POLL: Anyone Interested in Car PC's here?

[dcallaghan]

I am developing an in-car pc with the following features:
* 7 inch touch screen
* 80GB DVD storage
* 80GB MP3 storage
* WiFi
* Bluetooth
* Bluetooth telephone interface
* Navigation with live traffic updates (from internet)
* DVD player
* MP3 player
* Compact Bluetooth Keyboard/Trackball (not required for driver)
* Digital Radio
* Digital TV
* 3G/GPRS (for email / internet)

The system will synchronise DVD's/MP3's with your home PC after you get out of the car.

Would you purchase one for approx £1200 ex fitting?

[Shude]

The spec sounds good, but I'd want to have a play with the unit and see it in action a bit before spending £1200!

I reckon a modular setup would be a good idea, like a basic one that's about half that price with reduced capacity and a few less features, then people can add options themselves to match their budget.

[sym]

I voted no, because personally, I wouldn't. However I'm sure some people would !

Sounds a nice idea in principle, but I think the price, and the need to fit yourself would put people off !

Where do the live internet traffic updates come from, just out of interest - are you talking about trafficmaster info ?

S.

[frog1520]

The system will synchronise DVD's/MP3's with your home PC after you get out of the car.

Would you purchase one for approx £1200 ex fitting?

Given that my garmin gps cost 900 quid, and my roadpilot cost about 500 (i think), I think you'd be onto a winner if you could link the your box to the GPS speed camera databases. You'd have all that extra functionality, and it'd be cheaper....

I bet morpheus/road-pilot wont let anyone have access to their databases though, unless you have their kit... :mad:

[Sp!ke]

I voted yes because the spec sounds good and its a whole lot more for your money than you get with say.... command.

But (and its a big but) £1200 is a lot of money in PC terms and I'd like to have it fitted and up and running for that kinda money.

I guess synching and updates are over 802.11 through a wireless router at home??

[dcallaghan]

I left the following from the feature list.

* Speed camera warnings as Road Angel etc
* Diagnostic interface so faults can be displayed, reset etc
* 2-axis g-meter (not really useful in a merc)
* Performance meter using g-meter accelerometer (0-60/100 etc)
* Performance logging
* Boost guage meter for turbo/supercharger
* Auxillary Video/Audio inputs (for X-Box etc)

The approx price quoted is based on all modules being fitted. Professional fitting would also be available, although the only cables required would be power for the system, a single lead to the touch screen and two cables for the antenna's. The system has an internal battery to power the system after leaving the vehicle, which is charged when you are in the vehicle.

The live traffic info would be from Traffic Master, which requires a subscription, but there are other sources available.

I am currently working on a low cost way to provide three separate concurrent video outputs, so passengers in the back can watch different films whilst the driver still has his display.

The PC runs XP embedded, so anyone with PC knowledge can tinker.

[dcallaghan]

I voted yes because the spec sounds good and its a whole lot more for your money than you get with say.... command.

But (and its a big but) £1200 is a lot of money in PC terms and I'd like to have it fitted and up and running for that kinda money.

I guess synching and updates are over 802.11 through a wireless router at home??

Yes, 802.11g is best at the moment for synchonising large files, although if the router is .11b then data transfer is slower. The system also has an ethernet socket for initial transfers of lots of data (films and music)

[fgaffney]

I voted No... personally I really couldn't justify spending that amount of money on a car PC. I'm sure it'd be a fantastic piece of kit but unforunately it would be an extravagant luxury for me :o

[teky]

i use my laptop but only for diagnostics and tuneing but i have in the past watched a few movies heheh the theft rate would be a chance to consider, allready too many goodys in the cars today

[guydewdney]

what would a simpler version cost - without the wi-fi, smaller HDD (like thats going to make much difference)..

screen (touch screen?)
MMI (man machine interface...)
dvd (possibly)
gps / routing / traffic (important)
mp3 etc (easy - but nice if it had cd drive near the head unit area..
DAB radio (very important)

[Ian B Walker]

I, alas, voted no. The wife would go bannanas if I bought yet another PC. Apart from which I fail to see the use for one whilst driving :crazy:

[andy_k]

me too on the no vote.

£1200 plus fitting buys a lot of desktop power where I really need computers - in real terms I could get two 3ghz+ machines for that kind of money.

If anyone can convince me that I can't manage without an in car PC when i already have a CD/mp3 player built in and an auxillary input for sound from the laptop with DVD then I'm willing to change my vote - Sat nav wouldn't swing it for me either :)

Andy

[Will]

I voted for a yes. As with Shude, I would like to "test drive" one first, but any comparisons to a desktop PC are not helpful - you wouldn't compare the cost of a car CD player to a portable home CD player or a personal stereo now would you?

