As part of our continued Milwaukee 2015 & 2016 new product preview coverage, today we’re going to talk a little bit about their new M12 M-Spector Flex inspection camera system.
Milwaukee already offers a couple of M-Spector inspection camera solutions (current line via Home Depot), but this new one is very different.
The first demo unit I saw had an unusually long camera cable attachment box. Hmm… what does this knob do?
Ah, it adjusts the PivotView flex-head camera module! I was asked to be gentle with the test unit, and so it’s probably just a prototype.
Before I thought about how useful this will be for peering around obstacles and scanning inspection spaces for whatever I’m looking for, I thought about how this looks to be taken straight out of an action movie scene. You know the type, where there’s a SWAT guy peeking through an air vent or under a doorknob to gain an advantage on the bad guys.
Oh, and did I mention – it’s got a removable wireless display as well! This is a great feature for 2-person teams where one person holds the camera in awkward angles, and the other watches the display.
Dewalt offers a similar 12V Max inspection camera with removable wireless display ($250 via Amazon), but it lacks some of the benefits of Milwaukee’s system, not to mention the PivotView camera cable option.
Unlike the Dewalt model, you can charge the Milwaukee M-Spector Flex’s wireless display and control module through the handset, OR through the built-in USB port.
The standard M-Spector Flex unit is more compact and a little more lightweight, as it doesn’t have the large PivotView control module pushing forward.
You can swap in PivotView or standard cables whenever you’d like, as the interface features a standard connection port.
I forgot to ask whether you can use these new M-Spector Flex inspection cameras with Milwaukee’s previous generation of cables. The poster I saw showed a 3ft cable, 9ft cable, and PivotView cable.
The second demo unit had a 3ft standard cable attached.
Milwaukee’s product manager said something about how bright the LED lighting is on the camera cable modules, and it lit up the inside of a concrete tube form in a simulated demo. Brighter and wider LED lighting sounds great to me, as this is one area where a lot of inspection cameras fall short.
ETA: Oct 2015
Check out more of our Milwaukee NPS15 new tool coverage here!
First Thoughts
I’m pleased to see Milwaukee pushing forward with their inspection camera offerings, and the new M12 M-Spector Flex system definitely features some new innovations.
A wireless display is something that competitors, such as Dewalt and Extech, have offered for a while. It’s also something that won’t necessarily benefit all users. Milwaukee’s demo unit (prototype?) was suffering from wireless interference issues, and I believe I was told that the production unit might use different protocols. Or something about how what I was seeing isn’t indicative of how the production units will perform. I’ll need to get my hands on one to do some proper testing once they’re released.
The PivotView flex-head feature is definitely appealing. On more than one occasion I have struggled to get an inspection camera cable positioned just right. Either I can’t get enough of an angle, the rotation is off, or the bend is wrong. Tweak, tweak, tweak, and I eventually accept the almost there picture that I get. I think that the flexible camera head will allow for quicker and easier work, which for pros could mean saved time and money.
While I wish that Milwaukee could have built a 2-dimensional flexible camera cable that can be adjusted with joystick to move in X and Y axes, I can’t imagine that this would be easy to do. Being able to move back and forth in one dimension is a big enough feat, for now. Yes, Milwaukee engineers, I’m challenging you to start work on the PivotView 2.0 module, which should be smaller and cable of adjustment in both directions!