Along the road towards Jetsons-like flying cars, technology has made some pretty impressive pit stops in recent years, ushering in electric vehicles, self-driving cars, and now, heads-up displays (HUDs).
Latest among the HUDs to surface is the Navdy, a portable transparent HUD that displays information directly in front of your face while you’re driving.
When you sync the device with your iPhone or Android handset and place the Navdy onto your car’s dashboard, you can start communicating with your vehicle and other people without ever taking your eyes off the road.
A built-in infrared (IR) camera allows for touchless gestures, so drivers can answer a call by swiping left or dismiss an untimely notification by swiping right, all the while focusing on the task at hand, e.g. not veering off the road and dying in a fiery crash.
Navdy also sidles up to Siri or Google Voice to recognize voice commands, like “compose new tweet,” “write new text,” or “call Mom,” the company said.
And since the HUD meshes with your OS and downloaded apps, any notification your phone receives—from maps, messengers, social media, calendars, or music streaming services—can be displayed, read aloud, or disabled by the machine.
By projecting a transparent image into the driver’s field of view, alerts and turn-by-turn directions appear to be floating in the distance in front of you. It even comes with parental controls to give folks peace of mind when their kids hit the road.
