While CarPlay/Android Auto head units have dipped to $200 in price, dashcams are seeing increasing activity at the higher end, said industry members.
With accessories and installation, $1,000 dashcam tickets at a reasonable margin are achievable. And as dashcams include more new technology, some are calling them the new head units for car audio dealers.
Tom Sweere of Beach Autosound, CA said, “It blows me away when I see people [dealers] say, ‘Maybe we should embrace the dashcam.’ We’ve been doing them since 2012 or 2013. I probably have 50 in stock. This is the new head unit. The new ones are all good, they don’t come back and there’s a few you can make money with.”
George Smith of Mobile Works, CA agreed. He carries Momento. He said, “Car dealerships aren’t selling them and it’s not coming equipped [at the] factory. I sell a unit for $319, that’s the price of Apple CarPlay. Then there’s labor for the install and a front and rear camera so now we’re at $620.”
Dashcams have also become a new vessel for bringing advanced features into the car. These can include lane departure warning and early crash warnings, real-time peak-ins to a parked car, soon-to-come thermal imaging and even CarPlay and Android Auto. Some dashcams can warn a drowsy driver and many brands now offer multiple camera views for monitoring truck beds, rear passengers, etc.
Whether you agree with likening the device to a kind of utility head unit (and not all dealers contacted did) the dashcam category is growing. And as the products become more complex, dashcam makers are pursuing brick and mortar specialists as outlets and new companies are entering the fray.
Thinkware said its Q1 sales were up 33 percent.
Amazon dashcam sales are down overall for the whole category for Q1, said Vantrue. But Vantrue’s sales in other channels are up by double digits.
Dashcam makers new to the market include VOXX, which recently launched its AI Dash Cam ACADC5 4K with forward collision warnings, rear traffic alerts, and pedestrian detection. Vueroid entered the US market last September with its well-reviewed S1 4K Infinite.
Aftermarket supplier Rydeen will offer its first universal dashcams, the MINy360 and MINy360X this quarter.
“Consumers are starting to recognize the value of premium solutions, giving us the opportunity to sell better, higher end cameras,” said Nathan Dunn of CarTronics, TN. He sells Momento, Thinkware and VOXX.
The dashcam is the biggest thing in a while, said Chris Pitts of Car Toys, TX. He wouldn’t go so far to call it the new head unit, but said it has become the new door buster, as portable GPS was once. “We get a lot of non-car audio people calling us asking ‘Do you do dash cameras? I got one for Christmas, can you install it?’ It’s a bridge to a demographic that usually wouldn’t shop in a car stereo store. “
Ben Delgrosso of Safe Drive Solutions, Canada, a dashcam-only retailer, agreed some consider dashcams the new head unit. But he noted, “I think car audio retailers are looking at it as an accessory, an add-on like an amp kit, not like a full category. The retailers that understand it as a full category are doing well with it.”