Depending on the quality of the finish, and how "integrated" the unit will be, it will compare very favourably with COMPARIBLE alternatives. Ie, a 6.5/7" motorised AV screen and a navigation set up can cost more than this alone. Obviously, OEM command will be more integrated, but the features are virtually incomparible; this is a specialist piece of kit for somebody who will appreciate it.

If it lives up to its promises, and is nearly as good as is it sounds, no question - it is a bargain and sure to be a success. :cool:

Good Luck and keep us posted,

Will

[dcallaghan]

what would a simpler version cost - without the wi-fi, smaller HDD (like thats going to make much difference)..

screen (touch screen?)
MMI (man machine interface...)
dvd (possibly)
gps / routing / traffic (important)
mp3 etc (easy - but nice if it had cd drive near the head unit area..
DAB radio (very important)

With these features it would be around £200 less.

[dcallaghan]

I should be able to make the touch-screen for the system fit into the same space as the navigation system fits on most cars. Alternately, it can be fitted to the top of the dash using fittings that are made for each car model, or it can be a motorised tilt model that fits into a standard ISO ICE slot. The motorised version costs more however (+£300).

Thanks for your opinions everyone!

[craigyb]

I voted no, unless you can tell us how your going to tie all this functionality together. What GPS software are you going to incorporate. Is your frontend software going to allow access to all these features, are you going to support it? are updates free etc.

I can uderstand the price tag, my in car PC cost around the same, probably more if I hadn't had some of the bits around already. Losing wifi and a smaller drive wil save very little overall as the main costs of the PC are the case, motherboard, PSU, GPS/software and 7" VGA screen. Drives and wifi are cheap.

Anyone interested in doing an in car PC themselves should pop along to mp3car.com and see what's cooking. Several companies offer off the shelf car PC installs for around the same price. And there is a wealth of advice on the forums from people like me and better, who have gone through all the pains of installing PC's in cars.

Craig

[dcallaghan]

I voted no, unless you can tell us how your going to tie all this functionality together. What GPS software are you going to incorporate. Is your frontend software going to allow access to all these features, are you going to support it? are updates free etc.
Craig

I am writing the routing software myself. It is based on Microsoft Mappoint and its OCX control. I might have a chat with someone such as TomTom however and see how much a licensing deal would be.

The frontend software will allow access to all the main functions of the complete system and is quite simple in a Media Centre fashion. I haven't considered support or updates yet. I guess I would put up a web-site and make updates available for free - I hate paying to update software I have already purchased that can only be used with the suppliers hardware.

[uumode]

I voted no, as a notebook / laptop would be cheaper.
(depends on how integrated you want it to be)

with laptop you can take it out of the car and use it elsewhere or another car.

However a laptop might melt in the sun!

Though I don't really need that functionality.
It'll end up like my mobile phone.. I only use it to make phone calls.

[andy_k]

I voted for a yes. As with Shude, I would like to "test drive" one first, but any comparisons to a desktop PC are not helpful - you wouldn't compare the cost of a car CD player to a portable home CD player or a personal stereo now would you?


why are comparisons to a desktop (or laptop) PC unhelpful? I was expressing an opinion, and that is if i were to spend that amount of money on another computer I could put a lot more power where I would benefit from it. For my own personal use I see no gains from having a computer in the car.

No, I wouldn't compare the cost of a car CD player to a portable or personal stereo but i'm not comparing this idea to anything portable so I'm not sure i understand your point there. When I buy a HiFi system for the car I compare it (both price and quality) against a home HiFi, after all both are "permanent" installations. So it's the same for the computer - £1200- £1500 buys a whole lot of what i would call "useful" processing power that I can use on a daily basis rather than another "gadget" in the car that I neither need nor see any real gain from owning.

My personal opinion of course.

Andy

[craigyb]

I am writing the routing software myself. It is based on Microsoft Mappoint and its OCX control. I might have a chat with someone such as TomTom however and see how much a licensing deal would be.

The frontend software will allow access to all the main functions of the complete system and is quite simple in a Media Centre fashion. I haven't considered support or updates yet. I guess I would put up a web-site and make updates available for free - I hate paying to update software I have already purchased that can only be used with the suppliers hardware.

Mappoint is really not the answer, plus it's very expensive and would drive up the cost of your installation. TomTom3 is good, but is it available for PC, no I don't think so. You might want to consider Navigator professional for PC, which is current and covers Europe. It has an OCX interface and is reasonably priced at £100 for UK. It has spoken directions and is written in the UK. I have a pukka copy on my PC and it works very well, much better than mappoint which is really a business planning tool at 2-3 times the cost.

