More external cameras, IR, heat, whatever, looking out at all angles. I'm definitely for it. Not sure why we still have those drag inducing chunks sticking out of our sleek vehicles, the reflective things that can ice over, and that you have to calibrate for each driver, now that tiny cameras and range sensors are cheap and ubiquitous.
Range sensors that actually work reasonably well outdoors are neither cheap nor ubiquitous. Note that we're talking about imaging range sensors here, not single point measurements.
Time of flight cameras? They predominantly use NIR (900nm or circa) and so they're rubbish in sunlight. Try using your kinect outdoors. Beyond the kinect they're also very expensive, a few thousand each. The kinect 1 also fails outdoors and when the range is > 5m or so.
LIDAR? Well sure, you can buy a rotating line scanner - 100-180deg field of view typical. They're very nice, but also (new) you're looking at around $3-5k. Don't even dream about getting a Velodyne system, like the Google car uses.
Stereo? Yeah... well stereo is nice, but it takes a lot of computational grunt to do it in real time, reliably and in varying illuminations (good luck using it at night).
Thermal? We're getting there, FLIR make some fairly low cost, low resolution sensors, but still you're looking at $500-1000 a pop in OEM quantities.
RADAR/Ultrasonics are reasonably cheap nowadays and they're pretty good for coarse measurements like when you need to know how far you are from the wall in your garage. We're getting to the point where RADAR is good enough for collision avoidance (i.e. auto-braking) on high speed roads.
More cameras are cool, but you need to know how to process the data and present it clearly to the user. I can see the advantage of having a camera for a rear-view mirror particularly for vehicles like vans with no rear windows. Side mirrors are still useful and for most people the cost of installing multiple high resolution video cameras and monitors isn't worth the savings in petrol from drag reduction. If you replace a mirror with a camera you also need a very high resolution display, a wide angle camera that doesn't distort too much and a way of viewing it in any conceivable illumination condition. Mirrors are also nice and mechanical, unless you crash they rarely ever break.
> More cameras are cool, but you need to know how to process the data and present it clearly to the user.
Thanks for the state of the art, good to know.
I assumed the relevant sensor tech was cheap and ubiquitous because every time I rent a car these days, it seems to have both a backup camera and radar. Maybe that's all we've got though, and maybe tricky to point that gear in every direction and have it always on, and as you mention, usefully conveyed to a driver is the big hurdle.
Though I have one crazy idea for that, thanks to George Lucas.
Some people pick on this one scene in Star Wars, when Han and Luke are fighting in the turrets, and you hear all these ships whizzing past, even though there's no sound in space. In one of the more contrived retcons, some fans insist that the sounds of whizzing ships are actually just a different approach to HCI. The ship detects threats, then pumps in naturalish-sounding audio telling you where they are in relation to the Falcon.
I know that's not a mass market idea, but my dream car would use fancy radar to make nearby cars sounds a bit like starfighters. (So long as I can turn it off, probably gets old fast.)
So yes, my primary interest in sensor tech is not reducing drag, or even accidents, but in feeling like I'm piloting a spaceship. Don't judge. :)
I would imagine a dedicated bit of hardware is more stable than simply placing your phone on the dashboard.
This is also not intended solely for low-visibility conditions when the reflection of the phone on the windshield is visible. I can't imagine the HUDWAY app being particularly useful during the day, for example.
I don't see that they need to prove anything except that it's a cool and useful product for which a market exists. Their point is simply that automated navigation while driving is cumbersome and unsafe with the use of simple phone apps. A dedicated piece of hardware solves that problem, and in a cool way.
I do feel that their message is undermined a bit by the safety concerns presented when you have seamless phone integration for writing and reading texts, answering calls, and tweeting.
I would say that's an unfair comparison, as the navdy aims to do much more, for better or worse. That said I had no idea this app existed and it seems perfect as a simple HUD. Given how I use my navigation system, having just the road ahead visualized is all I need.
Nice! Only works at night though. I'm sure Hudway will have less legal issues than a dedicated device. Also, Navdy is pretty expensive for the mass market.
