Whats is incartainment:
Incartainment is the integration of advanced audio and video features, mirroring smartphones and multimedia devices and running apps, while transmitting data quickly and securely inside and outside the car. Greater processing power, high in-car bandwidth, secure external communication links combined to bring world class intertainment to you where ever you are. The future of self driving cars combined with 5G or the starlink system make this all possible. Entertaining you in your car while your car self drives you to your destination
5G Streaming
Music has been a staple of in-car entertainment (incartainment) for years now. That’s mainly because it causes little distraction and drivers are able to stay focused on the road. However, in the autonomous world, movies and a whole new gaming experience are expected to become a part of incartainment systems.
The advanced 5G connectivity will make this possible. It will allow high-definition games and movies streamed directly into the car.
As car owners have free time traveling from point A to point B, vehicles themselves are set to offer a range of interactive incartainment, new VR technologies and surround-sound. Cars are even expected to turn into 9D cinemas on the go. And of course, none of this would be possible without a fast and ubiquitous 5G network.
Mixed Reality Maps
Soon emerging graphical technologies such as augmented reality and virtual reality will change the way passengers and drivers interact with the world when on the road. Mixed reality will break down the boundaries of incartainment making it a part of our surroundings.
Moreover, it will provide a number of new opportunities for brands to create next-level navigation and overall location-based services. There’s no doubt that this will be a huge market for advertisers and content publishers in the coming years.
V2V Gaming
This one is for gamers. Vehicle-to-vehicle communication will allow innovative multiplayer, in-car gaming. These new exciting gameplay experience possibilities have caused game developers to flock to the automotive industry.
Brand new, multiplayer mobile and social games are expected to hit the incartainment app market once self-driving cars become a reality. You’ll be able to play with others on the road while driving in a similar direction. Exciting, isn’t it?
Personalized Voice Assistant
Voice control is a hot trend that appears to be a useful way to operate in-vehicle incartainmentt functions without using the driver’s hands. A recent collaboration between HERE, a leading location platform, and Amazon Alexa, suggest the extension of intuitive voice-controlled interfaces into future vehicles’ displays.
Voice is a simple and safe in-car incartainment system and navigation tool. Owners and passengers will be able to communicate with vehicles for a number of purposes, such as incartainment, personalized guidance, or incartainment. Many predict the development of a bond between cars and users themselves, which would make them more trustworthy when out on the road.
In-Vehicle Retail
Mobile commerce has grown rapidly in the past couple of years, to a reported 95% of overall sales which involve a smartphone at some point in the transaction. Now almost all of us shop online on our phones, mostly because of the convenience this provides. However, you might wonder what the next step in the evolution of retail is. The answer is in-car shopping.
Some vendors are already experimenting with various ad-units in incartainment systems. Systems that allow vehicle payment are currently being developed.
The innovative in-car shopping technologies are set to follow the department stores’ example. You can expect a personalized shopping assistant based on artificial intelligence. What’s most exciting is the creation of your own holographic personal shoppers broadcasted directly into your car. When this is going to happen, only time will tell.
The Future Is Smarter
As the automotive industry moves forward, drivers will have less to do with the physical act of driving. They will essentially be chauffeur driven. The automation of vehicles will allow them to find new ways of spending their new-found free time. Of course, vendors know that. They will try to provide them with a whole new range of activities through in-vehicle incartainment systems.
Future cars will turn into our personal assistants. They will be able to drive us to our desired destination, while we enjoy our time, watch a movie, play a game, or shop. In-vehicle incartainment systems will be able to do it all. These are our 5 predictions for an exciting future. Most likely, there’s a lot more to come, but we’ll have to wait and see.
Tesla is taking incartainment to the next level:
Tesla’s incartainment features. The Software v10 updates transforms the car into an incartainment system which brings more web, music and video offerings.
