Robert Sullivan

I don't know if this has been beat to death or not, I searched forums but didn't find anything.

Why doesn't MB or other manufacturers for that matter offer the ability to use the built in cameras as recording dashcams? It would seem a logical thing to provide this capability assuming the owner could turn feature off if they did not want to use it.

stath

Because they are always trailing tech. The dash cams are nowadays standard in S.Korea, Russia, and such, but that will take another decade for the rest of us in the western world...

MercedesTheBest

i always though the S-Class would be a good candidate for that. with the drive systems there are 2 cameras, then the predictive suspension adds camera #3, and then camera #4 could go right next to it for the built in dash cam.

though there are pros and cons to a built in dash cam. would it work when the car is off/parked? would it keep track of only visual or also statistics such as speed, gps, braking power, point of impact data as that is possible with all the sensors for airbag systems.

if there was an accident and it wasn't your fault, but the insurance company said "according to your data you were drive 2 miles over the speed limit therefore you aren't covered." this could be an issue.

Penn

It would be a great concept but, you would need to combine the images from the front two cameras that form part of the 360 degree camera system. The image still may not give you the wide angle view of a quality dash cam.

Robert Sullivan

Making the camera work when the car is off would be a fairly simple task for the oem. If a $50 add on dash cam can have a G sensor that will turn the camera on, why can't a 60K USD car?

The last statement would hold true even for an add-on.

Robert Sullivan

When changing from R to D, I have a good look out the front already on the command screen. It appears as wide as the rear view camera but looks out the front. The screen is split, left side shows the overhead 360 view, right side shows the rear camera when in reverse, and front camera when starting forward.

My point is, the technology exists in the vehicle already. We have GPS for geo-tagging, we have front and rear view cameras, we have G sensors. It would seem to be a fairly simple software addition and some minor hardware changes to have the cameras on when commanded by the driver and to save short (1-5 minute) loop of video to a removable memory device.