This is genius. I rarely drive, and when I do it's seldom at night, but when I do I want exactly what's in the first picture on this website. I never understood why no GPS (app or hardware) comes with this feature, even though it provides clear advantages. In rally racing providing this info is basically the entire job of the person in the passenger seat.
Haha that's actually pretty cool :-D The first video I saw from them was the Square, but didn't notice Adam in other videos until recently where he was the pizza delivery guy in the Push for Pizza video. Now I know why he is featured in so many startup-videos ;-)
It's odd that they promote their product by saying that phone use while driving is unsafe. I fail to see who this is significantly safer than using a phone, since to use the HUD one needs to necessarily remove their attention and focus from the road and redirect it to a small point much closer to their face. Granted, it is probably at least a little better than using a phone, but I'd be _very_ hesitant to say that it's safe.
1. Keep the HUD in focus and the road out of focus. Your eyes are still seeing a lot of road information that doesn't necessarily need the high fidelity. This is relatively safer than looking away entirely. The human brain can do a lot with scarce information.
2. Keep the road in focus and the HUD out of focus. For things like navigation this will still work fairly well since all you usually need for the navigation is the shape of the road, the direction you'll need to turn in, and how many blocks (roughly) you have until the destination. This is relatively safer than looking away at your phone or gps from time to time, or even looking around for the street names.
Realistically, people will switch between the two extremes.
Did you even read the front page? Just scroll down a tiny bit and read:
"Navdy's transparent Head-Up Display (HUD) projects information
as if it's floating six feet in front of you. In the car you already have."
Further down:
"The image is focused into the distance so the road stays in focus while the driver views the information presented by Navdy. The same technology is used in all commercial airplanes so the pilot can keep their eyes on the runway while landing the airplane."
Ah, I was considering only optical focus. Depending on the situation, shifting cognitive focus may or may not be bad. I tend to get highway hypnosis...I think cognitive focus shifts might help me stay alert, not distract me.
You're still not focused on the road though, that's just not how the human brain works, and insinuating that this device somehow makes texting while driving safe is hugely irresponsible IMO, considering how many thousands of lives are lost every year to distracted driving.
(I also doubt a commercial pilot is using this tech to send tweets to his mom while landing a plane. The "Pilots use this, so it's gotta be safe, right?" line just made me facepalm.)
I think they'd do better to pitch it as a replacement for car UI in general. If it's executed well, it could be a safer replacement for behaviors like looking down at the A/C or radio controls.
>It's odd that they promote their product by saying that phone use while driving is unsafe. I fail to see who this is significantly safer than using a phone, since to use the HUD one needs to necessarily remove their attention and focus from the road and redirect it to a small point much closer to their face.
The thing is, jet fighter pilots use HUDs. If those work for them, I'm pretty sure it's ok for a car too.
Plus the road is quite boring site most of the time. You are not always in fast traffic or streets full of pedestrians. If you leave in Nevada, close to Highway-50 even more so, but I digress.
Jet fighters pilot are (amongst other things) selected on their multitasking skills. Plus they have extensive training regarding concentration, reaction time and so on. You cannot really compare them to the average driver.
Yeah, and average drivers don't face even 1/10 of the speeds and situations a jet fighter pilot faces, including the G's.
Things I didn't say but people still replied as I said them: a) that jet fighters and car drivers have the same skills, b) that jet fighters tweet.
My comment was plain and simple. To rephrase: if HUDs work in such quick-response situations, in a vehicle with 100 times the complexity of your average car, 10 times the speed, and missiles against you, then sure the "average driver" can look at a HUD to see a new tweet, if he doesn't have to de-focus from the road with this technology.
This must be a joke...have you met the average driver? Compared to fighter pilots, who are the best of the best and have years of specialized training plus millions of dollars of military-grade hardware devoted to giving them situational awareness of all possible threats?
> It's odd that they promote their product by saying that phone use while driving is unsafe.
That part of a video is basically a slap in the face. The video says that when you use a phone while driving, bad things happen. What are those bad things? A police car stopping you. What the hell. They definitely should stop you. And take away your driving license. And your car. And maybe your offspring.
Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself. Basically, police stopping you for texting while driving is the least bad possible consequence.
Neat product and like others have noted here - well done on the marketing. Doing other things while driving is dangerous no doubt, but it is also a very practical reality. Any product that embraces this practicality and tries to maximize eyes on on the road is a good step forward in making driving safer.
