Customer Reviews

XO Vision HTC35 Universal Weatherproof Backup Camera with NightVision

5 star:		(24)
4 star:		(20)
3 star:		(9)
2 star:		(4)
1 star:		(22)

 

 

inspection of the camera showed it was made of a good quality. It is sturdy but not bulky. it is good size so I know that it is not going to break easy and should hold up to normal wear and tear for a long while. Install required I drill a hole in the bumper on my Ram 1500, not a big deal took 20 minutes. Instructions are very clear. Initially I leveled the camera (sits 26 inches off the ground). That was a mistake. even though picture is clear, you have no reference to the ground. An adjustment tilt on the rings of the camera took care of that. I had to dim one of my back up lights that was closest to the camera, otherwise the glare messes up the night vision mode. Cable provided would have been fine for a car but not for a full size pickup. Once installed, camera works great actually better than I thought. mine is flush mount, so I get about 175 degrees. If I had offset it out more I would get 190 degree. good color, clear and crisp. just dont expect it to work in the rain make sure you wipe it off once in a while. I have seen factory mounted cameras on Caddies and BMW. This camera is as good in most cases. The OEM cameras are only black & white this one is better because its color. Price is great. if you have any problem with backing up because of kids in back seat or blocked view you need this camera. I have already ordered one for my wifes Durango. well worth it.

I bought this to mount on the back of my 2 axle semi-turck to make it easier to line up the king pin with the fifth wheel. The camera itself works great, once I made a mounting bracket. I was worried the camera wouldn't hold up to the abuse of bouncing around on the back of the truck, but it's been a month now and it's still working very well. My only complaint is there were no instructions, it was simple enough to figure out the wiring, but the camera arrived in one of those formed plastic packaging with the manufacturer name and that was it. No other information, no mounting suggestion, wiring suggestions nothing, not even a website with support help.

I hooked this camera up to a JVC ADV49 and it is an excellent camera in both day and night. The picture is clear with little distortion, the camera was straight forward to hookup even without the instructions and I was surprised how durable it is. The only thing you need to make sure of is you have a place to drill a 1-1/8 inch hole and something to drill it with. Also make sure you have wire pliers that will cut 22 guage wire accurately. I hooked mine up to an external switch and those small camera wires were a bit of a pain but not impossible. Also there is an "up" on this camera so if you picture is tipped when you turn on your deck just rotate it until it is correct.

THE GOOD:

* Good resolution, enough for a backup cam, and in color (except at night)

* Provides an on screen overlay showing general "distance" bars, also great for lining your approach up for a parkingspot

* Sturdy, weatherproof, lengthy cable

* Very easy to install, basic instructions included (no need for deep instructions). Basically mount it, run the power wire, run the video wire, do a quick alignment check and you're done.

* Inexpensive, but the tradeoffs are below

THE BAD:

* It's sizable due to the LED's, larger than a quarter, and the way it's designed they expect you to mount it as such through a part of your vehicle or using a mount. Either way, unless it goes into a "black" part of the car or you have a black vehicle, it will be very visible from a distance

* The image on mine was 'reversed' or 'mirrored' meaning that something on the driver side of the vehicle is actually showing up as being on the passenger side. This is easily solved through some headunits and computer units, but for many folks it's not adjustable otherwise

OTHER NOTES:

* It appears the camera lacks a partial infra-red filter, in order to maximuize night-time ability of the LED's. As such, during really bright days the image may appear "greyscale" or objects will appear to be glowing. In shaded areas or overcast days everything looks crisp and in full color.

* The infra-red LEDs are actually "near" infra-red, so you will see a faint red glow from them

* The "distance" bars are NOT to scale unless you get the perfect mounting angle and height. See below in comments for more.

* The camera is low-power, drawing only 150mA @ 12VDC and should be tapped into the backup light power source. Should not be hard-wired such as to be always on, this will cause the unit to overheat, especially on a hot day. This is common sense stuff folks. There is no need for a fuse either, the wire is thin enough to be its own fuse.

* The camera appears to have a light sensor to detect the amount of daylight and turn on/adjust the LED's as necessary but I was unable to detect a difference as the LED's appeared to always be on

COMMENTS:

I would've given this a 4 star but I knocked it to 3 star due to the image being reversed, and that most people cannot fix this.

I've seen this unit being sold for much more, 2-3x as much, so I'm not sure if this $25 model is the same but with the flaws mentioned above, or if the more expensive unit also has the flaws. I would hope not.

In the end the downsides don't kill it for me because this is being piped into an onboard computer which I can then adjust the color/brightness and reverse the image so it looks proper as it should.

Regarding the distance bars, it's better to mount the camera in a way which best suits your needs. For some this means seeing a more horizontal image, and for others it may mean seeing a more vertical image. Once you've mounted it to your tastes, park the car with the image showing and take note of the ACTUAL distance respective to the bars on screen. This way you will know how to use them.

Some folks in other reviews mentioned their camera didn't come with "mounting rings" or a mounting kit, or they weren't sure why the camera came with "loose rings" or why it came with a threaded end.

When you get the camera there is a threaded ring at the "back". If you unscrew this, the "rings" will come loose. These rings are used for mounting purposes, some are angled. This way you can achieve proper mounting angle. For many folks, making your own mount may be best, but if you're going to simply drill a hole through a portion of your car, the included rings will help you.

