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Typically yes, the lifetime is really long.
(As I write this, the LED light bulb above my stove is flickering after only a year or so)
Since they only expect you to use the camera for a few hours a month, they might be driving the LEDs at an increased power to squeeze some more light out of them, and it reduces their lifetime to a few thousand hours. I'm not convinced of this myself but I'm just trying to come up with an explanation.
The camera was the first to show signs of going bad. The image got foggy, and out of focus, only after about 6 or 7 months. I thought moisture might have gotten inside the camera, as there it a small, single hole in the back of the housing. It would be better some days, worse on others. Remember, this is part of the high brake light. I packed silica gel all around the camera, under the brake lens, and tried to seal up the edges of the lens from water. No help.It's been a little over a year since I first installed it, and the IR LEDs went about a month ago. I have a new camera that should fit the lens, but I've been lazy about installing it.
That doesn't sound like a failure mode of a digital sensor. They might get stuck pixels, corruption, noise etc. I'm going to say that having it on all the time did not make your camera do that.
Yours is after market too. There's a chance they have a poor or that they even have no voltage regulator to the camera board. Consequently often over-driving the camera with voltage. People assume 12 volts, but realistically our vehicles are 14 volts. It fluctuates. The voltage that is. Maybe one, two or three volts does make a difference, but maybe it does. LED's are only 1 to 2 volts depending on the colour spectrum. After that they burn up.
Last edited by dberladyn; Dec 17, 2018 at 4:15 PM.
I keep my primary aftermarket brake light camera on all of the time. It is coming up on two years. My Van has no backdoor windows and consequently no rear view mirror. I love that the camera gives me a good view of what traffic is doing behind me. I run power directly to the camera from the battery. It is also triggered to come on from the reverse gear selector so that it activates immediately when backing up. Normally there is a 10 second delay before the head unit switches to the camera view. That is so the radio stations, input selection, volume and so forth can be adjusted. But following the delay of no input, it goes to the camera view. At any time touching the screen takes me back to the controls and the process repeats. I don't think that the IR Leds are relevant, at least not to me. In the day time they are obviously not needed. At night usually the streets are lit to the point where the Leds are not noticeable especially if someone is behind, headlights are quite bright. Then when reversing the backup lights come on and pretty much flood the relative area. I don't think I would even notice if the IR Leds went out altogether. If my camera failed I would replace it and use the new one the same way. Of course I am hoping it will last a few more years.
I want to get one of those dashcams that records. They are also motion activated, so you can record stuff while you're away from the vehicle. I wonder if it can be hooked up to the reverse camera to record that as well.
I have a Pioneer AVH-4201NEX, it's been about three years now and I still love it!
I was looking at Alpines' but they were more expensive and I liked the user interface better on the Pioneer.
One thing is that when it gets cold the touchscreen is not responsive (but the remote still works) so it takes like 5 minutes to warm up
in the winter. The camera views still work and display, just that any adjustments can't be made until it heats up a bit.
it is more purple in reality It is a sharp looking screen, nice and vibrant.