Nice looking product, but I can't help but think we shouldn't be encouraging sending Tweets while driving. I'd say keep these devices to assist driving (navigation and safety information), but not to assist additional activities on top of driving.
Agree..not sure why every product feels like it needs act like a communications device on top of it's main purpose. Couldn't help but think the same thing with Apple Watch...do you really think people are going to tweet from that?
Don't hold your breath, the consensus reached in the few minutes the thread below was breathing seems to be that the domain name provides sufficient context.
I think the parent comment is referring to the lack of regulation of this product by regulatory bodies.
Cars are regulated to travel below a certain speed. Phones are regulated to their use outside of a vehicle (when operated by a human), and kitchen knives are illegal to carry in public.
While the parent comment is a little melodramatic, there's still something to be said regarding the safety of usage in this product and its affect on other people.
So we need to wait until some poor shmucks kill a few kids and pregnant mothers before we can realize this product (as currently advertised) is a bad idea? I thought we're smarter than that.
HUDs are not bad. But Navdy keeps marketing their product as a text-while-driving aid. Not very smart.
30k+ people die in car accidents every year in the US alone. These accidents are caused by a laundry list of things, including texting, eating, interactions with other passengers, fiddling with the radio, etc, etc. As cold and as heartless as this may sound, all sorts of products will kill people on the road, but some level is fatalities is "acceptable" when compared to the stifling and unrealistic alternative of aggressively policing every potential distraction.
Texting while driving is one of the most dangerous distractions primarily because of the interface: eyes off the road, hands off the wheel.
If Navdy can potentially reduce the danger of texting to a level comparable to that of, say, talking to passengers in your car, then I don't see how you can justifiably "realize" that it's a bad idea without seeing some statistics first.
You've listed three examples of products that changed the world, and have huge utility despite their danger. The main advertising for this product, however, seems to be that it allows you to tweet while you drive. So I don't think it's a very fair comparison.
The danger is that it creates the illusion of being able to text and drive safely, so that people who wouldn't text and drive on a cell phone do so with this product.
I am not so afraid of the loss of attention. I think this takes a little getting used to, like using a route planner.
I didn't see a comment yet about placing a loose object in front of your face. During a head-on collision you will eat that thing. Don't even put a box of matches on your dashboard. CD's become chainsaws. And this hunk of plastic?
Every year, loose objects inside cars during crashes cause
hundreds of serious injuries and even deaths. In this paper,
we describe findings from a study of 25 cars and drivers,
examining the objects present in the car cabin, the reasons
for them being there, and driver awareness of the potential
dangers of these objects. With an average of 4.3 potentially
dangerous loose objects in a car‟s cabin, our findings
suggest that despite being generally aware of potential
risks, considerations of convenience, easy access, and lack
of in-the-moment awareness lead people to continue to
place objects in dangerous locations in cars. Our study
highlights opportunities for addressing this problem by
tracking and reminding people about loose objects in cars.
In fairness, it's not like they're the only device in the world that mounts on a car dashboard. There's tons of GPS receivers, phone holders, etc. that do the same thing.
Why can't we just stop using phones while driving? No matter how much one reduces distraction, it is still more distracting than not using it in the first place. Twitter while driving - why on earth?!? For navigation it is obviously a good idea because you can keep your eyes on the street and don't have to look to your GPS or even try to read street names.
Watch »From One Second to the Next« [1] from the »Texting and Driving - It can wait« campaign.
Hmm, I also can't get this - WHY is it so hard to just answer that text / facebook message / call 10 minutes later after you stop. WHAT in the world is SO URGENT it has to be done right now?!
It's not hard to understand, even though it's completely insane. People simply don't think about driving as a dangerous activity requiring their full attention.
This is actually one of my favorite things about riding a motorcycle. It removes the 'safety net' of the car and forces one to pay full attention to the road. Texting is simply out of the question.
Unfortunately it is also one of the least favourite things about riding a motorcycle - always having to look out for car drivers who are not paying full attention to the road.