The Tesla Theater feature brings connectivity to streaming video services like Netflix and YouTube. With an LTE connection for premium connectivity customers, a Tesla can stream videos up to 4K resolution. Before you could connect to Netflix on a Tesla if you have firmware version 2019.12.1.2 using the web browser. Tesla Theater is more like a dedicated app that gives easier and faster way to access Netflix and other streaming services. Another good thing for music lovers in the US is the Spotify integration for streaming music. Soon other apps will be supported to bring even more incartainment. Car passengers can watch movies during long road trips or the driver can quickly watch their favorite TV show during a rest stop. No more need to DVR or miss an episode of popular TV shows.
Gaming is also a talking point of the new updates. With Tesla Arcade, the screen turns into a gaming display. Cuphead is the game offering that is introduced with Software v10. This could be a precedent to a Tesla gaming console integrated with the system. It may be a bad idea playing games on the road though, since it can lead to motion sickness. Otherwise, when parked, playing games in your car maybe the next best thing to kill time.
Perhaps the time has come for the “singing driver”. This is because Tesla is introducing the Caraoke feature i.e. Car Karaoke. Tesla may have done a study or gathered some data of things drivers do while on the road. It won’t be surprising if singing is something people do while driving. Tesla provides a musical library that contains multiple songs, even in different languages. This is not a new idea at all, but adding it as a feature is actually quite nice. Other ways to access karaoke music is via satellite radio like Sirius XM. However, those services require an additional payment while Tesla can offer it to their customers for free (as of this posting).
Feeling Lucky?
The feature that seems the most interactive to users is in the navigation app. Tesla can make restaurant and travel destination suggestions via the “I’m Feeling Lucky” and “I’m Feeling Hungry” feature. The navigation will take users to a suggested place for dining or sight seeing. For example, a person who is new to an area can use this feature to find the best suggestion for burritos. It is integrated with the navigation system so it will help the person get there. This would benefit those looking for landmarks, fine dining restaurants and even a hole-in-the-wall. Some are reporting that this could well be a local business booster because it can help people find places without having to find it from an ad. Think of this like a suggestion engine that has a list of places that it already knows but also discovering new ones for users.
Impressions
I am quite impressed with the features, though how well they will perform is not going to be the same for everyone. People will use what is useful for them. I emphasized more on the incartainment system, but there were other great features with Software v10.
Improved map navigation helps with the “Feeling Lucky” feature. Finding chargers and superchargers will also be much easier. There is also a feature called Joe Mode. The name doesn’t quite tell you what that feature is about. This was developed as a UI option to allow drivers to “lower the cabin volume for select alerts such as parking chimes” according to Tesla’s website. Joe Mode could be a great help to parents since lowering the volume can help children fall asleep on long trips. The chimes can be annoying or distracting at times, so before Joe Mode the only way to solve this was to turn it off. Now the chimes can be lowered so as not to disturb passengers.
There is also the Smart Summon feature. Based on many demos I have seen, this may not be something for every day use but more occasional. With Smart Summon, the car can drive directly to the owner from it’s parking spot. It provides convenience, like having a virtual valet bring your car to you. It will also be beneficial to drivers with disabilities, but if you can walk to your car much easier than you don’t really need to use Smart Summon. It seems like a nice feature to show off though.
Should we be worried about bugs that updates might introduce? It is safe to say to always be alert, so the answer is yes. If you are thinking about this in the same way as software updates for Windows, it’s much different. While consumer software like Windows is riddled with bugs and vulnerabilities, Tesla is dealing with a different type of application which is a matter of life or death if the features fail. This is because the software is applied to a device that is used in automotive and transportation, a tightly regulated industry. Therefore, Tesla’s engineers have to make sure that their software is secure and reliable first. If there is anything wrong, then customers must be notified immediately by Tesla.
Preventing accidents should always be the priority, so this is really not as simple as writing code fixes like in consumer computer software. For example when a computer crashes because bugs in the Windows code, users can simply reboot their computer and then apply the patch to fix the bug. However, it is different with cars. When your car crashes because of a bug in the software, that is a much more serious matter.
Overall, Tesla is delivering software features that add functionality to the car’s hardware in better ways. It is done over-the-air without requiring connecting any cables or external devices. This is an innovation in itself, making it simpler to deploy. Software v10 brings incartainment in the limelight of user experience. Now that Tesla has built a complete incartainment system, get the popcorn ready for movie night … inside the car.
