Ask HN: Video rearview mirror for a wheelchair?
Problem:
I'm quadriplegic and drive a powered wheelchair called the Permobil M400 3G[1] which is great. However, the streets are very narrow and when a vehicle is behind me I've no way of knowing how far behind me it is. The narrow streets seem to also act like canyons and mess with the sound of the vehicles, often making it sound like vehicles are behind me but it's actually one street over. Transit vans in the UK have wing mirrors at my head height and a few days ago I was clipped on the head by a police van, It wasn't serious demonstrates the problem.
Solutions So Far:
I had a Raspberry Pi 3 with a camera attached to my head rest and streamed the video to VLC running on my iPhone, however the lag was terrible. Tried configuring it so that the RPi connected to the Internet so my phone connected to it over the net but that was very slow. Instead I made a RPi Wi-Fi hotspot making a connection between my iPhone and the RPi which reduced the lag, but it was still too slow. By the time I see something with that kind of lag it's too late.
I'm also constrained by the fact that I can't build things myself and I'm surrounded by technophobes who would think building something electronic impossibly difficult, and then not even try. No idea why this is so and still haven't found a way round it.
So, anybody got any bright ideas about how I might solve this issue? If I were to write a wish list for this solution it would be:
1. As near to real-time video feed as possible 2. To be able to pick up the video stream on my iPhone as I can control my phone with the chin controller on my wheelchair 3. The components can be easily bought, put together and attached to my chair. 4. The solution doesn't cost a fortune, but obviously I need a solution so don't let that crimp your thinking too much.
TIA!
Stuart robotsandcake.org
[1]:http://www.permobil.com/en-GB/English/C/Products/M400-Corpus-3G/