backup camera

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The topic of reversing cameras in motorhomes offers plenty of potential. Too much actually. Initially, the rear view cameras were black and white and still delivered usable images, even with the usual built-in rear light “sparkles”.

The newer ones provided color in the picture, even if only during the day. At night they switch to b/w and the resolution drops significantly in comparison. But especially at night it's important to be able to see where you're going and where you're maneuvering.

Now it's up to you whether you use additional headlights to provide more light and therefore good visibility, or whether you install powerful cameras that have proper IR illumination.

WiFi or POE

The next topic is the decision to lay WLAN or POE (Power Over Ethernet) cable. Anyone who prefers a secure connection will make the latter choice. WiFi is not always reliable in aluminum-clad motorhomes, as you are almost sitting in a Faraday cage.

Another problem with “cheap” cameras: most of them work with cloud services, which causes a lot of traffic and comes at the expense of the SIM card data volume.

The ideal case would be a camera with a POE connection, powerful IR diodes, wide angle, PTZ to be able to target the area of interest as needed, and possibly bidirectional audio to enable two-way communication.

Hikvision™ cameras

But then we end up with Hikvision, for example, with a high price, top quality, renowned manufacturer with a correspondingly large selection of professional cameras, but also for the consumer sector.

The cameras installed here are the Hikvision DS-2DE2A404IW-DE3 with 2.8 – 12 mm focal length. The cameras run with, for example, the IPCamViewer app (iOS / Android) on any cell phone or tablet, as well as SecuritySpy on Mac OS.

Display on mobile phone / tablet / monitor

Since navigation is often done on tablets these days, this can also be used to display the camera images. A router is also often on board, which means that nothing stands in the way of connecting your cell phone/tablet and camera via the router's WiFi hotspot.

Laying the POE cable saves you from having to lay an additional power supply, but requires a POE-capable switch. If you don't care whether you lay one or two cables, you can also lay a normal Ethernet (CAT7.) cable and a two-wire cable for the power supply.

Practice

Here two cameras were installed on the left and right above the rearview mirrors near the roof Brackets assembled. The rear camera is the one you have HIKVSION DS-2DE3A400BW-DE(F1)(S5) PTZ, which is already delivered including a holder.
The images are displayed on a MacMini at 15.6″ FHD displays shown, of which the middle one is also the navigation contains.

Here is the camera on the driver's side, including an outside temperature/humidity sensor (Homematic) …

... and the rear view camera.