. It's the "American way" :(

Phil
 
Saw some Chinese company sold some dating APP for like a ton of money ( the ton being made up of the popular among drug dealers and other nasties 500 EURO bill )

I think the OWL cam are going to Davy jones locker, but the IP someone might do something with, free of obligations towards OWL cam owners.
 
kamkar1 said:
I think the OWL cam are going to Davy jones locker, but the IP someone might do something with, free of obligations towards OWL cam owners.
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I don't see any value in the IP as there are other solutions available now that could replicate their functionality (and more) anyway, depends how many users they had but their value may lay in the database to a telco, in a population the size of the US though they would likely need a significant number of customers for that to be a value proposition to a telco, have no idea how many customers they actually had
 
Dashmellow said:
Maybe there's hope for @Jackie1 and others left in the lurch?
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jokiin said:
possibly, I think they're trying to find a buyer/investor, last ditch effort to rape and pillage, or genuine effort to keep people online, not sure
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I tend to agree with @kamkar1 that the company is toast and the existing customers are screwed. The one encouraging thing is that they at least give lip service to the idea of "support" being "temporarily suspended" and asking for "patience".

Of course, that may be designed to keep angry OwlCam purchasers at bay until they totally liquidate everything but often enough outfits like this will pull a complete "JooVuu" on everyone and simply disappear like smoke.
 
So I just created an account here to get feedback from any other Owlcam owners.

I have an OwlCam - honestly didn't even realize the company was in trouble until getting an email a week ago. They explain the current status and how a company called CallPass has taken over support operations.

Great news, right? Not so sure.

After digging in deeper to their new "Owlcam Plus" plan I wanted to get other people's take.

My one year of LTE for free plan should have expired earlier this year and it got me thinking about renewal. Well OwlCam originally stated $99/year after the initial cost of the device for LTE service. Except CallPass is now trying to charge $215/year for their "Owlcam Plus" service - which is all the same features originally advertised at the $99/year price point.

Anyone planning on renewing or are you scrapping your Owlcam for something else? It's honestly worked great for me so far, I just don't want to pay this much for a company that may fail yet again...

Here's the email they sent (view in browser link)
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And I've attached screenshots from the App where they now force a pop-up every time you launch the app.
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p2im0 said:
It's honestly worked great for me so far, I just don't want to pay this much for a company that may fail yet again...
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You can buy a very decent new dashcam for your $215.

What does your Owlcam give you that a new $215 dashcam wouldn't?

There are compromises to be made either way, so it will depend on your personal priorities, but it seems that most people who post here are pretty happy with their more standard dashcams, but then they didn't choose the Owlcam so presumably have different priorities to you.

Maybe the more relevant question is, what do you find unacceptable about other dashcams that might stop you "upgrading"?
 
Well going for the owl cam in the first place, and probably as a first dashcam p2im0 are probably into the smarts of a camera.
That limit what to try quite a bit if smarts are a must have, but it also put the question in a place where i are not really able to recommend anything as i have no experience with smart cameras.
But the only two brands to consider are probably Thinkware and Blackvue as they are the forerunners on smarts.
I also think both of those brands have LTE cameras in the immediate pipeline, but you probably have to supply your own SIM card costing XX USD/mo and then add to that some cloud subscription for storage costing another XX USD/mo

Personally i am not using any form of cloud, but my SIM card might be free soon as my one reason for carrying a phone ( my old mother ) are on the last leg of the down and out.
 
Nigel said:
Maybe the more relevant question is, what do you find unacceptable about other dashcams that might stop you "upgrading"?
Click to expand...
kamkar1 said:
Well going for the owl cam in the first place, and probably as a first dashcam p2im0 are probably into the smarts of a camera.
Click to expand...

Thanks for chiming-in; Owlcam was a bit of an impulse buy and I got it for $260 with some crazy coupon code - I guess I need to do some more research about other options to decide alternatives.

But yeah the primary reason was LTE connectivity and visibility into my vehicle while remote - but even then it's current configuration leaves something to be desired.

I just wanted to see if there were any other Owlcam owners that stumble across this thread and are making the conscious decision to keep their camera and go with their new yearly subscription - even while knowing the price is WAY more than what was originally promised (before they got acquired, obviously).
 
I found THIS PC world article on the current state of "OWL" cams. The original company went broke and was sold, and for awhile nothing was happening. But now another company has emerged and they are apparently doing product support for the cam and it's owners once again. Please read the article for all the details ;)

Phil
 
Me walking in on Owl Cam in October 2020 not knowing about all the drama that has transpired over the year:

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So lemme catch up, as one article the author claimed his camera was bricked. If you did not resubscribe to their new higher cost service, could it still work as a dashcam without the network connection?
 
I'm not certain of that- I just came across the article and thought I'd post it as we do have some members here with OWL cams and IIRC some of them needed factory assistance and it wasn't there at the time, nor could we help them ourselves :(

If you contact the new company, please let us know whatever you can find out to help keep things here up-to-date ;)

Phil
 
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