What is a good waterproof bluetooth or wifi night vision camera to place on the back of a 40' (12m) trailer?

country_hick

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I do not see a practical way to run video wire through a fifth wheel trailer hitch. that would be easily connected and disconnected. It would be easy enough to tap into the running lights for 12v power. At least one backup camera said not to run it for more than 10 minutes to avoid burning that camera up.

This would preferably be usable by an android head unit that has both wifi and bluetooth capabilities. Maybe this could be direct wired from trailer to truck but I am not sure how.

The idea is to ensure safety by being able to be 100% certain that the car has actually been passed before pulling over and hearing crunching metal because you misread the rear view mirrors.
There would be no problem from using a 3 camera setup with 1 camera on each side of the trailer and one at the very back if this could work. I do not know if a 10" head unit could display 3 cameras at once. I do not know if such a system exists at a reasonable price point that can handle heavy rain. I do know night vision aka starlight would be vital. The backup cameras all seem to be designed for short term use. I want a camera that can record a 12 hour day without failing.

If anyone has any ideas please let me know.
 
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Well if it was me i would try some of the small home surveillance cameras like waze ASO, but i am unsure if it will reach as far as the car, and not least penetrate into the metal "box"
Also there will be the question of powering the damn thing, many little cameras nowadays are battery it seem, and so sleep often to just come alive with motion, so that would be unsustainable for your scenario.

You probably also want a camera that have a actual omnidirectional antenna VS all the ones that have some form of hidden like phone antenna.
I would assume one or more of these cameras would be accessible with a tablet / ipad with wifi, but i am unsure if you could have several cameras going on the screen at once like i can with my consumer CCTV setup with a NVR box.
 
Blueskysea makes these dash cams for motocycles: https://blueskysea-inc.com/b1m-p00100p1.html . They are waterproof and will stream their view to your android device. I have looked into them but ended up going with Viofo, the water-less option. It is likely that their app will show only one camera on your device at once. That is typical for dash-cams. To go around that with my Viofo I am using a 3rd party app that displays the video stream of multiple dash cameras at once, records it on my phone and does person detection in the video. On detection I get notified. This might be useful when you park your RV in an unfamiliar place. However, I am not sure it the app will work with the Blueskysea cameras but you could try. it claims to work with any RTSP video stream. The app is called Birds ai view and I got it for free from the Google app store: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.unicordia.dc_free. Another option for you would be the Auto-vox backup cameras: https://www.amazon.com/gp/B07Q85NVV7. They are waterproof and stream their video via WIFI however it looks like they only work with their proprietary display, so unfortunately, it might not work with your head unit.

Kamkar's suggestion could actually be better for you when your rig is in pitch-black night. Dash cams do not do as well as surveillance cameras in the night. If you choose a WIFI surveillance camera that works over RTSP you could use your android head unit to display multiple of these cameras at once using the app I mentioned above. I am using it with Eufy and Reolink cameras but recently Eufy had a security issue. I use them off-grid so their security issue does not affect me, nevertheless, my opinion is not necessarily an endorsement.
 
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yeah but something like that blackvue thing, i dont think its wifi reach very far.
Actually the Vantrue E2 system i am testing, when you connect with the app it say to keep your phone within 2 M

Something with a actual antenna, that are above the roof of the trailer might be better, or usually these antenna are on standard connectors so you could probably but a extender in between the camera and antenna.

There are also proper truck / semi systems but these are most often just camera to put on your mirror tree outside the cabin looking down the side of the trailer / rig
 
Valid point. I can confirm that the Viofo 129 Wifi range reaches about 30ft/10m while the Viofo A139 can go a lot further if you connect it to your home network, hotspot or wifi network extender/repeater. Not sure about other dash cam brands. I have tested a Thinkware and it behaved well too but im not sure about its wifi range. On the other hand surveillance cameras are likely to have much better wifi reception than dash cameras. Most surveillance cameras are made to be reliable, security tools and they tend to be larger in size as well so they can better hide a wifi antenna inside. Also, the Auto-vox camera claims 100m/300ft in wifi range.
 
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Where did you get that link from?
 
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