Why are dashcams so expensive ?

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Dash cams have been out ages now and have a huge audience.

Seems to me like they are still really expensive. You can easily pick up a camera that will do 120 @ 1080p, spend more money and you can easily dwarf that 120.

Why are dashcams still so slow ? Why do they still just look like a cheap webcam ? Do you really get your money's worth?

All dashcams need to do is to be able to focus on scenery,isn't that the basics of cameras?
 
Without addressing the technical issues of creating a camera that is 'install and forget' that will operate reliably and unattended in a wide variety of environmental conditions I'd say the biggest factor contributing to the price is the fact that it's a small niche market so there's not a lot of sales volume to recover the fixed costs of development. If you have fixed costs of $100,000 (factory, insurance, salary, benefits, design, development, etc.) and you sell 100,000 units you have $1 of cost allotted to each unit to cover those costs. If you only sell 10,000 units it becomes $10 each.
 
What price do you think they should be?

Canon cameras range from around $130 to $3300 and none of them works well as a dashcam!
 
Dashcams are not all expensive. I have 2 which still do good vids reliably after over a years use. They were about $35 each or about what a dinner for two costs at a decent restaurant which I don't consider as being expensive even with me being rather poor ;) You can spend a lot more if you want to; there are several cams which I think are highly overpriced. And somewhere between these extremes you can get a really good dashcam for a fair price that gives great value for your money :)

The automotive environment is tough to design for with heat, cold, and humidity extremes, vibrations and jolts, and sometimes a not-too-stable electrical system all doing their best to destroy anything you mount there. And as DT MI points out there is the economics of scale to consider too. Many dashcams are a bargain when you factor all of this in and consider that even just 25 years ago what you usually had was 480P on a VHS tape in a huge form-factor that cost several hundred dollars :eek:

Nope, IMHO dashcams are cheap today and I doubt prices will get any better :cool:
Phil
 
many are super cheap like the g1w-s or a118c. i think its pretty awesome that a $60 camera can record in 1080p30 with decent quality while running for hours in the hot baking sun of your windshield.

then more expensive ones will have WiFi, GPS, speakers with audio alerts, 2nd rear channels to record two 1080p videos at the same time on one memory card. i dont know of any point and shoot cameras or DSLRs that can sit in stand by while buffering 10 seconds until it detects motion or an impact and then save the previous 10 seconds plus 20 seconds more or until the motion stops. some expensive dash cams have some pretty advanced features beyond any digital camera would have.
 
I do think that the Blackvue is a great "bang for the buck" product, expensive yes, but with a quality comes often also a higher price.
 
Dashcams have to be able to survive the interior of a car over a long period of time.

You live in the UK so your summers are very mild compared to the southern half of the US. Summer temps typically reach the high 80s-low 90s and can go even higher for weeks at a time. Car interior temps are in the 130-150s and can go can higher.

Dashcam market is also fragmented without a company dominating the market in terms of price and quality. For outdoor security cams Hikvision is my choice for price/quality/reliability but I have not found a similar company for dashcams.
 
I have 3 mobius cams. cost £50 each, around 4yrs old & still great cams.
If one fritzed tomorrow I wouldn't cry over it, they've given great service. The one I use at work has saved our insurance many times (the idiots always lie after they hit you) as well as my job (always someone ringing up moaning that you are speeding or driving dangerously).
 
Retailers will sell Dashcams (read anything) for whatever the market will bear. The cost of production seldom establishes the price that the product will sell for.
 
...The cost of production seldom establishes the price that the product will sell for.
Absolutely true! Years ago I once asked an exec at General Motors why a Cadillac cost $20K more than a comparably equipped Chevrolet when it only cost $5K more to produce. His answer - "Because people will pay $20K more."
 
Dashcams are cheap.
They are expensive only if you are looking for features that're not mainstream.
 
The first new car off the assembly line costs millions to produce. After that they cost a lot less to make.

Dashcams have a limited market to recoup their design costs. When 2 million dashcams a year are sold their prices should be lower.
The more specialty your market is the less units are sold to recoup your production costs. That fact increases prices.

When a product is designed there are often 2 versions. The basic and the deluxe. The deluxe version may only cost $8 more to produce but the perceived extra value added is $50. The company naturally charges the full $50 because people will pay it.

Dashcams are not a lot more expensive than they should be considering all the various factors involved in their production.
 
The first new car off the assembly line costs millions to produce. After that they cost a lot less to make.

A few years ago Holden sold a car promoted as the billion dollar baby which they say cost to produce and is still a nice ride
 
The first new car off the assembly line costs millions to produce.....
The moral of that story is if you get serial number xxx0000001 you're getting a heck of a deal. (y):D
 
Dashcams are cheap.
They are expensive only if you are looking for features that're not mainstream.
Like a fancy name, fancy advertising, prominent placements in popular car showrooms (or car accessory shops) with huge glossy display stands extolling the virtues of said cam - such as "night vision".
 
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