Head-up Display for any car - how to drive safer in poor visibility

Here are the three films that I remember first when it comes to projections and holograms - Star Wars, Special Opinion and Iron Man. My opinion about augmented reality is cool and give two. The proximity between me and Tony Stark’s helmet is about the same as between Peter I and Luna, but I have already tried my own path to AR in real life - on the Opel Corsa, in bad weather, far beyond the Ring Road, with the Hudway app. Maybe not the first, but I will write as it was.

The principle of the application is so simple that it is not clear how nobody did it before. In general, any car owner ( read: the one who has an iPhone and a car ) gets the opportunity to use Head-Up Display-technologies without extra costs.

This is almost space - a drawing of the road, with all its turns, is projected in real time onto the windshield. The idea is to make driving in case of poor visibility more secure - the driver has a picture of the road right in front of the face and in such a way that it is perceived very easily. Well, to focus from the projection on the road and back is just as easy as from the speedometer - and I look at it very often. Yes, for the top car segment this is not new - BMW, Audi and a number of other automakers are already offering the Head-Up display as a built-in option. But for all other HUD-software, which does not require a separate hardware - this is a very cool idea.
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Here is the real video in the work:

Who is quieter and navigator - http://vimeo.com/97818548

But first things first

Install Hudway for free. Probably because the application uses publicly accessible Google Maps and Open Street Map. In the Android version, Yandex.Maps are also supported.

It's very simple to start - we start, choose where we are going and click the “Start” button. Go to the HUD-mode and put the phone on the torpedo. Now the projection of the route and vehicle speed are displayed on the windshield.

It looks really cool - at night or in conditions of poor visibility ( heavy rain, thick fog ), since during the day the projection is simply not visible - the brightness of the smartphone is not enough.



But during the day, you can navigate simply by voice prompts - a picture quickly lines up in your head, after how many meters the next turn, where to steer and when it’s time to slow down. If you allow the accelerometer to adjust the speed, the data is much more accurate than when using only GPS.

Even the basic functionality of the application is enough for the average user, but the voice prompts are a good thing, it is worth trying in action. I did not regret 30 rubles and tried the PRO-mode with voice, customization and other buns - I wanted to test another kind of road. Normal flight, points on the road when approaching a turn is a good idea. Plus, there was something to surprise friends when they met :)

About the price . In the iOS version, subscriptions are now $ 1 per month and $ 7 per year. In the Android version of the PRO mode, it costs $ 2, but there is no voice yet. We will not compare warm to soft, but it is ten times less than the cost of other navigation applications.



In practice, the projection of the road to glass ( Head-Up Display ) really helps to drive in bad weather ( rain, fog, blizzard ) and in the dark outside of the city - especially on unfamiliar winding roads where there is no lighting. Especially good when traveling between cities - actually, in such a situation and tried. Tired less, and generally more comfortable. In short, if you do not have a regular navigator, then do not buy its application will allow less strain in conditions of poor visibility and know in advance about the next turns and dangerous places.

There are all sorts of additional social things like sharinga marshut, results tables, etc. - it’s interesting, it’s useful for someone, but not primary, so I’m not stopping.

A spoon of tar

Hudway, really, a very good application. But while he has his drawbacks. The first and most important is concluded not even in the application, but in the need to buy a special mat that will not allow the phone to slide on the torpedo. And even in this case, you can not use Hudway on all machines, due to the design features of the panel.

The second minus is an unusual interface in some places: when different menus and settings panels appear on the left, right and top, this is confusing at first.

The third disadvantage is the inability to build and rebuild routes offline. Here, it seems, will have to wait until the developers find a solution.

Where can I download?

As I said, the application is free in the basic functionality, but you will have to pay for additional buns.

• Link to Apple Store for iPhones
• Link nv Google Play Market for Android phones

PS: Please do not ban it right away - the developers are my friends, but this does not change the essence. I tried to write objectively.