It’s summer. As my colleague Brad Ballard pointed out in his recent blog post, it’s time for some road trips. I’m sure there are families that look forward to driving for two to three days from Texas to California or other destinations, but I would tend to think that most do not. Luckily, the answer to having peaceful road trips is just over the horizon… with the help of wireless automotive connectivity.
Imagine that your family is loading into your minivan to hit the road. Your smartphone synchs with the car and you are recognized immediately – your Bluetooth/Bluetooth low energy connection is established, the seat and mirrors are adjusted to your preference before you enter the car and all your contacts are automatically synchronized. The navigation system locks on target from an address you selected on your phone and your wife grabs her smartphone and scrolls to her favorite playlist, which starts streaming over Bluetooth to the car Infotainment system.
Meanwhile, the four kids have gotten comfortable in the backseat. Instead of fighting over which movie to watch, each selects their own program or movie thanks to Wi-Fi HD video streaming over DLNA from the cluster. Your two youngest in the middle seat stream two different movies over Wi-Fi to their rear-seat screens. And the two older kids in the back seat take out their smartphones or tablets and begin streaming content to their mobile devices from the cluster—that’s four different videos streaming over Wi-Fi, and four happy kids.
But with your wife’s playlist and four videos playing simultaneously, the noise level could get quite high, even in a spacious minivan. The children decide to use their Bluetooth headsets, which thanks to the on chip co-existence between Wi-Fi and Bluetooth all work seamlessly in parallel. So just like that, instant quiet from the back so you and your wife can enjoy the music and chat—now that’s one happy wife and one peaceful driver.
While Wi-Fi and Bluetooth are the main technology stars of this road trip, the close connection between your smartphone and the navigation system allows you to find that special restaurant off the highway that is renown for its authentic tex-mex.
So how far off is this road trip reality? All of these technologies are available today and with the WiLink™8Q and Jacinto™ product families, TI is providing the building blocks for OEM and Tier1s to make this happen. And now that WiLink 8Q solutions are sampling, this road trip is one step closer to reality.
What do you think of the connected car?