Well of course there are exceptions. Personally I've tried the "emailing from my laptop while riding a bicycle" thing - you take your hands off the handlebars, swing your backpack around (that's the hardest part and most likely to bring you of-balance), take out your laptop, open it, wait for it to come out of sleep and compose and email with one hand while holding it with the other. Of course on an empty park path with a friend to watch out for other people. Depending on the inherent stability of the given bike frame, and the weight of the laptop, it's actually not that hard...
It's because of the act of driving itself. Before it was phones it was shaving, doing makeup, or eating. Driving promotes an individualist mentality. Backed up by the fact that cars are designed to remove and protect you from the environment that you're still participating in. This separation leads to many things including road rage and not believing that being on your cellphone is a problem. *IMHO
I think it's just that we all suck at multi-tasking but underestimate how much we suck at it. I have never actually met a good multi-tasker. People who do lots of tasks sequentially, but never anyone who does a satisfactory job at two things that are done simultaneously.
I pray for self driving cars, so these idiots can use their phones all they want.
I was following a riced out Acura today that was flashing the brakes all the time, GF said ?old person?, but grandma doesn't drive that car. Some rapper's white girl friend in head to toe pink was diddling on her phone WHILE DRIVING and tapping on the brakes every time she looked up. I see phone usage while driving everyday and the majority of it isn't talking it is interacting with the device itself. Madness.
HUDs are already built into many high-end cars (including several BMW and Audi models, the Chevy Camaro, and even some lower-end cars like the new Mazda3). Same for voice-controlled phone and media systems. They're actually touted as a safety feature, since a HUD requires less eye movement and refocusing than a normal instrument panel.
Of course, it depends a lot on what you do with it. Moving existing displays like the speedometer and navigation instructions to a HUD can be an improvement in safety. But if it encourages more interactive phone use, that could obviously cause problems.
Actually there are plenty of Navigation gadgets doing the same function, but non of them works on a sunny day. I bought some of them, but frustrated, non of them are really functional. I drive on a highway a lot and navigation is annoying when it's not in front of you. So how do Navdy solves this problem?
The photo on their home page shows someone reading an SMS, not watching a video. The SMS is from someone recommending a video, but there's no indication that you can actually watch the video while you drive.
It's a poor choice of image, though obviously they were just trying to embed the "Hey, watch our video in your browser" instructions into the photo itself.
Aside from that, even reading SMS while you drive seems like a bad idea to me. But I'm really tempted to get a Navdy for features that improve safety, by moving stuff that I already look at (speed, navigation) from my dashboard to the HUD. I've been shopping for cars recently and wishing that HUDs were available in more affordable models. I just hope you can turn off Navdy's text/call notifications and other extras.
It's the same thing used by Google Glass, and other head-up displays (like the ones built into airplanes and high-end cars). I believe it involves collimation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collimated_light
For example, here's a description of the HUD currently available in several BMW cars:
"The image is projected in such a way that it appears to be about two metres away, above the tip of the bonnet, making it particularly comfortable to read. BMW Head-Up Display halves the time it takes for eyes to shift focus from road to the instruments and back."
214 comments
[ 4.9 ms ] story [ 1013 ms ] threadThey did a great job with the marketing video for this. Really curious to see where this ends up.
Time of flight cameras? They predominantly use NIR (900nm or circa) and so they're rubbish in sunlight. Try using your kinect outdoors. Beyond the kinect they're also very expensive, a few thousand each. The kinect 1 also fails outdoors and when the range is > 5m or so.
LIDAR? Well sure, you can buy a rotating line scanner - 100-180deg field of view typical. They're very nice, but also (new) you're looking at around $3-5k. Don't even dream about getting a Velodyne system, like the Google car uses.
Stereo? Yeah... well stereo is nice, but it takes a lot of computational grunt to do it in real time, reliably and in varying illuminations (good luck using it at night).
Thermal? We're getting there, FLIR make some fairly low cost, low resolution sensors, but still you're looking at $500-1000 a pop in OEM quantities.
RADAR/Ultrasonics are reasonably cheap nowadays and they're pretty good for coarse measurements like when you need to know how far you are from the wall in your garage. We're getting to the point where RADAR is good enough for collision avoidance (i.e. auto-braking) on high speed roads.
