A recent road trip gave me a new product idea.
Before the trip, I bought an Insta360 camera because road trips are full of moments you cannot plan for: a mountain suddenly appearing around a bend, a lake opening up beside the highway, a sunset over the coast, or a deer crossing the road for just a few seconds.
A 360° camera sounds perfect for this. In practice, I found it surprisingly awkward.
- If I mount the camera inside the car, I have to deal with windshield reflections, dashboard glare, dirt, rain and limited angles.
- If I mount it outside, I need a reliable bracket, weather protection, power, and some confidence that it will still be there after two hours on the highway.
Then I discovered the bigger problem:
I am driving.
When something beautiful appears, I should be looking at the road, not searching for a Record button.
And by the time I think, “I should record this,” the best moment may already be behind me.
That made me wonder – Why should the driver decide when to start recording?
Modern cars already have plenty of cameras.
Cars Already Have Eyes
A modern vehicle may have a forward ADAS camera, surround-view cameras, parking cameras, rear cameras and digital mirror cameras.
Some automakers are already using those cameras for recording.
- BMW Drive Recorder can use the vehicle’s surround-view cameras to capture driving footage, including scenic routes.
- Polestar 4 can use an exterior-facing camera for photos and video, and its dashcam can be controlled by voice.
- Garmin dashcams already let drivers say things like “Save Video” and preserve footage from around the time of the command.
So the building blocks are already here.
But I think there is still a missing step. Most automotive cameras were designed for machines, not for beautiful travel video. ADAS cameras care about lanes, pedestrians and traffic lights. Surround-view cameras often use extreme wide-angle or fisheye lenses because their job is to see the pavement around the vehicle.
That is very different from filming mountains, lakes and coastlines.
The Idea: RoadScape AI
I call the idea RoadScape AI.
I do not think of it as another dashcam.
I think of it as:
Automotive Visual Memory
The most important command would not be:
“Start recording.”
It would be:
“Save what I just saw.”
Imagine driving through the Canadian Rockies. A beautiful mountain appears on your right.
Ten seconds later, you say:
“Hey RoadScape, save that mountain on my right.”
RoadScape replies:
“Got it.”
A few seconds later, a clean video clip of that mountain appears on your phone.
You never touched the camera, you never touched your phone, and you did not have to predict the moment before it happened.
How Can It Save Something That Already Happened?
The cameras would continuously record into a circular buffer.
For example, they might always keep only the most recent five minutes.
NOW
│
├── Front Camera ── last 5 minutes
├── Left Camera ── last 5 minutes
└── Right Camera ── last 5 minutes
Old video is overwritten unless the system decides it is worth keeping.
But RoadScape would go beyond a simple “Save Video” command.
Consider:
“Save the mountain I just saw on my right.”
That sentence contains three useful clues:
“just saw” — time
“on my right” — direction
“mountain” — meaning
RoadScape could search recent footage from multiple cameras, find the mountain, compare the available views and save the best one.
Now the system is not just recording video.
It is searching memory.
Three Cameras Instead of a Gimbal
If I built the first version, I would probably use three fixed cameras:
Left + Front + Right
The front camera would look straight ahead.
The left and right cameras would point perhaps 60–70 degrees outward.
Together, they could cover most of the useful scenery in front and beside the vehicle.
I would avoid a mechanical gimbal.
- No motors.
- No moving parts.
- No waiting for the camera to rotate.
The software turns its attention instead of the hardware turning its head.
I would also mount the camera outside the windshield, ideally in a low-profile bar on the roof or roof rack. That avoids many of the reflections and obstructions that made me start thinking about this idea in the first place.
A Maker Could Build This Today
This is where I think the idea becomes especially interesting for the Tindie community.
The first prototype does not need a custom PCB.
It could be built from existing modules:
- three USB cameras,
- a Jetson Orin Nano, RK3588 board or even a laptop,
- an SSD,
- a GNSS module,
- an IMU,
- Wi-Fi,
- a 12V power converter,
- and a 3D-printed camera mount.
The first version does not even need 4K. 1080p is enough to answer one question:
Does “Save What I Saw” actually work?
The software can also be built step by step.
First:
“Save that.”
Save video from a few seconds before and after the command.
