What IP Camera Should I Use On A Truck Trailer?

John,

Thanks for the quick reply! And I also appreciate whomever modified my subject line too, it is much better.

We actually did view this Axis camera but shied away from it originally due to the cost of the camera and the additional cost of any extra POE hardware, and it also seemed to be designed to be installed inside the vehicle, instead of outside on the rear side steel rail of the truck or trailer out in the elements.

To be honest, I don’t know exactly what to expect as a reasonable cost for such a camera. I do know that my client is expecting a suitable camera for right around $200 and even that makes him wince a little (I think). However, he was the one who verbalized the $200 range. I should note the he made this statement after I brought it to his attention that this camera would most likely need to operate in four seasons including winter and perhaps from dawn to dusk or later.

Any thoughts on how much a suitable camera for this application should reasonably cost the OEM for each of his truck or trailer products sold?

Thanks a bunch!

Kevin Johnson

Another good idea Brain,

We have looked at some of these but only briefly because, our application is to run the video stream into an HTTP based MJPEG viewer within our custom android app running on any drivers tablet. The client wants everything self contianed to where a driver could approach the manufactured trailer, hook up to it and with our app on the drivers tablet could then interact with and operate the automated load / unload mechanisms. The key here is for it to be self contained on the tablet within the app and not need to be hard-wired / installed into any one cab since the "cab" or truck and driver could change.

However, our very first camera was an android based backup camera that had its own proprietary viewer app. Unfortunatey, we could not gain acces to the video stream to connect our viewer to it. If we could connect to a COTS android backup camera having a known HTTP based MJPEG URL connection string, it would probably be ideal for our use, certainly our "FAIR" weather use and perhaps for our mid-grade (normal Four season use as well). NOTE: one other caveat was that the original backup camera had a rectangular backup grid, drawn in perspective, overlaid on the video that we would need to remove. I am not sure if the grid was overlaid via there android app or via the camera transmitter (I suspect that the Andoid APP was responsible, which would mean that our viewer would have worked just fine).

Therefore, I would like to find and try a COTS backup camera that was IP-based or android based with a known HTTP protocol MJPEG URL connection string.

Kevin

Thanks Tyler,

The POE injector should prove useful if I go with the POE route.

Kevin

Thanks Sujit,

But I agree with John Honovich, this just would not work for my application due to the weather-proofing.

You do get what you pay for...

Kevin

Thanks,

I will look these models up and add them to my selection matrix.

Kevin

Jeffrey,

Thank you very much for this promising camera suggestion. I will look at it closely along with all the others. At first glance, I am liking what I see.

Kevin

Rukmini,

Yes, I am concerned but only a bit concerned about latency. I don't want the latency to be outragous but the operator will not be performing brain surgery via these cameras either. In fact, the operation is relatively simple and over short distances for short periods of time with a limited range of motion. In other words, the operator just needs to see that the lifting bars are going up, fully up or going down or fully down and locks are either locked or unlocked etc.

Kevin