Reverse driving accounts for simply 1% of all driving time, but it’s chargeable for roughly 25% of all accidents. A grimy backup digital camera in winter, mud season, or on dusty nation roads shouldn’t be a hypothetical inconvenience however a real security legal responsibility, one that the majority drivers have resigned themselves to both dwelling with or fixing by stepping out of the automobile each time. Mike Klein, a Vermont-based tinkerer with a characteristically no-nonsense method to annoying issues, received fed up sufficient to construct an answer in his storage. What began as a Ziploc-bag-and-zip-tie prototype strapped to his license plate has become the Lens Lizard, a compact, self-contained, remote-controlled backup digital camera washer that simply hit Kickstarter and has completely run away with its funding aim.
The idea is fantastically blunt. Lens Lizard mounts behind your license plate, sandwiched discreetly between the plate and the bumper utilizing your automobile’s current screw holes. No drilling, no wiring, no operating tubing by way of door gaps or beneath trim panels. The entire set up takes beneath 5 minutes with a normal screwdriver, and as soon as it’s on, it’s invisible. The unit itself homes a fluid reservoir, a battery pack, and a high-pressure nozzle that you just intention at your digital camera as soon as throughout setup after which by no means have to the touch once more. When your backup digital camera will get caked in snow/ice or street salt on a gray January morning, or buried beneath a slush splatter from the truck overtaking you on a Vermont freeway, you press a wi-fi distant button from contained in the automobile and a jet of washer fluid blasts the lens clear. Type of like a lizard or a chameleon hanging its prey with a pointy, swift flick of its tongue. Besides this time, it’s a concentrated jet of soapy water. Possibly a Pokémon reference would work higher however I don’t need Nintendo’s legal professionals sending me a stop and desist.
Designer: Mike Klein
Click on Right here to Purchase Now: $99 $149.99 ($50.99 off) Hurry! Solely 5 days left.
The engineering philosophy right here is aggressively sensible. Klein explicitly designed the Lens Lizard for Vermont winters, which suggests sub-zero temperatures, aggressive street salting, heavy snow, and the sort of freeze-thaw biking that destroys lesser supplies. The housing is sealed and constructed from automotive-grade supplies, and the battery and fluid reservoir are sized to final four-plus months between refills and recharges, which means you prime all the things up roughly as soon as per season.
Upkeep is a non-event: open the latch, refill with washer fluid, cost by way of USB-C, shut it again up. Klein’s origin story is price noting too, as a result of it provides the product a satisfying inner logic. He tried hydrophobic lens covers (they peeled), ceramic coatings (they did primarily nothing), and ultimately determined to simply construct a scaled-down windshield washer system for his license plate. The primary prototype was, by his personal admission, ridiculous. But it surely labored, and that was sufficient to inform him the concept had legs.
Lens Lizard works with any car the place the backup digital camera sits above the license plate, which covers 99% of vehicles on the street, pickup vehicles very a lot included. The product ships with assorted license plate screws to deal with totally different fastener sizes, and the adjustable nozzle helps you to dial within the spray angle to your particular digital camera place throughout preliminary setup. After that, the unit lives its total life tucked behind the plate, utterly out of sight. The wi-fi distant is puck-shaped and lives wherever you retain it within the cabin, a glove field, a cupholder, the middle console.
The Lens Lizard begins at simply $99 for the complete package as an early fowl low cost off its $149 price ticket. A twin bundle prices $189 in the event you’ve received two vehicles, and all bundles embrace the Lens Lizard unit, a wi-fi distant, a battery pack, and an assortment of screws that will help you set up the gizmo in your automobile. Given its particular design (and that each nation has a distinct license plate), the Lens Lizard solely ships to the US and Canada for now, though I’m certain a extra common model is within the works. Manufacturing is slated to start in April 2026, with delivery to backers deliberate for Might. For drivers in cold-weather states, high-dust areas, or wherever that sees critical street grime, it’s a tough worth proposition to argue with. Sure premium autos have had built-in digital camera washers for years, quietly tucked into the bumper plumbing. Klein has merely discovered how you can give everybody else the identical end result for beneath 100 bucks, no seller go to required.
Click on Right here to Purchase Now: $99 $149.99 ($50.99 off) Hurry! Solely 5 days left.
