Map and earn rewards while you drive with a dashcam made for mapping
About the Open Dashcam
The Open Dashcam (ODC) is an open source dashcam that is approved to operate on the decentralized mapping network. Hivemapper is building the first dashcam - the Hivemapper Dashcam - based on the Open Dashcam, but as an open source project other hardware manufactures can build their very own version of an Open Dashcam compliant device. We hope that others will build versions that are optimal for certain markets in the world, especially Asia, Africa, and South America.
What problem is ODC solving?
1.
"Set it and forget it" experience. To enable passive collection and support a large set of contributors on the mapping network, the experience must be "set it and forget it." The collected imagery must be automatically transferred to the Hivemapper Network.
2.
Location authenticity. The Hivemapper Network must trust that each device collecting on the network is providing accurate and authentic location information.
3.
Open source. By making the device fully open source, hardware partners can create, market, and sell unique dashcam devices for specific use cases and markets.
Key Capabilities
Open Dashcam must collect 4K imagery or above
Open Dashcam must dynamically adjusts frames per second to avoid over-collecting.
Open Dashcam must automatically transfer the collected imagery to the Hivemapper Contributor App where the content will be further compressed and uploaded to the Hivemapper Network over Wifi.
Open Dashcam must encrypt the GPS data to ensure the contributor's privacy and ensure the authenticity of the location data.
Open Dashcam must collect and transmit information about seen Helium hotspots to verify location.
Why is it open source?
Enables other manufactures to incorporate support for mapping within their own dashcam.
Enables the community to verify that the Open Dashcam is only collecting the information it needs for mapping, and not secretly recording your conversation or something else nefarious.
Enables the community to enhance features, fix issues, and generally contribute to the project.
Tech Specs
Below are the tech specs for the original version of an Open Dashcam compliant device that Hivemapper is building. Soon, the Hivemapper Foundation will detail the minimum specs required to operate a dashcam on the Hivemapper Network.
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Camera Specs
Imager: Sony IMX477 - a high resolution, rolling shutter CMOS image sensor
Resolution: 12.3 MP
Sensor Format: 1/2.3"
Sensor Type: Back Illuminated CMOS
Shutter: Rolling Shutter
Frame Rate: 10hz
Lens: CIL023
IR Cut Filter: T=50%@650nm+-10nm
F#: 1.8 Fixed
Vertical FOV: 93.9 degrees
Horizontal FOV: 110 degrees
Distortion: <5% TV
Imager Circle: 8.5mm
Image Processing
Raspberry Pi Compute Module 4
Quad-Core Cortex-A72 (ARM v8) 64-Bit SOC @ 1.5GHz
To ensure the Open Dashcam does not needlessly over-collect the Open Dashcam and Hivemapper App will work together to ensure that frames collected while a vehicle is stopped or parked are not collected.
Lora: Semtech SX1262 LoRa Transciever and support for Helium
Lora Antenna: 915MHz, 860MHz, 490MHz, 433MHz support planned depending on region
GPS: U-Blox NEO-M9N or similar
GPS Antenna: Kyocera AVX 1004322 or simliar
The Open Dashcam connects to Hivemapper App via APIs to transfer imagery and Hivemapper App is responsible for processing and uploading to the Hivemapper Network
Sensors, storage, and power
IMU: critical for dynamically adjusting FPS
eMMC drive: Min of 16GB. Stores operating system image, and can store minimal amounts of imagery
The Open Dashcam is being designed to connect to the Hivemapper Contributor App enabling backhaul (aka upload) of the data to the Hivemapper Network.
General
View live imagery - from the Hivemapper Contributor app you can view the live imagery feed.
Warnings - the Hivemapper Contributor app will warn you if the Open Dashcam is not configured or mounted properly.
Storage - view the amount of storage currently available.
Data offload
Transfers imagery - the primary capability is to transfer imagery from Open Dashcam to Hivemapper App. The app will show yow how much imagery has been transferred from the Open Dashcam to the Hivemapper Contributor App over the past day, week, month.
Limit imagery transfer - one can limit the frequency and amount of imagery that is transferred.
Mounts
There are four approved mounts when contributing with a dashcam on the Hivemapper Network. The Open Dashcam must support one or more of those mount positions.
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Build an Open Dashcam compliant device
If you want to be one of the first contributor map mining with the Open Dashcam, please contact us at [email protected]