Top-shelf touring motorcycles often come with full-on infotainment systems – but here's a touchscreen beauty you can plonk on any bargain-bin banger. NaviCam gives you dual dashcams, CarPlay, Android Auto, dual Bluetooth and tire pressure monitors.
Clamping to a handlebar or triple clamp via a super-flexible double ball joint mounting bracket, the NaviCam unit can be positioned wherever it's most useful on your bike, above or astern of your existing dash, and at any angle.
Installation looks simple enough; you plumb it into your battery for power, and run lines to the front and back of your bike for the two 1080p, 60-fps, image stabilized cameras if you've opted for those. For the (also optional) tire pressure sensors, we'd assume you'd just pop them on where your normal valve caps go. And it appears there's a wired, bar-clampable thumb button control too, if you're into that sort of thing.
And then ... well, you've got a fully weatherproofed, 6.8-inch, auto-dimming, ultrawide, touchscreen infotainment dash for your motorcycle, compatible with your Apple or Android phone. That means media and phone call control, maps, and whatever else it is people do on their CarPlay and Android Auto screens.
If you've gone for the dashcams, you can set them to record for fun, or you can have them looping to save incident footage on demand to a TF or SD card. You can also set the screen to act like a rearview mirror if that's your bag.
Dual Bluetooth (4.2 and 5.0 low energy) gives the NaviCam a connection to your phone, with screen-mirroring capabilities, and also connects it to a Bluetooth audio headset like the Cardo Packtalk Edge, if you've got one. This gives you voice control over the unit via Google Voice or Siri.
Starting at US$269 – and going up to US$339 with dual cameras and tire pressure sensors, it's notably cheaper than a TomTom navigation unit, and appears to do a whole heap more.
It is, however, a Kickstarter crowdfund, so standard cautions apply. But it's already well and truly funded, and Australian company Spedal says it'll deliver units anywhere in the world by November. Video below.
Source: Spedal NaviCam Kickstarter