Words by Perry Mack
All the glamour, glitz, sights and sounds of… our computer screen. SEMA360 was the name applied to this year’s virtual 2020 SEMA Show, which usually takes place the first week of every November in Las Vegas. We appreciated that the Specialty Equipment Market Association (SEMA) provided this avenue for manufacturers to showcase their new products for 2021. We marveled at what they accomplished in such a short time frame and we hope we don’t have to do it this way again – there’s no substitute for witnessing all the new gear and parts up-close- and-personal.
Once again, there were more than 2,000 products offered and choosing which to feature was an interesting but arduous task. Nevertheless, here is Part I of our Best of SEMA360 Showcase. These are the products that we can see ourselves buying for winter upgrades and spring projects, many of which we will be receiving to install, review and of course, abuse.
Brandmotion
FullVUE™ Rear Camera Mirror System
One of the latest tech features in new trucks and SUVs is a rearview mirror, which is not a mirror. Anyone with a truck cap or who has driven with a loaded truck (including three buddies in the back seat), or drives a Wrangler with an oversized tire knows that you may as well save the weight and pitch the rearview mirror out the window (kidding, sort of). Truck manufacturers are now offering a streaming rear video camera in their new models and Brandmotion offers one for all of us with used trucks. This is a camera out back – clear of caps, loads, buddies and tires – that provides a real time view of what’s behind you without blind spots and usually with a wider field of view (up to 3x larger) than you started with. Your rearview mirror is replaced with an HD video touchscreen monitor that lets you scroll the view up and down so you can look at traffic then check the load in your bed, or a downward view of the trail.
Brandmotion
SummitView™ Off Road Camera Systems
The way we gush about rock cams you’d think that we don’t have any friends to wheel with. Brandmotion’s SummitView™ Jeep Wrangler Quad Camera DVR System is a complete system of four cameras plus a DVR monitor. Out front is a centre-mounted camera plus two rock cameras that you mount in the corners of your bumper. Each camera has a 185-degree horizontal field of view (FOD) and 135-degree vertical FOD. They are IP68-rated water and dust-proof. Combined, they create a virtual spotter on the trail for you. The rear camera is just as durable but has a 150-degree horizontal view and 100-degree vertical view. Everything shows up on the 18 cm (7 in) touchscreen for four-channel simultaneous viewing. Brandmotion says it’s a six- to eight-hour DIY install, and we believe them having installed a few camera systems ourselves.