Make your dumb car smart with Navdy’s AR dashboard device

Alan Martin March 3, 2017

There are countless features on high-end cars right now, but a heads-up display (HUD) represents one of the most impactful. Just like a fighter-jet cockpit, HUDs project everything you need to see right up on the windscreen. They’re usually found on top-of-the-range cars such as the BMW 5 Series, but thanks to Navdy, this kind of technology can be transplanted into literally any car.

In the same way that a Chromecast or Amazon Fire TV Stick makes your old dumb TV smart, Navdy will give your car the same features without having to chuck the whole thing in – and it’s out today in the UK. navdy_ar_car_out_today_-_1

The Navdy isn’t just for navigation, though. It connects to your smartphone, which means that all your notifications can also be projected onto the windshield without drawing your eyes from the road. You can answer or reject calls with a wave of the hand, and you can dictate texts and tweets via voice. It’ll even show car analytics – speed, RPM and the nearest petrol station. If you ever watched Knight Rider in the 1980s, you’ll feel right at home, essentially.

It magnetically clips to the dashboard, so it can be moved from car to car with ease, but it’s small enough to stash away in the glove compartment when not in use. Here’s a video of it in action:

At a price of £600, this isn’t exactly impulse-purchase territory. But it’s a snip compared to the cost of the kind of car where this sort of thing comes as standard…