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No more mirrors

 Use cameras instead
 
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Recent postings in this category have shown that people are still attached to mirrors, but mirrors are sooo last century. For the cost of a motorized, heated mirror (quoted $470 at a dealer, car has two) you can get a set of digital cameras. The cameras have 90 degree vision angle and one is mounted with each turn light. The turn lights have a low power heating mode to de-fog the camera lens (much smaller than a mirror).
An LCD display mounted to the hub of the steering wheel merges the four pictures for a 360 degree view. Software can generate convenient views like birds eye view to show your car in the traffic, or only moving objects (see that kid running among the trees).
Some of this is baked, but the camera always replace just one mirror like the rear view camera in some buses. The possibilities of cameras go far beyond imitating a mirror.
—kbecker, Aug 25 2003

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       [re] That's a nice little car you have there, I would like to take it to work and use it for my lunch time nap.
—kbecker, Aug 25 2003
   

       // motorized, heated mirror (quoted $470 //   

       I seriously think my entire truck is worth less than a set of those mirrors...even with the 8-track player included...

—DeathNinja, Aug 25 2003
   

       [DN] Exactly my point (no offense to your truck, I'm thinking about my car). On the other hand,I have seen B/W CCD cameras down to $25 each, a common price for a single unit is about twice that.
—kbecker, Aug 25 2003
   

       //the rear view camera//

Are you talking about that makeup accessory mirror that used to dangle from the roof of my car before I broke it off? My SO does all the driving when we go anywhere because he says I make him nervous. So, this mirror thing became an issue. I needed it for makeup, and he said he needed it to see out the back. I told him to just keep going forward. But he’s just so anal sometimes, always worried about who’s behind him.

I couldn’t convince him that I was right, and the silly thing kept getting bent back and forth, until one day...snap.

So cameras...that might be a good idea. You can’t break cameras, can you?
—pluterday, Aug 26 2003
   

       Aside from the expense of cameras, their resolution is much less than the human eye. Even at 24 frames per second, the eye will detect motion much better in a mirror than on a screen. Screens also wash out in bright light. It's still a good idea to check your blind spots for traffic, necessitating a turning of the head anyway. Also, viewing an image on a screen instead of a mirror requires you to shift focus from far to near, costing precious milliseconds that could prevent an accident.
—Freefall, Aug 26 2003
   

       Good idea have three miniature camera and a LCD problem solved check my Bake...
—rushslow, Mar 25 2004
   


 

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