BW 3.6mm Wide Angle Car Rear View Reversing Backup Camera with Night Vision

I think the camera is great, worth 5 stars, but after having to modify it (hence the 4 stars) I felt I needed to comment about it to perhaps help some ambitious DIYers. Several companies are selling this unit, and I've read in various postings about a pink hue. The image is excellent, especially for the cost, but there IS a noticeable pink cast over the image as soon as it gets dark enough for the IR LEDs to come on. Also, the instructions are very poor, and there is no mention of an extra wire that I've read several other people being mystified by. I can't attest to the unit being properly waterproof or not, as you'll see why in my modifications, but I did find a silicon sealant gluing the 2 halves of the unit together. I think an attempt was made to make it waterproof, but it might be hit or miss as to whether that sealing job was actually good or not. Luckily if you have a tube of sealant and a mini philips screwdriver, you can pry it apart and re-seal it before you install it. Other than that, the image in pitch black is very good, extending back about 30 feet or so. You can even see reflective surfaces like street signs several hundred feet back. The image at dusk is fantastic. Just dark enough that the reflection in your traditional mirror is dim, but the camera image is bright and full color like mid-day.I was forced to fix it after I dropped it as I was trying to install it, and it fell right on the corner of the lens, cracking the clear plastic lens cover. After several swears and testing to make sure the electronics still worked, I knew it definitely wasn't waterproof any more and had to be re-sealed. That's when I discovered why there was a pinkish hue over the image at night. Look at the picture of the camera and you'll see a little clear window on each side of the lens cover with the IR LEDs behind them. It looks like 3 clear windows, but it's only one piece of clear plastic with a black plastic bezel over the whole thing. When it's dark enough for the LEDs to turn on, the light is picked up by the clear plastic and carried through the edge of it to the clear part in front of the lens. Apparently the IR light not only projects out through the little windows on the sides but also glows right in front of the lens making everything look pink. That's the explanation as to why. My fix for the truly adventurous will be at the end of this.Before a simple re-sealing of the camera before installation test it first to at least make sure it works. It would be stupid to alter it to only find out it doesn't work and now you have no warranty on it. There are 4 mini philips screws holding the 2 halves together. Two of which are pretty deep so you need one of those small jeweler's screw drivers to remove them. You can then pry the halves apart, breaking any original seal gluing the halves together. All the electronics are mounted to one board that's mounted to the back half of the casing. The clear plastic and black plastic bezel half have nothing on the inside connected to it. Just clean off any old sealant completely and re-apply a good even covering of new sealant to the entire edge. After screwing the halves back together, put a dab of sealant into each screw hole and it should now be better sealed than when you originally got it. Just don't goop the sealant all over the place. It doesn't take much.The extra wire that's not mentioned in the instructions can simply be used to turn the camera on remotely if you don't want to wire it to the back up lights. That normally turns the camera on when you shift into reverse and the back-ups come on. Instead, connect the positive lead to that extra wire, and up front where the camera would be connected to some type of monitor, connect the other end of that wire to a switch. With the switch connected to an accessory power source, you can now turn on the camera any time you want. I personally did this so I can use the camera to give me a rear-mirror-like view when the back of my car is full of stuff and I can't see out the back window. I had to angle the camera slightly so I get a full road view and not just the ground directly in back. The monitor I got clamps onto the rear view mirror so when the camera is on it feels natural to look up at it to see out the back.Now the interesting part: Daring modification to fully eliminate the pink hue AND the fact that if you drive around with the camera on at night the image completely bleaches out from street lights and you can't see anything. If using this as just a normal backup camera I would not do what I'm about to suggest, it will work perfectly fine, but if you'd like to rig it up like I did to use any time you want then you might want to consider this. Like I previously wrote, the clear plastic picks up the light from the LEDs and transmits it to in front of the lens. Passing by street lights turns the LEDs on and off which effects the light sensor on it, and the end result is a nearly bleached out image. The only way to fix this is to interrupt the light being carried through the edge of that clear plastic shell. My solution was to remove the bezel cover over the clear plastic and cut through the shell with a hack saw, making 2 halves of the clear plastic part so the lens cover was physically independent of the LED cover. Look at the picture of the unit and you'll see the lens in the middle projects about 3/4 inch from the body. I cut the clear plastic right in the middle between the front of the lens cover and the back on the LED cover. That way the black plastic bezel that slides over it completely covers the cut. I then painted the edges of the cut black so the light can't go forward in front of the lens. To re-assemble, I coated the inside of the bezel with sealant, inserted the lens cover part I just cut off. Used small strips of black electrical tape to hold it in place. Added some more sealant to the base of the bezel before inserting the second half of the clear plastic shell (the part in front of the LEDs), so the 2 cut pieces of clear plastic are fully glued and sealed into the front black bezel. Lastly I added sealant to the edge of the shell for when I finally assembled the complete unit.Maybe I went a little far to modify this camera, but it worked perfectly and I'm thrilled. It's fully waterproof as I've had it on in the rain. There's no more pink hue. It's normal full color day and night. And best of all, no lights at night effect the image at all as I drive around with it on. Holy crap this is long, but I hope it was helpful!

