If you hate parallel parking, or if you tend to avoid backing into spots at all costs, a new wireless camera that uses your smartphone as its display could help.
The new backup camera for cars, dubbed RearVision, is powered by solar energy and uses Wi-Fi or Bluetooth to connect with your phone.
The device also will be the first backup camera to update itself automatically to get better over time, according to Pearl Automation, the Silicon Valley-based company developing the gadget.
Backup cameras are designed to help drivers see behind their car as they back up. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has mandated that backup cameras become standard starting with all model-year-2019 cars. According to the NHTSA, in the United States alone, more than 200 deaths and 15,000 injuries are caused each year by accidents involving backward-moving cars.
The first backup camera appeared in a concept car in 1956 and in a production car in 1991. Still, only about 1 in 4 cars today has a backup camera, according to the Consumer Technology Association.
There are at least two reasons why most cars do not have backup cameras, according to Pearl Automation. One problem is that people rarely buy new cars; the company noted that the average life of a car is about 17 years, so if companies were to wait for everyone to buy a new car in order to get these important safety features, it would take at least 40 years for those features to reach about 90 percent of all cars. Another problem is that installing a backup camera onto a car that lacks one involves drilling holes into the car's trunks and running wires inside the vehicle.
Bryson Gardner, CEO of Pearl Automation, said that he and fellow Pearl co-founders Joseph Fisher and Brian Sander came up with RearVision because they "each owned fairly new cars, none of which had a backup camera," Gardner told Live Science. "Given the technology had been around for decades, we were shocked to find that, even today, more than 75 percent of the cars on the road in the U.S. lack one. We created RearVision to bridge this gap by allowing people to upgrade their cars in minutes through the aftermarket to improve the overall experience for every driver on the road today," he added.
RearVision is intended to make it easier to install backup cameras inside cars. It uses a driver's smartphone as the display, thus eliminating the need to install a screen inside the car.
The camera includes a license-plate frame that has two high-definition cameras to provide a nearly 180-degree wide-angle view. One camera is optimized for the day, while the other is infrared-sensitive to see well at night, and each lens has a water-repellent coating for rainy days.
The camera frame uses solar cells for power, and communicates wirelessly using Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. RearVision is wireless, so there's no need for wiring or drilling inside cars.
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