Michael Browning•3 Feb 2017

FEATURE

Top-10 caravan conveniences

Age and health are no barrier to a long caravanning life, thanks to the latest travel tech

It’s the sad truth. Just when we have time to travel, most of us are getting older and less able to wrestle a big off-roader around, climb the steps to its dizzy heights, scale its roof to clean its solar panels, pop a heavy top, or understand its complex battery and solar management systems...

But like antibiotics, caravanners of a certain age have been thrown a lifeline by the range of caravan conveniences currently on the market.

Sensing an emerging market and a retirement investment to be tapped, a number of companies are developing products that make it easier to hitch and unhitch your van, park it on a site, control its sway, or even find it if you’ve had a ‘Seniors moment’.

Let’s look at 10 latest technologies designed to keep you caravanning well past your use-by date...

CARAVAN MOVERS

There’s a wide range of movers on the market, both portable and caravan mounted to suit single and tandem axles and different van weights and sizes.

Some feature a 50mm tow ball coupling, while the fancier ones, like

Purple Line’s ‘e-go’being mounted to the chassis and driving the wheels via a toothed gear acting on the tyres.

Prices for movers acting directly on the wheels start at around $1300, depending on the weight of the van, but battery operated portable units cost somewhat less.

There’s also

portable, jockey wheel units, costing around $500 either manually operated or running on batteries (like the

Optitec or the

tank-like Camper Trolley that cost upwards of $2000 to $3000.

NO FUSS MIRRORS

There is a myriad of towing mirrors on the market, but the ‘Rolls-Royce’ of them all is the

Australian-designed ClearView that replaces the production rear view mirror on most popular 4WDs.

These ADR-certified mirrors feature a much larger head than usual (based on a US Chevrolet Silverado) and can usually be swapped for your standard exterior mirrors in less than 30 minutes by an experienced fitted.

By including both a flat and a convex mirror in the head, they give you a much wider field of view than regular mirrors, while they slide out either ele3ctrically or manually 9depending on the model) to the width on an extended arm ancillary mirror for towing.

One great feature of the Clearview is that they don’t fold in when a big B-Double passes in the opposite direction; another is that you can retain – or sell – the mirror heads when you sell your vehicle, as your original mirrors can be replaced as quickly as they were removed.

There is also a ready market for pre-loved ClearView mirrors that can take some of the pain out of their normal new retail price, which varies from model to model but is usually around $800-$900.

REAR VIEW CAMERAS

There’s a wide range of rear view cameras available for your caravan, camper trailer or motorhome these days, making it easier for you to get on site without engaging trees, wandering children, or their bikes.

Some see in black and white; some in colour, others in the dark and some have a wide field of view that can allow you to see the traffic behind you in the monitor when you’re toiling up a long hill.

The range is bewildering and one of the specialists is

Safety Dave. Off-road accessories specialists like

ARB also offer reverse camera systems.

TYRE PRESSURE MONITORS

Tyre pressure monitors are a great idea, as they may save you the stress of changing a tyre by monitoring its pressure and temperature on the fly.

There are several units on the market – some like the

Inawise system that have the temperature sensors located in the tyre valve itself and others like

Tyre Dog and Safe-T-Tyre systems in which the sensor is located in the replacement valve cap.

All systems then display the systems via Bluetooth on a remote monitor that you attach to your windscreen inside your tow vehicle.

Prices vary depending on how many wheels on your tow car, caravan or motorhome you want to monitor but range roughly from $450-$800 for a kit for most cars and tandem axle caravans, plus fitting if required.

ANTI-SWAY DEVICES

Both

Al-Ko and Dexter offer electronic stability control for caravans but they operate in different ways.

With Al-Ko ESC, a yaw sensor detects a pre-set unacceptable level of sway and then applies all the caravan brakes together to arrest the sway until it’s under control.

The American Dexter DSC applies the brakes at an earlier threshold to the brakes on one side of the caravan or the other to achieve the same goal and also switches off automatically in choppy off-road conditions to avoid the system acting too nervously.

I’ve tested both exhaustively and both really work. Being more gentle and progressive, the Dexter system is perhaps better suited to the novice caravanner.

More than half of all caravans over two tonnes sold in Australia are now fitted with one or the other system and as a reward, major caravan insurers will give you a discount on your premium if either is fitted.

If not standard, dealers will usually try to get you to pay anything from $750 to $1500 to have it fitted on your new van, but it’s a haggling point and few people end up paying.

BATTERY CONDITION MONITORS

How much juice is left in your caravan’s or camper’s battery? It’s the question every remote area caravanner or camper wants to know, every day.

Most new caravans costing over $60,000 will have a gauge that tells you this, but cheaper and older vans may not. This is where

Setec’s innovative App-driven BatteryCheck becomes invaluable.

This easy-to-install mobile phone-size device developed by BM Pro connects to deep cycle batteries and communicates by Bluetooth with your smart phone to provide real-time battery status data that will allow you to modify or change your power usage before your fish go off or the beer goes warm.

The BatteryCheck costs around $250 and the downloadable App is free. All you need to do is run your battery’s current through it via simple, universal connections and the your battery, or batteries’ status and the current drain and replenishment of it, will be displayed on your Apple or Android smart phone App.

