I hate to see products like these promoted because the creators are making bloodmoney.<p>Cell phones are not dangerous because the driver was looking at his phone or playing with the buttons when he had an accident. They are dangerous because they encourage your mind to wander. Most people's brains are really not good at multitasking. (Try patting your head while rubbing your belly counterclockwise)<p>Anything that takes your mind away from the road when you're driving even if you can see the road is dangerous. (They found that talking to someone in a passenger seat is not as dangerous because if they notice danger and you don't, they'll inform you of the danger automatically by tensing up or whatever.)<p>If your brain worked like a single process cpu, it would be like setting Twitter to high priority while relegating driving your 2-ton SUV to low priority. It will work well enough most of the time, but sooner or later, you'll crash the SUV.<p>(Source: BS in psychology)
Why can't we just stop using phones while driving? No matter how much one reduces distraction, it is still more distracting than not using it in the first place. Twitter while driving - why on earth?!? For navigation it is obviously a good idea because you can keep your eyes on the street and don't have to look to your GPS or even try to read street names.<p>Watch »From One Second to the Next« [1] from the »Texting and Driving - It can wait« campaign.<p>[1] <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BqFkRwdFZ0" rel="nofollow">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BqFkRwdFZ0</a>
There is an interesting harm reduction angle to products like this.<p>It's probably the case that people using Navdy will drive worse than people with 100% attention on driving. It's also quite likely they'll drive better than people using a cellphone directly. The question is if it makes people feel safer and thus more willing to do the dangerous activity, countering the safety benefit. (There's also a clear benefit to people actually using phones while driving; letting people know they're late, not being bored, etc. It's just generally trumped by the safety loss; I'd be willing to sacrifice SOME safety for convenience/entertainment.)<p>It's the same thing with sex (abstinence vs. barrier-based birth control vs. hormonal birth control), drugs (illegal vs. decrminalized vs. legalized), etc.<p>It's possible NOT having technologies like this leads to overall less safety; it's also possible it leads to more safety. It depends on the specifics.<p>I have nav (with voice, and a driver information display in my line of sight while driving), and use that, and also don't feel particularly bad about looking at my phone screen to see who called, etc. while stopped at a red light (although I realize it's less than perfectly safe; it's also more of a legal risk than a safety risk in california now, IMO.)<p>Actually using the phone while driving, or having anything but the most brief and cursory conversation while driving in the city, is clearly a sacrifice in safety; I don't mind phone calls on highways, but I generally won't answer in the city.
Does one company make every startup's tech product video?<p><i>Edit:</i> Yes. <a href="http://sandwichvideo.com/" rel="nofollow">http://sandwichvideo.com/</a>
I said it last time: it's shocking they thought the most important use case was "WATCH INTERNET VIDEOS WHILE YOU DRIVE."<p>And they <i>still</i> haven't changed their homepage.<p>Navdy could be really useful, even improving of total safety, as HUD navigation. But maybe that's not where the money is.
Nice looking product, but I can't help but think we shouldn't be encouraging sending Tweets while driving. I'd say keep these devices to assist driving (navigation and safety information), but not to assist additional activities on top of driving.
<a href="http://www.hudwayapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.hudwayapp.com/</a> Free application without any hardware. What are you guys trying to prove here. I didn't get your point.
Driving is a full time occupation.<p>If you can reduce the number of distractions please do. A phone needs only one button, answer/break connection and you shouldn't be dialling 'out' while driving anyway. No need to pop up pictures and other distractions in front of the driver, such a call at the wrong moment could easily cause an accident, if only because you will instinctively re-focus on the changing item in front of you.<p>Set your GPS navigator to do voice announcements and only check the display when you suspect a sudden change in direction or are not sure what lane to sort into. Other than that the voice indications should be enough.
stop using your phone when you're driving. It's not that hard. It can wait. If it can't, find somewhere to pull over.<p>GPS, cool. Text etc? ARGH.
As a motorcycle rider, these things scare the hell out of me. Drivers already pay little enough attention; do we really need more distractions? Jets have HUDs, but they also have much less traffic, highly trained pilots, and computers and air traffic control watching out for things the pilot misses. Car drivers have Siri.
Holy shit, people. The point of this product is not to enable tweeting. Did you miss the ever-present navigation hud?<p>This is a good product. Don't you use nav? What's better: Looking at your nav screen pinned to the dash or in the console; looking down at the phone in your lap, because you know you can't be seen holding it; or looking at the road with augmented information?<p>If you think HUDs are more dangerous than squinting at road signs or reading maps, then you can petition your legislators to make it illegal. I'm all for it, though, because I know the alternatives are worse.
It would be awesome if this product was actually a giant sting operation designed to identify people who have no business being on the road.<p>"I see you have a Navdy there, ma'am. I'm going to need to confiscate your car keys before you hurt somebody."