[craigyb]

A for PC comparisons to a desktop, forget it. We are talking speacialist parts here for most of the PC.

Mini-Itx motherboards
mini-itx cases
DC-DC PSU
slim line DVD/CD drives
7" wide screen VGA Touch screen monitors
etc...

Not really conventional PC parts, hence the high cost.

As for performance, most people think that a 1ghz C3 processor is enough for the car, I myself have gone the P4 route, but kept it mini-itx.

Craig

[andy_k]

I'm aware of all the components, the specialist nature and the cost of them but the question I ask myself is "why?" :)

Andy

[craigyb]

The benefits of the PC in the car are just about starting to out way a standard install of say a Command system. Command is fine, does what it says, provides Radio, SatNav, CD. Video, Phone and TV all come at an extra cost and buying OEM parts can add up to several thousand pounds. Plus your limited to what the OEM privies within reason.

Having a PC gives you expandability only based on what hardware/software combinations are available. Hardware is getting cheaper and software for carPc's is becoming more freely available with great functionality and good user interfaces. I know of at least 7 freely available software front ends that work great, look great and are currently being developed so more functionality is available.

I carry over 50 moves and 25,000 tracks in my car PC, I have 4 different GPS packages to chose from, i have bluetooth for my phone, Wifi connection to the house and the occasional war drive. DVD, CD, video, sat Nav, TV, phone, radio are available. In fact I shall sortly have a DAB module as well.

I know that Command is good and looks stock, but so does a good PC install.

At the ends of the day it's "Whatever floats your boat"

Craig

[Will]

I think that this has been nicely "summed up" by Craig. It is not just another home PC system, but a specialist piece of equipment for those who appreciate it. :) If this area of equipment is not your cup of tea, then fair enough, but if you are to critique it, you need to be in a position to compare it to realistic alternatives.

The fact that this system uses a PC to connect its functuality together is a bonus, it does the job of many other systems that have to operate on an inferior principle. The main benefit, as already mentioned, is the flexibility that it offers the user, you could probably use it for just about any conceivable purpose.

The point that I have been trying to make is that it should not be viewed as just a PC for the car, but more so as a versatile In-Car entertainment/navigation/AV set up. This therefore makes it open for comparison to systems such as Command, and third-party AV systems. Both of these set-ups are generally speaking upwards of £1000, and so the price that has been mentioned seems very reasonable to me.

My point of comparing in-car audio systems to a home stereo system seems like a good illustration of my point; you are looking at two different systems designed for two different purposes. The end result might be that they both reproduce music, but they are priced differently, and offer different features. You could probably buy half a dozen non-car orientated CD players for the price of a typical car CD player, but try and integrate it properly with the car. Does this make them better value? And does this make them a viable, and sensible comparison?

Fair enough, everybody has an "opinion", but to compare something to unrealistic alternatives seems to me, pointless. :rolleyes:

Just my opinion! :D

Will :)

[andy_k]

"If this area of equipment is not your cup of tea, then fair enough, but if you are to critique it, you need to be in a position to compare it to realistic alternatives."

not in a thread asking me to vote on whether or not I would be willing to spend money on such an installation and please don't patronise me by implying that because I don't wish to spend money on it or "appreciate" it I'm not entitled offer an opinion :mad:

Craigy has summed it up, but in the way we all do when asked to "defend" our choice of technology by quoting figures that really don't mean a great deal.


Without any disprespect, can anyone tell me why you need 50 DVD movies in your car? we've got two kids aged 6 and 8 and they seem to manage quite well watching the odd one or two DVDs on long journeys - just to illustrate the point here, in the last two years the kids have watched 3 different movies in the car, in order to work through 50 at the same rate would take some 30 years by which time the technology would be obsolete, nobody else has ever expressed a wish to watch a movie in the car but even if they did that would equate to nearly 100 hours of films - how long in "real time" does it take to clock up 100 hours of rear seat passengers who want to watch a film all the way through?


25,000 audio tracks, wonderful, but I seem to manage ok with taking a few CDs along with me. Let's look at that figure a bit more closely though, asssuming we are not using the technology to watch any movies we have at least 1500 hours of music to listen to, if we spend an hour a day in our cars listening to music it will take nearly three years to play each track once! so, three years to listen to the music, the same to watch the current stock of movies by which time the unit will be obsolete, the car probably sold and you've still not listened to the radio, used the sat nav or any of the other features :)

Sat nav is indeed a wonderful thing, but then again so are road signs and they are free - they seem to serve 90% of the population very well (me included) and don't need a fancy interface that I can't use because someone is watching a movie :)

These are the reasons I asked "why" and none of the answers so far have summed that point up. I'm sure people will buy it in much the same way as they buy every new gadget that comes on the market but how much of this technology get's used to it's limits or even a fraction of the way towards them?