Image quality for this little camera seems adequate but not great, pretty average for these cheap low quality cameras. Clear enough to see but nowhere near HD but for less than 20$ that should be expected. The camera produces an image with a superimposed distance guide, this guide is locked in place and can't be turned off (wish it could be as im not using this for a car),. nor does it adapt in any way it's just static lines over the image.As some have stated there unit to not be waterproof, the first thing I did was disassemble it to see where the water tightness might fail. I was pleasantly surprised that when I opened it up the clear plastic that covers the lens and IR LEDs is a solid piece that covers the entire front of the unit and there was a good solid bead of epoxy all around the clear plastic connecting it to the back half of the unit. so even with the front taken off I found the unit to remain fairly water tight. Where I did find a potential problem is in the back where the wire comes out, there I believe is where some folks have had trouble. So I got a syringe and squirted some silicone in around the wire, now i can dunk this camera in a glass of water and not see bubbles. That's really the only place one needs to add additional sealing in my opinion.IR vision is good at short range, but not so good further than a few feet. Some say that this unit "switches" form color to black & white at night,. This is half true,. This is a 100% color camera,. it's always in color mode, however during the day it has full spectrum light to work with (the sun),. so all colors show,. at night it uses the IR lights a single spectrum light source, so the resulting image looks Black & white, however if there is a bit of street light or urban light pollution you will see in a sort of washed out color,. it all depends on what light is lighting what you're looking at, nothing more.

I bought this as part of a set I cobbled together here on amazon. Its really amazing to me that this sort of set can be purchased and all work together for such cheap money. I ran the wires loose next to the components so if any one goes bad, I can easily swap it out with a replacement.Night Vision Parking Car Rear View Wide Angle LED Reversing CMOS CameraSold by: loftek technological CO.LLC ( seller profile )Works good. No issues. Grid distance lines all in blue and angle on my car (mounted up under the license plate sill) shows ground up to about 18" from the rear bumper. Can't angle it manually other than choosing a different mounting point (that's the only reason for 4 starts over 5). Wired to reverse lights.3.5 Inch TFT LCD Monitor for Car / AutomobileSold by: SOUNDSOUL LLC ( seller profile )Flips back and forth from reverse mode quickly and the screen is pretty sharp and quick. Wired to my aux cigar lighter fuse. The two RCA video inputs were a great surprise as well as the automatic switching to the reverse cam. Thought I was going to have to wire a manual switch.Waterproof Car Rear Vehicle Backup View Camera High-definition Cmos 170 Degree Viewing Angle E363Sold by: yyaudio llc ( seller profile )Small profile, hooks up easy but needed extra length so I took an rca cable I had and attached with an additional barrel connector. Picture was still fine. Distance grid is in red yellow green. viewing angle is nice and wide. hooked in with the monitor power.RCA Barrel connector and extra RCA cable (radio shack and home)Only downfall is that the forward image is mirrored and I can't find a way to flip it but it still works great for seeing how far your nose is from the curb. Took me about a day and a half to complete but I spent most of my time debating where I was going to connect to power. I was in no hurry either.

For the money, I am quite shocked at how good this camera is. With a clear wide angle image, guidelines and infrared night vision it is extremely effective. In terms of installation, that really depends on the accessibility of your head unit and available routes to run wires. But, I didn’t have any issues, taking power from a rear 12v power supply. It’s been on my vehicle for a couple of months now, in all weathers, and remains in good shape offering a clear reversing picture.

looks good an feels quality, but seems to white out easily, with colours very weak. Mind you, it could be just too bright at the moment!

Good item bought this camera as it had a slightly less wide angle than the original camera I fitted to my car. good quality item for the price. I cannot comment on longevity of the item.

Great product, shame the camera is a bit big.

Camera was bigger than expectedNot as wide angle as I would have liked, but works well in both daylight and at night in near pitch black