Actually there are plenty of Navigation gadgets doing the same function, but non of them works on a sunny day. I bought some of them, but frustrated, non of them are really functional. I drive on a highway a lot and navigation is annoying when it's not in front of you. So how do Navdy solves this problem?
Neat product and like others have noted here - well done on the marketing. Doing other things while driving is dangerous no doubt, but it is also a very practical reality. Any product that embraces this practicality and tries to maximize eyes on on the road is a good step forward in making driving safer.<p>A random idea: Adding a camera to this could open up the dashcam market. In Russia for example, dashcams a very common and are a part of the driving culture (See <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashcam" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dashcam</a> and <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sousveillance</a>).
I know the display looks cool and all but this doesn't make driving with a phone any safer. You're still distracted. It's no different to just having your phone on the windscreen.<p>Even where I live (Tasmania, Australia) I'm fairly sure there is either a proposal or already a law banning even hands free devices, because they are seen as just as dangerous. This device is going to be illegal to start with.<p>The only two thing I see as being feasible from a safety point of view for cars is either some sort of augmented reality for lane guidance and navigation, or your phone giving you direction via voice (which they already do).
Ok, nifty device, but what happens when you have a collusion or an accident and that device in front of your head starts flying around ?<p>I don't want to destroy their hype bu they should really give that problem some thought.
A killer feature for this would be IR/night vision with an external camera.<p>They did a great job with the marketing video for this. Really curious to see where this ends up.
It's odd that they promote their product by saying that phone use while driving is unsafe. I fail to see who this is significantly safer than using a phone, since to use the HUD one needs to necessarily remove their attention and focus from the road and redirect it to a small point much closer to their face. Granted, it is probably at least a little better than using a phone, but I'd be _very_ hesitant to say that it's safe.
My dev friend and I were looking into doing a similar product a few years back. We stopped because of laws that prevent you from putting anything that may obstruct you or another drivers vision / attention.
For all the anti-distraction people: Why is the Navdy HUD so much more dangerous than the already existing stuff in your car? At least when you are looking at Navdy you are still basically looking through the windshield. When I look at my radio or speedometer on my current vehicle, the windshield relegated to peripheral vision which is useless in this case as you get no depth information from the peripheral. With Navdy, you still should be able to see something coming at you. It seems far superior to the current HUDs in cars.
Safety issues asside, no one seems to be pointing out that this product is unprotectable: nothing they are doing has any barriers to entry, so what is to prevent a car manufacturer or anybody else from doing the same? Here's someone doing the same without any hardware: <a href="http://www.hudwayapp.com/" rel="nofollow">http://www.hudwayapp.com/</a>
Also, that video is too smug.
Is this legal to have in your car in the US? Looking at the state laws for electronics in the car it doesn't appear to be. <a href="http://www.ce.org/Consumer-Info/Car-Electronics/Got-It/State-Laws-for-Electronics-Use-in-the-Car.aspx" rel="nofollow">http://www.ce.org/Consumer-Info/Car-Electronics/Got-It/State...</a>
"Feels Like Driving In The Future"
And I'm prompted to install a now obsolete plugin to watch the video. Oh, the irony!<p>Anyway, here's a link for anyone else who wants to watch their introduction video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKL4PJICS40" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pKL4PJICS40</a>
This seems like a stopgap till,
a) The car companies head downmarket with this kind of tech and roll out on your entry-level models.
b) Cars get autonomous enough that this tech becomes irrelevant. Though maybe then we can project Netflix on the windshield with this and watch OITNB on your way to work! :D
Sort of an aside, but wtf is the car they are using in that video? It looks like a Ford Mondeo with a Bentley hood ornament; otherwise it's the ugliest Bentley I've ever seen.<p>Did they do that as a joke (including the SANDWCH license plate from the video production company)?
I wonder how soon using this will be illegal in some states. Something like this should <i>only</i> provide an interface to your phone's maps and just <i>maybe</i> help with phone calls. Nothing else.
What's going on here? This was a top post just a few weeks ago: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8137815" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8137815</a>
Its neat, but it's troubling that they really haven't thought it out.<p>First big problem I see, is that it will be sitting in the sun while driving, so it will quickly overheat and have sun damage over time.
This is the same actor that appeared in the original Coin video: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Sx34swEG0" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9Sx34swEG0</a>
"From One Second To The Next", A Film By Werner Herzog: <a href="http://youtu.be/_BqFkRwdFZ0" rel="nofollow">http://youtu.be/_BqFkRwdFZ0</a><p>Absolutely gut-wrenching.
i'm going to create a startup for the ultimate integration between mobile phones and automobiles. it's this box and you put your phone in it, and while you're driving you can't open the box.<p>pre-orders now, just email me at dontfuckingkillpeople@driveboxr.us<p>there's no way this will make it past state legislation
The money shot<p><a href="https://www.navdy.com/assets/bg_10-88a56c4c20214704cf0b395429882c44.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://www.navdy.com/assets/bg_10-88a56c4c20214704cf0b39542...</a>