575 fellow truck campers reveal their tech attitudes, and the results are sure to have the industry’s phones scrolling. Tech on or tech off for truck campers? That’s the big truck camping question!
Industry leaders routinely ask us about your interest in the latest systems and components. These items are increasingly all-electric, computer-controlled, and phone-monitored. Their thinking is, why wouldn’t you want to monitor your solar panel output and battery charge state from your phone?
The answer is we probably do, but we’re more interested in having a truck camper that’s intuitive to use, can handle the rigors of the road, and works reliably. Anyone who has had a camper system or component fail while on a truck camping trip quickly realizes the wiz-bang features don’t matter when the turnbuckle hits the fantastic vent.
And yet, there’s an undeniable interest in seeing our truck campers evolve, embrace new technology, and innovate into the future. The question is, how does the industry do this in a way that doesn’t jeopardize our precious vacation time and trips of a lifetime?
With that challenge in mind, we conducted a little tech attitude check. The results are illuminating.
1. How would you rate your interest in a truck camper with 100% cutting-edge, all-electric, computer-controlled, and phone-monitored systems and components?
When we created this survey, we tried to envision where truck camper systems were ultimately going. It’s hard not to predict that they’ll be—or already are—all-electric, computer-controlled, and phone-monitored. Love it or hate it, that’s the path we seem to be on.
From the results, we can see that more respondents are either not interested or only slightly interested in this path. If we take out the moderately interested results, it’s 20 percent extremely interested or very interested, and 62% slightly interested or not at all interested.
This is tough news for the truck camper industry that is almost forced to accept more and more all-electric, computer-controlled, and phone-monitored systems and components as the old technology is phased out by suppliers. One example is the decline in the availability of three-way gas and electric refrigerators. The camper manufacturers can get them, but the suppliers are phasing them out for 12-volt models.
2. How would you rate your interest in a truck camper with 100% traditional propane-fueled systems including a propane-fueled refrigerator, cooktop, water heater, and furnace?
Taking the opposite extreme, we asked about interest in campers with only traditional propane-fueled systems. The results were mixed. You can see a preference for the traditional systems and components, but the top response was the least committed, moderately interested.
Taking out moderately interested, we can see a clearer picture; 43.6% are extremely or very interested, and 30% are slightly interested or not interested at all.
The question is, what is the truck camper industry supposed to do with this result? Perhaps it’s a sign to move forward with new technology carefully, and not assume that every customer will be thrilled with the latest all-electric, computer-controlled, phone-monitored system or component. In fact, they’re likely to be skeptical until proven otherwise.
3. How would you rate your interest in a hybrid truck camper where every onboard system and component is cutting-edge and electric but with backup traditional propane-fueled heat and generator systems?
Now things get really interesting. Truth be told, we predicted the above results would be similar to what they were. And we postulated that a hybrid approach would likely be the winning hand—state-of-the-art all-electric, computer-controlled, and phone-monitored systems, with traditional components and systems as a back up. It’s kind of like a plug-in hybrid car, you have the best of both worlds on tap.
Well, throw that assumption out the cabover window. Once again, moderately interested was the leading response, only this time the split between interested and not interested was much more even. With 40.7% in the extremely or very interested camp, and 35.13% in the slightly interested and not at all interested camp.
This speaks to our cautious interest in all-electric systems and components. Most of us are interested, but not enough to signal a shift in that direction. Even when presented with a hypothetical bridge product—a hybrid truck camper—we remain skeptical, although less so. We’re definitely not making this easy for future camper designers.
4. How would you rate your interest in strictly controlling and monitoring your truck camper systems and components from your phone?
This is basically a no. Again removing moderately interested, 14.8% answered extremely interested or very interested and 64.3% answered slightly interested or not at all interested.
The irony is that 75% of you are reading this on your phone! We know this because our Google Analytics says so. Want to know why we developed a new website? Phone users! Well, that and the old site was old and tired. Enough said.
So why is it that so many are using their phones so much, and yet we don’t want our campers tied into this favored device? Whatever the answer is, this result is another indication that we love technology in many respects, but that doesn’t mean we automatically want it in our truck campers.
5. How would you rate your interest in always having the ability to control your truck camper systems and components with physical panels, knobs, and switches?
Finally, we have something resembling a clear result. A full 79.4% answered they’re extremely interested or very interested in always having physical panels, knobs, and switches to control onboard camper systems and components. Only 5.9% said they’re only slightly interested or not interested at all in said physical monitors and controls.
What does this mean? It means keep your stinkin’ hands off our physical panels, knobs, and switches! Don’t tell us to use a phone to do something. Show us where the switch is, then tell us—maybe—that we can do exactly the same thing from our phone. We 100% agree with this sentiment.
6. How would you rate your interest in electric trucks?
It has been a while since we’ve polled this question, and the interest in electric trucks within the truck camper community is still laughably low. Only 9.2 percent said they were extremely or very interested. Compare that to 80.7% who said they were slightly interested or not interested at all. That’s clear-cut.
7. How would you rate your interest in a self-driving truck?
And if you thought the lack of interest in electric trucks was clear, have a look at this. A full 77.7% said they’re not interested at all in self-driving trucks. Evidently, we like driving our own trucks, thank you very much! Maybe we let cruise control take over the throttle now and then, but that’s it. Next time we’ll ask how many would let their phones drive their trucks, just for fun.
Check out more Question and Poll Results in TCM.