Your Car

Your Car
Your car will also join the wireless revolution and in some neat ways. In
Chapter 15, we discuss how cars are sporting Bluetooth interfaces to enable
devices to interact with the car’s entertainment and communications systems.
And in Chapter 14, we discuss the range of aftermarket devices that you can
buy now that will provide 802.11-based connectivity between your home’s wireless
LAN and your car, whenever it’s in range. (We guess that makes your
garage a really big docking station!)
Because most cars already have a massive computing and entertainment
infrastructure, reaching out and linking that to both the Internet and your
wireless home network is simply a no-brainer.
A wireless connection in the car enables you to talk to your car via your wireless
network. Now, before you accuse us of having gone loony for talking to
our car, think about whether your lights are still on? Wouldn’t it be great to
check on it from your 40th-floor apartment instead of heading all the way
down to the parking garage? Just grab your 802.11b-enabled PDA, surf to your
car’s own Web server, and check whether you left the lights on (again). Or
perhaps you’re filling out a new insurance form and forgot to check the
mileage on your car. Click over to the dashboard page and see what it says.
You can also, on request, check out its exact location based on Global
Positioning System (GPS) readings. (GPS is a location-finding system that
effectively can tell you where something is, based on its ability to triangulate
signals from three or more satellites that orbit the Earth. GPS can usually spot
its target within 10–100 meters of the actual location.) You can, again at your
request, even allow your dealer to check your car’s service status via the
Internet. You can also, say, switch on the lights or the auxiliary heating, call up
numbers in the car telephone or addresses in the navigation system, unlock
and lock the car — all from the wireless comfort of your couch (using some of
those neat touchpanel remote controls that we talk about in Chapter 14). Just
grab your wireless Web tablet, surf, and select. Pretty cool. The opportunities
of being able to wirelessly connect to your automobile are truly endless.
Look for the following near-term applications for wirelessly linking your car
to your home:
Vehicle monitoring systems: These devices — usually mounted under a
seat, under the hood, or in the trunk — monitor the speed, acceleration,
deceleration, and various other driving and engine performance variables
so that you can determine whether your kids are racing down the
street after they nicely drive out of your driveway. When you drive into
your driveway, the information is automatically uploaded to your PC
over your wireless home network.
Devices like the Davis Instruments Corp. DriveRight (www.davisnet.com,
$139) will likely be using 802.11b. Some of the pricier business products
on the market, such as Road Safety International’s SafeForce, already link
to a base station computer using technologies such as 900 MHz spreadspectrum,
RF data transceiver. Going 802.11b simply makes sense.
E-commerce: You hear a great new song on your radio. Maybe you didn’t
catch the artist or song title. You push the Buy button on your audio
system, which initiates a secure online transaction, and a legal copy of
the song is purchased and downloaded to the car at the next wireless
hot spot that your car senses. From now on, you can listen to the song
over and over again, just like you would with a CD. When you get home,
you can upload it to your home’s audio system.
Remote control: Use remote controls for your car to automatically open
minivan doors or turn on the lights before you get in. And a remote car
starter is a treat for anyone who lives in very hot or cold weather (get
that heater going before you leave your home). Fancier remote controls,
like the AutoCommand Deluxe Remote Starter with Keyless Entry &
Alarm from DesignTech International (www.designtech-intl.com,
$200) have a built-in car finder capability as well as a remote headlight
control. AutoCommand can be programmed to automatically start your
vehicle at the same time the next day, at low temperature, or at low battery
voltage.
Okay, so these are not necessarily new and don’t require a wireless
home network. Where it can start to involve that wireless home network
backbone is to start linking these remote control systems to your home’s
other systems so that this becomes part of your whole home experience.
Imagine using that wireless connection to link to your home
automation system, such as those we discuss in Chapter 14. So when
you utter “Start the car,” the system will communicate with the car and
get it into the right temperature setting — based on the present temperature
outside (it gets its readings from its Oregon Systems wireless
weather station (www.oregonscientific.com).