ToughPIX or how to sell a cheap point&shoot for $2600

[chicken]

Here's an interesting rant about the quality and usability of explosion safe digital cameras:
http://www.aphotoeditor.com/2013/06/10/taking-pictures-on-an-offshore-oil-rig-is-serious-business/

And here's the product the rant is about:
http://www.cordexinstruments.com/products/intrinsically-safe-digital-cameras/toughpix-2300xp-series/

The article says the camera costs $5K, but you can find it for $2.6K on the web.

I get that the required certifications cost arm+leg and the some. But from what one can see on the product brochure, they opted to stuff the expensive housing with cameras from their local Walmart checkout line. 

Given that the housing is what actually makes this explosion safe, why wouldn't they opt for an even slightly more capable P&S? Those $150 extra shouldn't matter too much at that price range.

Would love to see a teardown of one of these

[ben_r_]

Ha ha reminds be of when Red Light Traffic Cameras started getting big. They were using cheap DSLRs inside them and charging a ton of money and leasing options for them. That is until people started figuring it out and cracking them open to steal the camera and spare us all the lameness of the product for a bit.

[Rasz]

Why is it explosion safe in the first place? Why bother when you can just stream pictures over wifi using $30 Wifi enabled SD card.

[mikeselectricstuff]

It would be possible, and not too hard  technically to build a reasonable quality intrinsically safe camera. Today's low voltages make things a lot easier as potential spark energies are proportional to the square of the voltage.
However intrinsic safety is something that needs to be designed in from the start, which probably isn't viable for the limited market of hazardous area digital camera, so the cheaper way is to make it extrinsically safe with a big heavy case, possibly filled with sand. There are various classifications for different environments, but it's not just a case of having a sealed box - it has to stay safe when dropped, and in some cases, testing assumes it gets full of gas and then ignites, and no flame must come out.
Once you've gone through all the approvals hoops, it is time consuming and expensive to change anything without jumping through most of them all over again, so a product needs to have a long lifetime, which is why this one uses an ancient camera design.
 

[chicken]

In all fairness, these have externally accessible batteries and I assume the USB port is also accessible without cracking open the case. So there's at least some electrical interfacing to the outside which complicates compliance.

Talking about USB, did I mention the matching $125 USB cable? 
http://www.cordexinstruments.com/products/intrinsically-safe-digital-cameras/toughpix-2300xp-series/accessories/cordex-xp-series-usb-communication-wand1/
(apiece, if you buy 12 that is http://www.newark.com/cordex/xp-322/usb-communication-wand-xp-series/dp/53W3073)

[daveshah]

Talking about USB, did I mention the matching $125 USB cable? 
http://www.cordexinstruments.com/products/intrinsically-safe-digital-cameras/toughpix-2300xp-series/accessories/cordex-xp-series-usb-communication-wand1/
(apiece, if you buy 12 that is http://www.newark.com/cordex/xp-322/usb-communication-wand-xp-series/dp/53W3073)

Stop talking it down. It's not a mere USB cabe, it's a USB communication wand!