More cameras are cool, but you need to know how to process the data and present it clearly to the user. I can see the advantage of having a camera for a rear-view mirror particularly for vehicles like vans with no rear windows. Side mirrors are still useful and for most people the cost of installing multiple high resolution video cameras and monitors isn't worth the savings in petrol from drag reduction. If you replace a mirror with a camera you also need a very high resolution display, a wide angle camera that doesn't distort too much and a way of viewing it in any conceivable illumination condition. Mirrors are also nice and mechanical, unless you crash they rarely ever break.
From what I've heard, the FLIR lepton core might be around $~250 in quantities, which could make it affordable as an add-on module.
Thanks for the state of the art, good to know.
I assumed the relevant sensor tech was cheap and ubiquitous because every time I rent a car these days, it seems to have both a backup camera and radar. Maybe that's all we've got though, and maybe tricky to point that gear in every direction and have it always on, and as you mention, usefully conveyed to a driver is the big hurdle.
Though I have one crazy idea for that, thanks to George Lucas.
Some people pick on this one scene in Star Wars, when Han and Luke are fighting in the turrets, and you hear all these ships whizzing past, even though there's no sound in space. In one of the more contrived retcons, some fans insist that the sounds of whizzing ships are actually just a different approach to HCI. The ship detects threats, then pumps in naturalish-sounding audio telling you where they are in relation to the Falcon.
I know that's not a mass market idea, but my dream car would use fancy radar to make nearby cars sounds a bit like starfighters. (So long as I can turn it off, probably gets old fast.)
So yes, my primary interest in sensor tech is not reducing drag, or even accidents, but in feeling like I'm piloting a spaceship. Don't judge. :)
This is also not intended solely for low-visibility conditions when the reflection of the phone on the windshield is visible. I can't imagine the HUDWAY app being particularly useful during the day, for example.
I don't see that they need to prove anything except that it's a cool and useful product for which a market exists. Their point is simply that automated navigation while driving is cumbersome and unsafe with the use of simple phone apps. A dedicated piece of hardware solves that problem, and in a cool way.
I do feel that their message is undermined a bit by the safety concerns presented when you have seamless phone integration for writing and reading texts, answering calls, and tweeting.
Edit: Yes. http://sandwichvideo.com/
GPS, cool. Text etc? ARGH.
1. Keep the HUD in focus and the road out of focus. Your eyes are still seeing a lot of road information that doesn't necessarily need the high fidelity. This is relatively safer than looking away entirely. The human brain can do a lot with scarce information.
2. Keep the road in focus and the HUD out of focus. For things like navigation this will still work fairly well since all you usually need for the navigation is the shape of the road, the direction you'll need to turn in, and how many blocks (roughly) you have until the destination. This is relatively safer than looking away at your phone or gps from time to time, or even looking around for the street names.
Realistically, people will switch between the two extremes.
"Navdy's transparent Head-Up Display (HUD) projects information as if it's floating six feet in front of you. In the car you already have."
Further down:
"The image is focused into the distance so the road stays in focus while the driver views the information presented by Navdy. The same technology is used in all commercial airplanes so the pilot can keep their eyes on the runway while landing the airplane."
[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mobile_phones_and_driving_safet...
(I also doubt a commercial pilot is using this tech to send tweets to his mom while landing a plane. The "Pilots use this, so it's gotta be safe, right?" line just made me facepalm.)
The thing is, jet fighter pilots use HUDs. If those work for them, I'm pretty sure it's ok for a car too.
Plus the road is quite boring site most of the time. You are not always in fast traffic or streets full of pedestrians. If you leave in Nevada, close to Highway-50 even more so, but I digress.
Yeah, and average drivers don't face even 1/10 of the speeds and situations a jet fighter pilot faces, including the G's.
Things I didn't say but people still replied as I said them: a) that jet fighters and car drivers have the same skills, b) that jet fighters tweet.
My comment was plain and simple. To rephrase: if HUDs work in such quick-response situations, in a vehicle with 100 times the complexity of your average car, 10 times the speed, and missiles against you, then sure the "average driver" can look at a HUD to see a new tweet, if he doesn't have to de-focus from the road with this technology.
I can't believe I have to say this but JET FIGHTER PILOTS DO NOT USE HUDS TO TWEET.