Then:
“Save the view on my right.”
Now add direction.
Then:
“Save that mountain on my right.”
Now add visual recognition.
Later:
“Did we capture the deer we saw five minutes ago?”
Now it starts becoming true visual memory.
AI Changes How a Maker Can Build It
A few years ago, a project like this would have required a lot of software experience.
- Multi-camera video.
- FFmpeg or GStreamer.
- Speech recognition.
- GPS.
- Databases.
- Computer vision.
- A phone interface.
Today, an AI coding agent can help build those pieces one at a time.
For example:
“I have three USB cameras on Ubuntu. Keep the latest five minutes from each camera as rolling video segments.”
Then:
“Sample one frame every 500 ms and store image embeddings with timestamp and camera ID.”
Then:
“Build a mobile webpage with Front, Left and Right previews and a Save That button.”
A hardware Maker no longer needs to be an expert in every software layer before trying the idea.
The important skill becomes:
Can I break the product into the right problems?
That is a pretty big change.
From Weekend Prototype to Tindie Product
If the idea works on the bench, then I would start reducing the mess.
- Replace the laptop or development board with a custom carrier board.
- Replace USB cameras with embedded camera modules.
- Add proper automotive power protection.
- Add weather sealing.
- Design a low-profile enclosure.
- And instead of manufacturing thousands of units, I would probably make 20 or 30.
- Put them on Tindie.
- Let people who love road trips, RVs, overlanding, photography and computer vision try them.
The first product might not even need to be a finished consumer device.
It could be:
- a three-camera kit,
- a RoadScape development board,
- a printable mounting system,
- or a complete open-source developer kit.
That is also where the Maker community becomes useful.
- Someone may put it on a motorcycle.
- Someone may install it on an RV.
- Someone may use it on a boat.
- Someone may turn it into a wildlife observation system.
The product may become something different from what I originally imagined.
That is often the fun part.
And Maybe Crowdfunding Comes Later
I would not want to start with a few renderings and immediately launch a crowdfunding campaign.
I would rather do it in this order:
IDEA
↓
OFF-THE-SHELF PROTOTYPE
↓
WORKING SOFTWARE
↓
REAL DEMO
↓
20–50 TINDIE UNITS
↓
USER FEEDBACK
↓
CUSTOM HARDWARE
↓
CROWDFUNDING
↓
PRODUCT
Crowdfunding should help pay for tooling, custom electronics, weatherproofing, certification and manufacturing.
It should not be the first test of whether anyone wants the idea.
In the AI era, this may become a very interesting way for independent Makers to build products.
The old path was often:
Have an idea → find a team.
The new path may increasingly become:
Have an idea → buy a few modules → build the first version with AI.
Then ask:
Are there another 1,000 people who want one too?
Where Could RoadScape Eventually Go?
The most interesting long-term version may not need its own cameras at all.
Future cars may already have six, eight or ten cameras.
RoadScape could compare all available views and choose the one with the best sharpness, exposure, composition and least distortion.
The car already has the eyes.
RoadScape would provide the:
memory and intelligence.
At the end of a road trip, I do not want six hours of raw video.
I want to open an app and see:
287 km driven
32 scenic moments found
11 moments saved
Then ask:
“Make a one-minute video from the best mountain scenes today.”
Or:
“When did we first see the lake?”
Or:
“Did we capture that deer beside the road?”
At that point, RoadScape is no longer really a camera.
It becomes:
A visual memory of the journey.
What Do You Think?
I do not know if three cameras are the right answer.
Maybe one 360° camera is better.
Maybe cameras near the side mirrors would work better.
Maybe the real product should be software that uses cameras already built into the car.
That is exactly why I want to start this I Have an Idea series.
These are not finished products.
They may not even all be good ideas.
They are simply real-life problems that make me stop and wonder:
Could we build this differently today?
So, if you are a Tindie Seller:
How would you build RoadScape?
If you are a Buyer:
Would you put one on your car?
And if your vehicle already has a collection of cameras:
Would you like automakers to let Makers build new applications with them?
I would love to hear what you think.
source https://blog.tindie.com/2026/09/i-have-an-idea-01-what-if-your-car-could-remember-the-view-you-just-saw/
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