I still reserve the right to compare it to a desktop PC because if i were to consider it that would be the benchmark and of course where in my opinion the budget would be better spent. I can't work without a desktop PC but I can drive without a car PC :)

Andy

[craigyb]

Andy, I have actually had both systems in my car, Command and a PC, and even just a plain old radio. I drive around 6 hours a week in my car, not long compared to most people, but they are 2x3 hours, so I like to enjoy a library of tracks to change whenever the mood takes me.

Also, I'm using a PC to provide, music, sat nav, radio and video just as most people would use Command or similar. It's not just having a PC in the car for word and excel and email/browsing. Although those functions are there if I need them, they are masked by the front end software.

It's purely an entertainment system at the end of the day, wether provided by a PC, oem kit or 3rd party ICE.

As for DVD's in the car, these are actually Divx moves ripped from my collection of DVD's so they are at no cost to me just disk space.

Your argument seem flawed, yes I cannot do my job with a workstation of some description, probably a PC because my company delivers email on the windows platform, but you can't compare specialist equipment to a desktop. If you had any idea what went into a carPC you would realise that.

I'm not defending a technology I use, most of my posts were explaing why a large cost is involved in a carPC and what sofwtare should be used to provide a decent system comparable/better than OEM such as command.

In fact I have no commitment to a carPC as I'm about to change to an Audi S8 with built in satNav. So it's good bye carPC.

Craig

[fuzzer]

25,000 audio tracks, wonderful, but I seem to manage ok with taking a few CDs along with me. Let's look at that figure a bit more closely though, asssuming we are not using the technology to watch any movies we have at least 1500 hours of music to listen to, if we spend an hour a day in our cars listening to music it will take nearly three years to play each track once! so, three years to listen to the music, the same to watch the current stock of movies by which time the unit will be obsolete, the car probably sold and you've still not listened to the radio, used the sat nav or any of the other features :)

I suppose its just easier to have all those tracks depending on what you feel like listening to. It must also be a lot easier once youve downloaded tracks from the net to just fire them over the wifi into the car rather than forget to lift your IPOD or burn them.



Sat nav is indeed a wonderful thing, but then again so are road signs and they are free - they seem to serve 90% of the population very well (me included)

You have obviously never used navigation if you can say that ....

[Alfie]

Voted yes but would have to see it working and depending on how discreet the components were fitted.

[Alfie]

"
Sat nav is indeed a wonderful thing, but then again so are road signs and they are free -

I have to disagree that road signs are a wonderful thing. In this country they are not particularly good, especially in certain areas of the country. :(

As for Sat Nav, well there was once a time when having a radio in a car was a luxury which cost extra. Now all cars are fitted with them these days and I'm sure that in time all cars will have SatNav (and tracking devices!). Once you have SatNav it becomes one of those items like a mobile phone (for some) that you wondered how you ever managed without it before. :)

[dcallaghan]

"Without any disprespect, can anyone tell me why you need 50 DVD movies in your car? we've got two kids aged 6 and 8 and they seem to manage quite well watching the odd one or two DVDs on long journeys - just to illustrate the point here, in the last two years the kids have watched 3 different movies in the car, in order to work through 50 at the same rate would take some 30 years by which time the technology would be obsolete, nobody else has ever expressed a wish to watch a movie in the car but even if they did that would equate to nearly 100 hours of films - how long in "real time" does it take to clock up 100 hours of rear seat passengers who want to watch a film all the way through?
<SNIP>
25,000 audio tracks, wonderful, but I seem to manage ok with taking a few CDs along with me <SNIP>.
Andy

The reason for the large storage size for audio and video is choice and simplicity. If it only costs another £20 to enable storage of your entire audio/video collection then why not? Why have a starter motor on a car, when you only use it for 1 second per journey and you only have to turn a handle? ;=]

The reason for the in-car PC is that all the functionality provided by a factory fit navigation system plus much more can be purchased for less money. Electronics for cars are designed at the same time that the car is designed, which is at very best 2 years prior to initial production. Purchasing contracts are made with the suppliers at this time for a project lifetime, meaning that most cars contain olde-worlde electronics technology. My 2002 Audi S3 still has a tape player, because the A3 on which it is based was designed 10 years ago. I haven't had a tape for 15 years!