
BMW’s full-color HUD: distraction, minimizer of distractions, or costly gadget? - evo_9
http://www.extremetech.com/extreme/124847-bmws-full-color-hud-distraction-minimizer-of-distractions-or-costly-tech-gadget
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davidu
My Audi has a HUD and it's great. It just becomes a part of driving and I find
myself never looking at the dashboard anymore.

The adaptive cruise control, speedometer, and navigation is all available on
the HUD -- it displays at appropriate times -- and is gone when I don't need
it. When I'm about to hit a car in front of me, it gives a red warning that
gets my attention.

It's really quite functional, and not distracting. You can dial-up and dial-
down the contrast, which is worth doing. For me, it's easy to ignore if I
don't want to see it.

But maybe, just maybe, it doesn't bother me because I grew up playing video
games with health, points, and other metadata in the corner of my eyes growing
up. :-)

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barefoot
How visible is it during the day?

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davidu
pretty good. you see it when you want to see it. hard to explain that more
clearly. The speedometer is white text, so when driving over very light
colored ground, it's hard to see, like inside a concrete parking garage. But
on asphalt or dirt, it's easy to see.

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fabricode
I've used the HUD available on the C5 Corvette, and it's no more distracting
at first than any new car's radio, wiper controls, etc.

Once you've driven with it for a bit, it really does increase the attention
paid to the road. Your quick checks for speed, gas, tach are instead diverted
to mirror checks or just keeping your eyes on what's happening ahead.

That said, the Corvette's was a monochromatic subtle display. I'm not sure
what the impact of full-color high-resolution information would be. One always
has to be wary of the "ooo... let's watch the odometer rollover to the next
10,000" kind of distraction.

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to3m
Do you have to check the petrol gauge so often, that it's a great boon having
it on the HUD?

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CountHackulus
It's a C5 Corvette, yes.

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bengoodger
I owned a Nissan Altima once that had this feature and loved it there. The
technology was simple - 7 segment display in the dash reflecting off the
screen above. Now I'm driving a '11 550i that also has this feature - with the
beautiful full color presentation. It's not distracting. If anything it makes
me painfully aware when driving other cars that I'm constantly forced to move
my gaze from traffic to check my speed.

I do understand BMW's hesitation to load too much information into this
display. Most car companies are notably horrible at user interface for the new
technology they integrate into the car (BMW has a spotty track record here too
with its early iDrive iterations). For example the new Lexus GS appears to
persistently show radio station information in the HUD. This is not something
that I need to see full time, only when I'm channel surfing. Jaguar does a
nice job of showing relevant info at the right time in its non-HUD LCD
instrument cluster, replacing the tach with other info at relevant moments.

One thing I've really wanted is for a car's display stack to be built on a
customizable platform, like Android or iOS, where third parties can integrate
data. This way you can change the UI to suit your need, or integrate third
party modules (like a radar detector). Definitely some care needs to be
exercised here so as not to produce too much distraction, but I do think some
of the features in new cars may have jumped this shark already (my 550 lets me
do simple posts to Facebook from the dashboard screen - while driving!).

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tmh88j
Check out the HUD in the second picture. It reads 77 kmh but the needle is
reading about 68khm. I wish they'd use actual pictures. These poor Photoshops
don't do any justice.

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dominikb
The HUD is very difficult to photograph. I have one in 5 series and you can
see it only from a direct angle. Only the driver sees the HUD. These
promotional photos are completely fabricated.

From my experience BMW's HUD is the greatest feature of all. Very useful. The
speedometer helps drastically, you don't need to shift eyes from the road.
Much safer driving.

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mrsebastian
FWIW, I think the first photo in the story is real (it was taken by our
writer). I assume he held the camera right in front of his face :)

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MetalMASK
It's a good (but wrong) analogy to compare to the "head-up" display on
airplanes. However, driving is a 2D experience compared to flying. Pilot would
need to pay attention to the surrounding in the 3D world where as driving,
pretty much is just in a flat surface (you pay attention to your front,
behind, left, right, that's it). I just cannot see the benefit of the HUD
display in road driving use. There is no "head-up" necessary in this driving
use case.

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Ralith
There's no necessity to keep your eyes on the road and still have that
information available to you?

It's not about 3D, it's about never having to look down at a dashboard instead
of the real world.

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GiraffeNecktie
This is a $1k option? Is there any reason why this couldn't be a relatively
inexpensive after market product? I can pull information like speed etc out of
the OBDII socket into my phone via a cheap bluetooth device. A projector can't
be that expensive can it?

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huhtenberg
1\. It needs a special windshield glass (special coating).

2\. Mounting is rather complicated as the whole thing is sunk into the dash
behind the instrument cluster. Not many cars (if any at all) have enough empty
space there to accommodate the hardware.

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motti_s
Interesting, I guess it's more complicated than it sounds.

I wouldn't be surprised if many decades ago having a speedometer in a car was
an expensive option. If HUDs catch on (and I hope they do), they'll become
cheaper and who knows, maybe even standard equipment one day.

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georgieporgie
Anything that gets drivers' eyes back in the general direction of the road is
a good thing. As a bonus, putting data at (perceived) infinity means that
older drivers who have become farsighted will have less difficulty reading
their speed, GPS directions, etc.

There has been at least one add-on HUD-type display for motorcycle helmets for
a few years (<http://www.gizmag.com/go/2430/>). Last I read they weren't
technically legal for road use in the US, not that I think anyone would be
ticketing you for it.

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jonnathanson
_"Anything that gets drivers' eyes back in the general direction of the road
is a good thing."_

On that note, it's technologically possible these days to mount a tiny camera
that would keep track of your eye movements and orientation, and would
activate a danger signal -- or something to that effect -- when your eyes have
been taken off the road for more than X consecutive seconds (i.e., if they're
staring at a cell phone screen while you're texting).

So as not to be super-annoying, the X second interval would be ratcheted high
enough not to freak out everytime you checked a side mirror or looked out the
window, or at the radio dial, etc.

Seems to me that this sort of thing would save at least as many lives as the
incessant beeping that new cars activate when you turn on the ignition without
fastening your seatbelt.

Then again, maybe this is a terrible idea, bound to plague millions of drivers
the way the seatbelt beeping does. I dunno. I'm just _really_ sick of near-
misses with idiots who are texting while driving.

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Gormo
> Seems to me that this sort of thing would save at least as many lives as the
> incessant beeping that new cars activate when you turn on the ignition
> without fastening your seatbelt.

I wonder what the _net_ effect would be, considering the potential of drivers
to be distracted by annoying beeping noises, or to condition themselves _not_
to look out windows or in mirrors when doing so is more important than looking
out the windshield.

> Then again, maybe this is a terrible idea, bound to plague millions of
> drivers the way the seatbelt beeping does. I dunno. I'm just really sick of
> near-misses with idiots who are texting while driving.

I'm not convinced that it's generally a good idea to outsource responsibility
for safety to external devices, but if you're going to do it, in this case, it
may be more reasonable to put the constraint in the phone rather than the car.
It should be relatively trivial to restrict text entry when moving at high
speeds on a phone with embedded GPS, and doing so would alter the behavior of
the thing causing the distraction rather than the thing you want drivers to
pay attention to.

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jonnathanson
_"It should be relatively trivial to restrict text entry when moving at high
speeds on a phone with embedded GPS, and doing so would alter the behavior of
the thing causing the distraction rather than the thing you want drivers to
pay attention to."_

True, but that solution would have the unintended consequence of screwing over
passengers who may want to text.

