Telematics Detroit Conference: 'Apps' Is the Word
By Bill Visnic June 11, 2010The annual Telematics Detroit conference held this week mainly is a confab for automakers to interact with their suppliers, but it also offers a glimpse of pending new onboard-electronics innovations.
But it's also become an interesting mash-up of traditional automotive mega-suppliers like Continental and technology innovators like Google, with all players trying to figure out how to deliver features and provide content that car owners want and will pay for -- and, increasingly, how to do it safely.
Edmunds.com Senior Technology Editor Doug Newcomb trolled the show and discovered that smartphones and their increasingly useful (or scandalously irrelevant) applications, or "apps" as almost everyone now knows them, have emerged as the dive-in point for most automaker and supplier telematics strategies.
Some highlights from the Telematics Detroit 2010 conference:
Smartphone Apps: Apps have already become an important and useful aspect of telematics services. Mercedes-Benz's mbrace system uses apps for remotely locking and unlocking doors and other conveniences, and OnStar recently partnered with Google to unveil an app that will be used with the upcoming Chevy Volt. But this could be just the tip of the telematics iceberg.
One potential stumbling block: Automakers and suppliers aren't exactly known for the type of open-source software approach that drives app development. But that's changing. Ford recently opened the API for its popular Sync system to app developers, and BMW, Bosch, Delphi and Intel have joined together to push for an open-source automotive software standard.
The other angle to be addressed is driver distraction. There's already a well-established initiative to ban texting while driving, so nobody's likely to consider drivers accessing apps from their devices or dashboards as any different. Interface and safety issues will need to be worked out.
Navigation: This is unquestionably the automotive service that's been most "disrupted" by smartphone apps. Why spend a thousand bucks or more on an in-dash system or even a couple of hundred on a portable nav unit when you can get the same service on your smartphone for much less -- or even for free?
That was the question during panels such as "Pervasive Navigation: Bringing Low-Cost Navigation to the Masses," which pretty much concluded that smartphone-driven apps are quickly killing in-dash nav -- which doesn't sound good for either automakers or suppliers who for the past decade have found built-in nav systems to be such a wonderful profit center.
Entertainment: In-car entertainment has mushroomed in recent years, thanks to portable players and streaming audio. It's to the point where bringing discs into a car has become passe. Internet radio and digital delivery of music was a hot topic at TD 2010. Several companies talked about how, with a high-speed 4G cellular connection in the car, it could soon be possible to quickly download music files on the fly from online music stores like iTunes or even stream movies from Netflix to a rear-seat entertainment system, as well as YouTube video.
Green Driving: With telematics systems collecting so much data from cars, the technology is perfect for helping people learn to drive more efficiently. Continental's AutoLinQ will have an Eco-Dash feature, for example, that can display all manner of fuel-economy information and eventually users could be able to offload data to see how it compares with others online. The same could be done on the other end of the spectrum for performance-minded motorists.
There was plenty more to Telematics Detroit 2010. You can find Newcomb's full report in the Edmunds Daily blog at Edmunds.com.
Photos by automakers:
1. Mercedes-Benz's new mbrace smartphone app can enable a variety of features that once would have to have been tied to the car's ECUs.
2. Ford Sync can control just about any personal electronic device.
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