There’s a never ending quest to make motorcycle riding safer and inventors are coming up with new ideas all of the time. The Side Angle Motorcycle Helmet Camera System (SAM-HCS), by Adorg Safety Technologies, is a new setup designed to show you the blind spots where your mirrors can’t see.
SAM-HCS consists of two tiny cameras mounted to your helmet and in helmet monitors in the upper corners of your viewing area showing what’s coming on either side. The video is full color and the cameras transmit a wireless signal to the monitors. The monitors can be removed and placed on your windshield to show you the same view, you never have to take your eyes off the road and traffic in front of you to see if someone is positioned where your mirrors can’t see.
The system works in full face, half helmets, dirt bike helmets, probably almost any kind of helmet. There’s a police version as well that contains a 3rd camera facing forward to record what the officer sees. The system is battery powered and recharged with a small solar panel, no cables are required.
The only issue I see might be how the view is affected by the angle of your helmet, the Reevu helmet mentioned some time back seems to have that issue, although in normal riding positions and with a reasonably wide angle lens, that may not be an issue at all.
Price of the system is $299 plus $25 shipping, installed in your helmet. You send in your helmet and it comes back all set up. You pre-order, they send you a shipping box and off you go.
Inventor, Gary Oldham, is also working on a helmet airbag system to protect your neck in case of a crash. It looks interesting, too.
Link: Adorg Safety Technologies
Related: Reevu Helmet
Related: Sportvue Helmet Display
Related: Delphi Infrared Side Alert
Jay says
This is just a gimmick for technoholics.
taxman says
sometimes gimmicks become mainstream.
i think the answer to the view being affected by the angle of the helmet would be to mount the cameras on the rear of the bike and feed the info to the display via bluetooth. you could mount the display right on your helmet of on your dash somewhere.
Dave says
Motorcycle safety nazis irritate me. I ride because it is dangerous and I want other road users to fear me. Safety is for pussies. Flips flops, shorts and a muscle shirt is all I need. :))
Clive Makinson-Sanders says
Phew! Thank god they invented this, i was getting tired of turning my head slightly and looking to the side.
Nicolas says
Everything that helps to stay alive is appreciated, as long as it stays in the limits of acceptable pricing, complexity, and look … the most efficient solution would be to give the a better driving education to the road users (cars + bikes), but I guess I’m dreaming while saying that …
I’d personally not invest in such a thing, but whatever floats your boat …
With similar goals but other ways to reach it, you have the Reevu helmet which integrates a mirror system or the Bug Eyes mirrors that you stick on your helmet (http://www.bugeyes.com/).
hoyt says
Shipping my helmet is not going to happen.
This system would be better served by partnering with auto & truck manufacturers to install into the sides of their vehicles.
Those drivers are the worse perpetrators of not looking over their shoulder while operating a vehicle.
kneeslider says
Solutions like this seem to be a bit more than is needed to solve the problem in question. It may work fine but a convex attachment to your mirror may do the same thing. How many will buy it? Hard to say but I have an idea this will be pretty limited. As Clive indicates, moving your head a bit isn’t a big deal or even leaning forward a little to get a better angle from your mirror would work.
Spartandude says
@ hoyt,
Tell me about it. 101m/day in Houston rush hour (600cc Honda Shadow).
DEREK says
THE BIG QUESTION:
CAN THIS LEGALY REPLACE YOUR MIRRORS?
lostinoz says
I can see lots of riders mistakenly doing a panic brake for no reason because they “see” a car coming at them in their blindspot as a car approaching their left or right….
As an example, when driving big rigs, the mirrors can lure you into thinking the car on the left side behind you moving into traffic is in front of you about to move into traffic. Its hard to describe, but if youre not 100% aware of it, once in a while itll cause brake check with a small heart attack for an instant. This actually has a name where I work, because it happened to a driver and he wrecked and he coined the phrase “phantom car”
I can see this leading to big problems for some riders that take evasive action over a phantom car.
FREEMAN says
I agree with hoyt. On a motorcycle, the vehicle itself does not obstruct your view when you turn your head. This sounds like a nice application, but applied to the wrong medium. Much better suited for large vehicles with real blind spots.
hoyt says
lostinoz – good point. So much so, that this might not be good for cars, either. The last thing we need are those bad drivers seeing “phantom cars” or “phantom bikes” and have them swerve into a bike beside them.
There are already too many bad drivers who are becoming worse due to certain technologies geared to drive for them, instead of getting better at driving themselves with actual good practices and paying attention while at the controls of a 2-ton vehicle.
Now, about the yellow brick road, flying monkeys, and Dorothy….c’mere Dotty
hoyt says
…perhaps have the ability to enable a setting that turns on/off a flashing light in the display instead of actually displaying footage of traffic.
If the operator turns on the device, then a small flashing light appears in the side mirror when a vehicle is alongside them in the blindspot. A reminder to look over your shoulder.
Being able to disable the flashing light is key for today’s really clogged roads
Morpheous says
The big limiter for USA is that most riders are still wearing Doo-rags, how would this attach in that case? Can you imagine one of them riding back from the local bar and thinking they are hallucinating (even more)? It will be a challenge to sell this product here to any one other than a techno tourer. Neat Idea though.
FREEMAN says
In that last photo, there’s a porsche riding in their blind spot on the shoulder of a two lane road 😉
Motoxyogi says
Hmmm i thought they already had a system with integrated cameras, fibre optics and a projection onto mirrors at the top of your view, all in a fairly slick looking full face helmet….or maybe my imagination is running away with me again.
Regardless i love the idea of extending your field of vision. True it would take a bit of getting used to to understand what you were seeing but we went through the same process when we first hopped on a bike with mirrors.
Also the technology might be used to integrate some sort of HUD on the inside of your visor.
Kirill says
NIGHT VISION CAMERAS!!! so that when u chased u can turn off the lights. I still have no luck finding totalled S-class
chappy says
Sooooooo, do they have a picture of the image it makes that isn’t just a photoshop?