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Now you can capture random moments of craziness or novelty happening while you’re driving with this new in-car camera/rearview mirror from Hamwha. It looks more or less like a normal rearview mirror but has an internal camera pointing forward to record what’s happening in front of your vehicle.
Unlike other in-car recorders that you attach to the windshield, the advantage of this rearview mirror is that it doesn’t obstruct your view. It activates automatically when you turn on the engine, and automatically starts overwriting the old footage in a continuous loop so that you don’t have to worry about replacing the storage media when it’s full and missing out on something.
The right side of the mirror consists of a LCD display that can show what’s being recorded currently or play back what’s already been recorded. To make it even more nifty (and practical), the device includes a GPS and accelerometer, so that along with your video footage, data on your location and motion also gets recorded. Considering legal aspects, it might be really handy to know (i.e., be able to show evidence of) how fast you were driving at the time of a particular event on your video. The camera’s lens is made to function well in low light (e.g., night time), and captures up to a 92-degree peripheral. A 2 GB SD card should record about 130 minutes of video, and power is supplied from your car’s cigarette lighter. (Figuring out how to get your clip on to Youtube is up to you however.) According to the Umazon product page, video by this camera is recorded at 25 frames per second and is 640 by 480 resolution.
This recorder/mirror is available only through Hamwha’s online store, Umazone (the model number is UMA-RMDR02), and costs 14,900 yen.
A quick glance around the Internet shows prices for similar combination recorder / mirrors ranging from $199 – $2,895.
© RocketNews24
15 Comments
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namabiru4me
To be used as evidence in case of an accident, ticket...or anything the police deem necessary.
gogogo
If I had a car I would have one of these
nath
Luckily the car following a car that veered into my car caught the driver sleeping, the accident was a major incident...luckily no one was hurt...the insurance and police used the footage as conclusive evidence. Guess it was a million to one chance the guy had a camera.
USNinJapan2
So you'll have to have a power cord hanging down from the mirror to your lighter soccet? As intriguing and useful as this gadget may be, no thanks. I'ld rather pay and get a properly mounted dash/mirror cam that's not an eyesore.
lostrune2
This can also be used against ya, so this should be able to be hidden quickly if necessary!
nath
Oh boy, the absolute last (save your home toilet) bastion of privacy, the personal car is no part of the omnipresent surveillance state.
USNinJapan2
NeverSubmit
How does you filming OUTSIDE your own car from within violate your privacy INSIDE the car?
IncenseAndPeppermints
No. You will buy an extension, run the cord to one side of the car, hiding it in the window rubber along the way, run it down the other side along the windshield still hidden and secured in the rubber, under your dashboard, and into the lighter socket. Same with the ETC sensor type that sticks to the windshield, and far, far less of an eyesore than something stuck on top of your dash, where it melts.
USNinJapan2
IANDP
No thanks. My ETC sensor is built in to the dash with the card reader pre-installed in the glove compartment. The rear-view mirror has too many built in functions so can't replace it with an after market mirror like this. Don't want something plugged into my lighter socket in plain view either.
gonemad
If you plan to do this, leave it to a professional. Don't mess around with the airbags, which are located along the upper sides of the windshield in many modern cars.
Mark_McCracken
Remove the SD card, copy the data to your computer, upload the video.
VicMOsaka
So you'll have to have a power cord hanging down from the mirror to your lighter soccet? As intriguing and useful as this gadget may be, no thanks. I'ld rather pay and get a properly mounted dash/mirror cam that's not an eyesore.
All you have to do is run the mirror wire up and under the front edge of the hood lining and down the inside of the front A pillar trim and down under the dash. The A pillar trim just pull off with care.
nisegaijin
And you don't have to actually use the cigarete lighter. You can feed the power directly from ignition, just like i do with my radar detector :-)
But yeah, i want it... plenty of stupidity out there that I would like to show on youtube
anglootaku
A lot of new cars already have dashboard displays.. even the new Camaro..
Lowly
I like how they said
Like, you're really missing out on all these views of wonderful cars making maneuvers you already saw w/ yr actual eyes...