Essentially you put one ring on one side of the hole you drilled, one on the other, then you slide the camera into the rings and tighten down the locking ring. You can set the angle as needed from there. They may not give you enough adjustability, so be creative and make your own mount or have someone do it for you.

Regarding "which way is up", my camera came with the quality assurance/passed-test sticker on the back of it in the exact "up" spot. Just plug it into a video display and see which way is up, that's the easiest anyhow. You have to do that as part of the install anyhow, so I'm not sure why some folks gave bad reviews simply because it wasn't marked "this side up".

Regarding the power wires I'm not sure why so many folks were confused. It comes with a barrel connector which has two pre-stripped wires, one of them a red wire, the other a black wire. The black is ground, the red is your positive (hot). Most folks should tap these into your backup-lights as long as the backup lights are 12volt.

If they aren't 12volt you might want to get someone who knows how to install a reverse switch, or to tap off of both lights in order to power the camera only when needed. Don't hard wire it to always be on, that will shorten the life of any camera, especially due to excessive heat.

This camera looks awesome on my 7" monitor. No black letterboxing, perfectly fits the entire screen. The quality is near HD, even in nightvision mode! A steal for the price!

The camera works great, a nice wide angle lense that works great in the dark. I installed this on an '06 Ford pick-up and had a hard time finding a spot for such a large camera. It required drilling a large hole in the bumper to mount. I just wish it has an easier more efficient way to install without having to modify your vehicle.

The Car Rear Camera HTC35 by XO Vision Co. CANNOT BE USED as any other camera because it has green, yellow and red lines and numbers on the screen that use up 1/3 of the screen. Its some kind of distance reticle cluttering up the screen that is useless unless the camera is perfectly level AND a calibrated certain size box object aproaches the camera. A nice company would tell you this before you bought it if you wanted to also use it as a door camera, baby room camera, bird nest camera. The image is also backwards like looking into a mirror in a car so left and right are reversed. Nothing in the paperwork about that either. When I backup boat trailers I never look in mirrors, I look thru the back window. When I bought the camera, it worked for only 8 seconds and burned out. I found the circuit board on the cord overheated so I figureed I would repair it as I am an engineer. I cut off the rubber sleeve and found a blob of solder shorting ground to the + end of the diode. I replaced the burned out diode and it worked ok again. Its was blurry too so I took the guts out of the weatherproof case and worked the glue on the focus loose and now it is nicely focused from 2 inches to infinity. During this the glue broke and the lense came loose from the board so I was then able to notice that the lense throws away half (50%) of the camera detector area. So you only get 420 to 480 lines not the full native 586 lines stated in the spec sheet. The night vision 8 IR LEDs has a sensor that turns on in medium low light and lights up a spot over 15 feet away but not the whole frame. The spot is about 1/4 fhe screen height. I guess this is because it takes too much wattage to illuminate the whole 170 degrees. This is a high quality camera but assembled by a sloppy company that wont even put its name on it or on the paperwork anywhere. But, the grammer mistakes were hilarious. My camera is repaired weatherpoofed and working great.

The anodized aluminum housing is impressive and worth 100$ or more with the 27.5mm threads and nut and a glass window. The included RCA-FF cable is 16' long for the sole RCA conn.NTSF signal output provided. Other specs of interest...NTSC (USA only TVs), 510x492-480 TV lines rated (628x586 CMD internal), 110ma/300ma at 12v and works ok up to 18 volts, cord=positive center, -20 to 90C (+3 to 194F impressive), waterproof, audio-none, S/N 48dB. 190 DFOV, 1.5 LUX (spec says 0.10 to 0.50 LUX at F1.2), shutter 20 usec at 1/60sec per frame.

I have been using this camera in conjunction with my Pioneer AVH-P4100DVD. The image is very nice. I would recommend this to anyone looking for a nice cheap backup camera.

First day I tried to install it I first was testing it. It actually worked perfect out of the box. So I set it aside and left it on while I went about making a mounting bracket for it. About 5 minutes later - I noticed when I handled it the housing was quite warm (not hot - but quite warm - not sure if this normal). Just about the time I finished making a bracket and went to install it - the image started cutting in and out. Wiggling the wires seems there might be a loose wire in the harness somewhere. Funny - I did not notice this when I was first playing with it. Eventually - even if I moved the wire to the point that it would work - the image on the screen was full of diagonal lines and not visible. It's dead now. It had a lifespan of about 30 minutes. Typical Chinese crap. If you get lucky and get a good one, you get a good deal. But it's always a crap shoot. And my luck as a gambler has always been bad. Buyer beware.

I ordered this camera for my 04 F150 along with a Wisecomm CA030Y 30-Feet Power and Video RCA Cable video cable to run the rca and power up into the cab of the truck. This camera works perfectly with my Pioneer head unit. $45 for camera and cable I could not have done any better. Its works perfectly and has very good night visablity. With this setup I did need a male to male coupler for the camera to cable connection if anyone else is planing to do this. Only complaint I have is that the power pable that came with the camera is very thin 26 Gauge wire that I had to souldering to make sure the connection was sercure. I plan on ordering this same setup for my brother-in-law.