Our long-term 2012 BMW X3 xDrive35i (say that 5x fast) has a fancy-pants back-up camera system. Fancy, in that you can personalize several of the settings throught the iDrive controller.
The back-up camera is part of the Technology Package that will debit your checking account
by $3,200(!!).
On the jump I provide two epic vids.
Check out what you can personalize on the back-up cam...
With the iDrive controller you can:
- Switch from back-up camera to top view (very useful for tight parallel parking)
- Vary brightness
- Increase/decrease contrast
- Show pathway and turning circle lines (you may or may not find them useful)
- Obstacle marking, with a small square with a color that matches the parking sonar warning, show in the Top View pic on the right of the screen. As I got closer to the ladder both the obstacle dectection square and the parking sonar color would turn yellow, then red
Pathway lines help the driver estimate the space required when parking (on a level road) and is dependent on the steering angle. Turning circle lines show the course of the smallest possible turning circle (on a level road.)
The videos are similar. The first one shows the obstacle detection in action, while the clearer second video does not.
What do you think? Is all this useful, or not really?
Albert Austria, Senior VE Engineer @ 2,500 miles
tjpark01 says:
05:08 PM, 02/16/12
very helpful especially for people who are parking challenged. Does this one have the option of parallel parking the car for you? Sure I know how to park, but it comes in handy at times and you're much more likely to damage the car parking it than you are driving it.
smrtypants44 says:
06:29 AM, 02/17/12
With the top view mode it seems to use up a lot of screen real estate for two very similar functions. Can you set it to top view and rear view at the same time?
lucien4 says:
08:36 AM, 02/17/12
Looks good and object marking might be useful perhaps if it's dark (assuming this camera is low light sensitive).
Can you adjust the brightness without having to go through a menu? Or is the auto-adjust so effective you don't have to?
$3200 doesn't seem unreasonable for navigation and backup camera. However I think you can only order this package with the premium package of $3450. So if you only want backup camera you're spending almost $7K...