Car and Smartphone: 7 Examples of a Perfect Collaboration
Nowadays, life without cars is impossible. They are so indispensable that they can be used in all areas of activity. Moreover, recently cars have become very affordable, and even if your budget is not enough to buy a car, you can drive car rental in Salt Lake City, New York, Los Angeles or any other destination around the world.
The second feature of modern cars is their high technology, and one of such examples is the synchronization between the smartphone and the car.
Progress in this direction is moving fast. As a result, more new synchronization technologies appear to replace the familiar HandsFree. Modern ideas allow you to turn your smartphone into one of the driving centers. They have high functionality, so connection with the car has a wide range of interaction opportunities.
A few of the most interesting and unusual examples of this technology will be discussed in the following review…
SmileDrive from VW and Google: How to turn driving into a game?
Volkswagen and Google have jointly developed a smartphone application that will allow it to connect with the car and turn the process of driving this vehicle into a game.
According to this app, you will receive points for a variety of achievements - movement in the dark and over long distances, compliance with traffic rules and even a meeting the VW NewBeetle on the road.
MirrorLink: on-board computer as a continuation of the mobile phone
The main reason why drivers shouldn’t use a mobile phone while driving is the need to control a car with one of the hands only. MirrorLink technology allows you to avoid this need by synchronizing the smartphone with the on-board computer of the car, thereby saving the driver from using the phone on the road.
At the same time, on the screen of the car infotainment system you’ll find all that can be seen on the display of a mobile phone, which will help the driver not to be distracted from the driving process.
A smartphone can be not only a hindrance, but also an assistant for the driver. Cisco and Streetline have developed a system that allows drivers to search for places to park their cars by using a mobile phone.
This system is based on sensors embedded in the road surface. They determine whether there’s a car over them, and send this information to a major server, from where it goes to the application installed on the smartphone. The phone sends data about its location to the data center, and in response it receives an indication of where there’s a free parking space nearby.
Unfortunately, this technology is not available everywhere, because it works with the presence of special sensors in the roadway only.
Ford Sync: voice control of the car via phone
Many companies develop their own car-smartphone synchronization systems. Therefore, the first Ford cars with Ford Sync technology built into them began to appear on the market.
This system allows you to synchronize your mobile phone with the car via Bluetooth or USB cable, and control it with your voice, receiving and sending calls, as well as playing music. Through Ford Sync, you can also get audio access to some of the important functions of the car.
As it’s not difficult to guess from the name, the iBeetle car was created in order to work together with the iPhone. On the front panel of this car there’s a docking station to which you need to attach this smartphone in order to connect it with the on-board computer network.
As a result, the owner of the car and the phone will get a lot of additional features, such as technical data monitoring about iBeetle, trip tracking, multimedia functions and even connection to social networks.
Blue Link: cooperative opportunities of car and phone
The South Korean company Hyundai decided to create its own technology for synchronizing a mobile phone with a car. Blue Link allows you to use a mobile phone to determine the location of the machine, use the onboard computer for web-surfing, as well as to provide access to many other interactive and multimedia features of the car.
What’s more, in the event of an accident, the Blue Link system will call the police and the rescuers by itself.
BMW Mini E Scooter: a scooter with iPhone on-board
BMW Mini E Scooter is a 2-wheeled transport that uses an iPhone mobile phone as an important control element. The smartphone acts as the on-board computer of this miniature vehicle, working as an ignition key, an indicator of various processes in the scooter, a GPS navigator and, of course, an audio player.
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