Innovations in Automobile Technology

Every once in a while someone picks up an object, or even looks at an object and wonders, “How can I make that even better?” People like this are called innovators. These are people who, want to keep improving life.  For an innovator, nothing is ever “Good enough”. This is different than an inventor in the sense that their ideas are based on ideas of others. One of the coolest recent innovations, in my eyes, is the WayRay Navion.  The Navion is a super advanced heads-up-display that you can connect to your phone and your car to try to eliminate distracted driving.

What is a HUD (Heads-Up-Display)?

According to Howtogeek.com, “A HUD is a digital transparent image that is projected onto the windshield of a car, displaying the same information you would get from the dashboard.”  These have been around since 1988, when General Motors first introduced them on their Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme.  Nowadays they can be found on many cars from brands such as GM, Mercedes-Benz, BMW, Audi, and even the Korean economy brand Kia.  Saying this, we can assume they are becoming pretty main stream.  The only downside is that many still only display the information you could just as easily find on your dashboard.  This was until Navion came along.

What can the Navion Do?

I called the Navion a “super advanced HUD” for a reason.  This is because the Navion takes the HUD available on a mainstream car, and combines it with a HUD similar to what you get in Forza Motorsports.  This includes a line of arrows simulating a racing line, displaying current speed, and also the distance until your next turn.  And these features are only the ones on the base model.  If you are willing to spend a bit more, you can get your Navion with an infotainment layer that connects to your Android or Apple device via Bluetooth and uses gestures and voice commands to interact with the system.

Why does the Navion help?

By projecting the navigation and infotainment information translucently on to the windshield, this eliminates the need to look at multiple screens while driving.  By not having to look at multiple screens you are a far more observant driver. This in turn makes the world safer.  

My Review of Navion

While the Navion isn’t out yet, I will still try my best to give a review on it. The questions that I will be asking myself while reviewing it are: “How is this better than existing HUDs on the market?”, “How well does it project information?”, and finally “Is it worth your money?”.

In my opinion the Navion is better than many existing HUDs in the fact that it displays information onto the actual windshield, rather than having to install a secondary opaque glass pane.  It is also the first of its kind, in the fact that it actually scans the road ahead of you, to give a much more accurate path. The Navion is also the first HUD to use holographic projection.

Judging only from demonstration videos, the Navion looks like it projects information rather well.  The image looks very high definition and also quite distinct.  The only problem I could see with the image, would be if the road were green for some reason.  This would cause the hologram to get lost in the background. A way to solve this would be to employ a red display that you could toggle between using a switch or button.  

As for the question that is truly on people's mind, price, I have an answer! The base Navion prices out at $300, while the model with the infotainment layer is $500.  This is an amazing deal, and I would spend the extra $200 to upgrade.  While this $500 may seem like a lot, you can consider it an investment, almost an insurance.  While I am not suggesting you replace your current auto insurance, I would complement it with a Navion. It can save you a lot of money that you could end up spending on car repairs, from an accident that occurred while you were messing with your GPS or answering a text.

Where could it go from here?

I myself look at the Navion and think it is great! But at the same time I am also thinking of ways to make it better.  What if you could link it a database that calculates braking distances for every car, and tell you a minimum following distance for that specific car.  What if you could take the specifications of your car and it could give you the perfect driving line for racing (around a track of course). The possibilities are seemingly endless.