I really hope you're being sarcastic and just forgot about Poe's law here.
That part of a video is basically a slap in the face. The video says that when you use a phone while driving, bad things happen. What are those bad things? A police car stopping you. What the hell. They definitely should stop you. And take away your driving license. And your car. And maybe your offspring.
Ok, I'm getting ahead of myself. Basically, police stopping you for texting while driving is the least bad possible consequence.
A random idea: Adding a camera to this could open up the dashcam market. In Russia for example, dashcams a very common and are a part of the driving culture (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashcam and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance).
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8258117
See the context? "Navdy (navdy.com)"
Cars are regulated to travel below a certain speed. Phones are regulated to their use outside of a vehicle (when operated by a human), and kitchen knives are illegal to carry in public.
While the parent comment is a little melodramatic, there's still something to be said regarding the safety of usage in this product and its affect on other people.
HUDs are not bad. But Navdy keeps marketing their product as a text-while-driving aid. Not very smart.
Texting while driving is one of the most dangerous distractions primarily because of the interface: eyes off the road, hands off the wheel.
If Navdy can potentially reduce the danger of texting to a level comparable to that of, say, talking to passengers in your car, then I don't see how you can justifiably "realize" that it's a bad idea without seeing some statistics first.
I didn't see a comment yet about placing a loose object in front of your face. During a head-on collision you will eat that thing. Don't even put a box of matches on your dashboard. CD's become chainsaws. And this hunk of plastic?
Every year, loose objects inside cars during crashes cause hundreds of serious injuries and even deaths. In this paper, we describe findings from a study of 25 cars and drivers, examining the objects present in the car cabin, the reasons for them being there, and driver awareness of the potential dangers of these objects. With an average of 4.3 potentially dangerous loose objects in a car‟s cabin, our findings suggest that despite being generally aware of potential risks, considerations of convenience, easy access, and lack of in-the-moment awareness lead people to continue to place objects in dangerous locations in cars. Our study highlights opportunities for addressing this problem by tracking and reminding people about loose objects in cars.
http://www.star-uci.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ubic489n-...
I don't want to destroy their hype bu they should really give that problem some thought.
Watch »From One Second to the Next« [1] from the »Texting and Driving - It can wait« campaign.
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BqFkRwdFZ0
You can be as careful as you want, but driving is a collective process, and if the guy next to you messes up, you can suffer a lot.
I was following a riced out Acura today that was flashing the brakes all the time, GF said ?old person?, but grandma doesn't drive that car. Some rapper's white girl friend in head to toe pink was diddling on her phone WHILE DRIVING and tapping on the brakes every time she looked up. I see phone usage while driving everyday and the majority of it isn't talking it is interacting with the device itself. Madness.
Of course, it depends a lot on what you do with it. Moving existing displays like the speedometer and navigation instructions to a HUD can be an improvement in safety. But if it encourages more interactive phone use, that could obviously cause problems.
http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/cell-phones-driving-c...
And they still haven't changed their homepage.
Navdy could be really useful, even improving of total safety, as HUD navigation. But maybe that's not where the money is.
"Hey watch this video???"
I just can't believe it.
It's a poor choice of image, though obviously they were just trying to embed the "Hey, watch our video in your browser" instructions into the photo itself.
Aside from that, even reading SMS while you drive seems like a bad idea to me. But I'm really tempted to get a Navdy for features that improve safety, by moving stuff that I already look at (speed, navigation) from my dashboard to the HUD. I've been shopping for cars recently and wishing that HUDs were available in more affordable models. I just hope you can turn off Navdy's text/call notifications and other extras.
https://www.navdy.com/assets/bg_10-88a56c4c20214704cf0b39542...
What magic is this?
For example, here's a description of the HUD currently available in several BMW cars:
http://www.bmw.com/com/en/insights/technology/technology_gui...
"The image is projected in such a way that it appears to be about two metres away, above the tip of the bonnet, making it particularly comfortable to read. BMW Head-Up Display halves the time it takes for eyes to shift focus from road to the instruments and back."
"I see you have a Navdy there, ma'am. I'm going to need to confiscate your car keys before you hurt somebody."