If you have multiple deep cycle batteries, as many caravans have, you simple connect it to one and as long as they are joined in parallel (as most are) the device will give you a total battery system readout that includes volts and amps, time remaining, temperature, battery status, state of charge and battery health.

ONE-STEP HITCH

Hitching up a caravan is one of the more physical things senior travellers do outdoors.

It’s usually a two-handed job and you need to have the tow ball directly under the coupling and not on an angle to engage it cleanly and safely.

After all that, many people forget to drop the locking latch – or in the case of a Hitchmaster DO-35 off-road coupling, press the black button to engage the pin lock. So the van hops off on the first big bump, which can be embarrassing, expensive or downright dangerous.

Retired Melbourne surgeon David Allsop is currently working on a new 3.5 tonne version of his

new Hitch-Ezy coupling that will allow the coupling to automatically engage and then lock onto its unique towing tongued pillar, removing any of the guesswork or human error from the process.

It’s a lighter, simplified version of the unique five tonne rated coupling he has developed with Melbourne’s Yann engineering as part of a

tow kit marketed by Lovells for big tow cars, like the Toyota LandCruiser 200 Series.

But you’ll have to wait for it, as it’s not due on the market until early 2017, by when it’s expected to retail at around $450.

CARAVAN TRACKING

Carrying and fitting a range of heavy hitch and wheel locks for your caravan or camper is one way to stop it being stolen, but there’s an easier way to keep track of your home away from home.

Security features such as tracking devices, alarms and

hitch and wheel locks have been available for years on caravans sold in the UK and Europe.

But now some of the technology has made its way to Australia with the launch of a new,

hi-tech anti-theft system for caravans, camper trailers and motor homes.

Developed in conjunction with Sydney-based Black Knight Global Tracking Systems, which sells similar, matchbox-sized devices for cars, bikes and other products, the GPS global tracking device utilises state of the art M2M (machine to machine) connectivity powered by the Vodafone network.

Al-Ko says that unlike other tracking devices that require a SIM card and a mobile phone plan with data limits, the in-built M2M connectivity chip provides almost instant global connectivity in over 200 countries with unlimited data, and no roaming charges or hidden fees.

With no removable SIM card, the 25g 'black box' cannot be re-used or re-tasked if stolen, and comes bundled with 12 months connectivity upon purchase.

Once activated, the device’s alarm system is triggered if the vehicle is moved, with geo-position updates sent every 15 seconds via the free Black Knight App on your Smartphone. This delivers real time tracking, while also logging a history of its travels and stopping time and locations with a playback history of up to 12 months.

The stolen goods can then be located with an accuracy of around five metres anywhere in the world, rather like the ‘Find my iPhone’ feature on portable Apple devices.

Al-Ko ATS comes bundled with a minimum of 12 months global connectivity for $599 and after this has lapsed, your connectivity will be charged out at $12.99 per month.

SINGLE KEY LOCKING

I don’t know about you, but I am continually frustrated when reviewing caravans by the huge bunch of keys I’m handed, with a different one for every lock, hatch, water cap, picnic table and toilet hatch.

It’s a common problem with Australian caravans, that are built with a wide range of propriety components, often in small numbers, while the major European caravans like Bailey manage to get by with a single key.

Australian accessory specialist

Camec has a one-key solution that will fit most lockable items on the outside of your caravan or motorhome. For some new locks the keyed alike barrels simply replace the existing barrel, while for other locks you need to replace the barrel holder before you can install your new One-Key barrel.

Barrel kits are available to suit a number of different locks, and each kit has one long barrel and the balance as short barrels to fit Camec lockable water fillers, most T-handle boot locks, Thetford toilet and access doors, access door lock housings and Camec three-point door locks.

And the cost? Unfortunately, one-key convenience doesn’t come cheaply and the price per lock varies from $38 for a single lock to $88 for a set of seven, keyed alike barrels.

That’s if you fit it yourself. On-line forums suggest the cost of having a locksmith doing the job would be around $12 per barrel and if you have up to 17 different keys (as some caravans have) that will start to add up..

AUTOMATIC ENERGY-SELECTING FRIDGES

Tired of warm beer., limp lettuces and smelly steaks because your caravan or motor home fridge let you down?

The latest Automatic Energy Selection (AES) three-way fridge/freezers like those made by

Dometic and

Thetford overcome the problem by automatically connecting to the best available energy source, without your intervention, whether you’re on or off the grid.

When you’re travelling and therefore the gas is off and not connected to mains power, AES will automatically select 12-volt power. However, when you pull up on site and connect to 240v, AES will recognise that as being a better power source and automatically switch over.

The smart part is that even with your gas bottle turned on to feed your stove or space heater, the AES fridge will still select mains over gas as the superior energy source unless you manually instruct it otherwise.

However if you’re free-camping, it will automatically elect gas over 12v once the tow car’s plug is disconnected and the tap on the bottle is turned on.

If 12v power is disconnected and the gas is not turned on, the fridge will let you know that the superior energy source (gas) is not connected and flash a red light, warning you to turn it on!

If you have neither gas nor mains powder available, you can run the fridge on 12v alone, but it will drain your battery pretty quickly and shut down completely if the 12V DC goes drops below 9V DC.

Top-10 caravan conveniences

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