Ask HN: Customizable heads up display for cars? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: Customizable heads up display for cars?

2 pointsjbredeche2 comments

My car (a Mini Cooper) doesn't have a heads-up display, but I can't stop thinking about how useful it would be to get speed, nav, music, etc information in a HUD. The after-market HUD situation seems pretty sketchy from my preliminary Googling.

For example, I really like how the Audis have the big nav screen, but then a little snapshot in the small rectangular screen between the speedo and the tach showing you the next turn you need to make. I'd love to have that broadcast into the bottom corner of my windshield.

Additionally, would be nice to have an SDK (like the upcoming Pebble watches) to be able to customize the HUD display (maybe I care about what song is playing right now, maybe I don't).

Anybody else interested in something like this? Or started working on a project like this?

I saw the HUD on the most recent BMWs and though it seems like a cool piece of technology, I am not sure if it's something that I miss sorely. Don't get me wrong, I was definitely wow'd when I saw it but in the end the amount of information that can be displayed without distracting the driver is limited. I am sure someone can prove me wrong but I have not come across it, not yet.

Given the amount of used cars that are sold every year, and the way people get wow'd by such technology, I would say it's worthwhile to build a SDK and at the same time provide an example of how to make a DIY HUD, if you get a lot of traction you can always make custom HUDs that users can buy directly from you (kickstarter project).

You can get most of the data you need thorugh the OBD2 port, located on the lower part of the dash on the drivers side. It is a known and documented protocol. From there, you can then maybe get some sort of LED based display bright enough to show up on your windshield. Again, this stuff is mainstream. Best of all, you can do it with an arduino.

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