Phil online

These are the features I want in our computerized in-car entertainment system:

1. Flip-down ceiling monitor for the rear passengers
2. Large hard drive to store DVD movies in one place
3. Second video screen for the front passenger and for GPS maps
4. MP3 playback with a mostly hands-off user interface
5. GPS auto-navigation, preferably with voice prompts, en-route routing, etc.
6. Touch-screen control of the entire carputer system
7. Voice control would be nice, but it’s not technically feasible yet (imho)
8. Separate video outputs so movies can play in the back while GPS runs up front
9. Simple interface so my neophyte wife can control it
10. Wireless networking for parking near hotspots and surfing
11. Professional-looking installation (no wires hanging about)

While reading the many helpful posts at www.mp3car.com I noticed that most of the folks there build a carputer because A) it’s fun, and B) they can. They don’t want a clean, packaged turnkey solution. They want the fun of building it themselves.

Are they nuts?

I would much rather have a turnkey solution. But I want it to do everything on my list. And more. And I want it to be expandable. And cheap. And… well… maybe turnkey doesn’t fit the bill. Maybe I do need to build it myself. So I did.

I’ll follow up on my various features in other posts. At this point, I’m two months into this project and I’m very happy to say, I’m 95% complete.

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 28th, 2004 at 3:36 pm and is filed under Carputer. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.