Rear camera not heated. First REAL Gripe.

[Murse-In-Airy]

First really snowy drive home from work this morning. Then I tried to back into my garage. This is my backup camera view:

C’mon @Ford Motor Company. You heated the front camera so that hopefully driver assist features would keep working. You even have it it’s own washer nozzle. How about showing a little love to the back side too.

Over 20K miles between our two cars and this is the first thing that I can say is unacceptable.

 

[Kevin P]

I have never owned a car with a heated rear camera. Three Fords, a BMW, and a Toyota.

 

[snowy_91]

That's not really a thing...

 

[RickMachE]

Had no idea the front camera was heated, but the reality is that driving in the conditions you show many of the advanced features are not going to work properly. Windshields get a buildup up top, likely going to block everything that's at the mirror location too.

I keep a rag in the door pocket to clean cameras off as needed.

 

[ShadowCVL]

it would be difficult to heat the rear camera, you would have to heat the panel around it to avoid thermal shock. The front is easier as it gets wind head on. but, the larger problem would be that salt and road grime would then collect at the bottom of the camera and make it progressively dirtier very quickly, that could be solved with a spritzer like the front has though.

I guess its possible if thought out correctly. I may be overthinking this, but doesnt the rear window sprayer run off directly on the camera?

 

[ShadowCVL]

Had no idea the front camera was heated, but the reality is that driving in the conditions you show many of the advanced features are not going to work properly. Windshields get a buildup up top, likely going to block everything that's at the mirror location too.

I keep a rag in the door pocket to clean cameras off as needed.

this is the answer for me, microfiber, clean the dash screens then cameras, a whole package of them is like 7 bucks.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

That's not really a thing...

But it could be if Ford had wanted it to be. Not THAT big an issue for me as I learned to drive before backup cameras were a thing. Now that they are a thing, rendering them useless 4 months a year IS a thing I guess, which doesn’t make any sense as they were initially mandated as a safety factor. Rendering a safety factor useless seems illogical, especially when a large portion of drivers these days, have never been without a backup cam.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

it would be difficult to heat the rear camera, you would have to heat the panel around it to avoid thermal shock.

Looks like it can be done without heating the whole panel. If it can be done with an aftermarket add on camera, no reason it can’t be done with an OEM camera.

 

[generaltso]

C’mon @Ford Motor Company. You heated the front camera so that hopefully driver assist features would keep working.

The rear camera does get warm. I'm not sure if that's intentional heating or a side effect of something else, but it happens. I haven't seen any evidence through my thermal camera that the front camera gets warm though. I also can't find evidence that the windshield wiper area is heated even though I've seen that on spec sheets.

 

[ShadowCVL]

Looks like it can be done without heating the whole panel. If it can be done with an aftermarket add on camera, no reason it can’t be done with an OEM camera.

not to be that guy… but… those pucks are heating around the camera not the camera itself, since the camera is mounted inside the panel you would have to heat the panel. I didn’t mean the whole panel though just 3 inches around it. The problem you still run into is that with wind and ice your camera could easily be below freezing even with heating, the Leiden frost effect would be sorta reversed here and instead of snow building up you would get strait ice that would encase around the camera. On the front it’s not that big of an issue.

honestly a better fix for this would be to prevent the snow from hitting the camera with some sort of deflector, neither of my other vehicles have this issue with the camera.

 

[Jimrpa]

I’ll just leave this here (in the glovebox) and slowly back away ?

 

[shoopla]

Yeah not a bad recommendation for the future to have it heated. But I agree with others that I've never actually seen this implemented. Even my Volvo, which has an electrically heated windshield and heated washer fluid does not have a heated rear camera. I just always remember to wipe it off when clearing snow and wipe off the dirty salt residue as needed.

 

[Murse-In-Airy]

Yeah not a bad recommendation for the future to have it heated. But I agree with others that I've never actually seen this implemented. Even my Volvo, which has an electrically heated windshield and heated washer fluid does not have a heated rear camera. I just always remember to wipe it off when clearing snow and wipe off the dirty salt residue as needed.

In my defense, it was clean when I left work. 9 miles later it was worthless. A great feature that is wasted isn’t such a great feature.

 

[walla2]

In my defense, it was clean when I left work. 9 miles later it was worthless. A great feature that is wasted isn’t such a great feature.

When I lived on Long Island, this was a constant gripe with my Highlander's backup camera and it's adaptive cruise control. Only a slight snow (with clear roads) could take down both systems within 5 miles.

Unfortunately, I think it just is what it is, until Volvo (it's always Volvo, isn't it?) adds a camera wiper or heater or new tech. But I've not seen it on any other vehicle.

 

[Awmustang]

My Edge has a sprayer for both the front and rear camera. It's very nice. I'll use it even just in rain if a rain drop is obscuring enough of the camera.

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