I like the idea of this, and had thought about implementing it as they did.
However, there are several problems that I don't see addressed in their demos and web site.
For example, since it uses Windows, there is a substantial boot time before anything shows up on your dash. If you are relying on it for oil pressure, for example, and you drive away immediately assuming all is well right after you forgot to put the oil pan bolt back in, you could be out of oil before the gauges came up. That's a recipe for a Bad Day. There are optimizations, but even with SSD and a slimmed-down version of Windows, things will be coming up very slowly from a cold boot, and there are plenty of people for whom the hibernate feature causes problems in mobile apps. I don't see a way around this with Windows.
Windows also has an issue with power consumption. Even a hibernating PC takes a fair amount of power- enough to drain a battery in a couple of days. So you'll always need to keep the car on a trickle charger when it isn't moving, or become very friendly indeed with the local tow truck company if you find a dead battery on the road.
Another problem is that they show Garmin as their navigation choice. This was once a logical choice, since it can be embedded easily in a custom front-end. However, it has been discontinued for some time, and there is no explicit support for map updates, even if you do happen to find a NOS or used copy around. Do they support other choices like Sygic, etc? If so, why show a discontinued product in their demos?
If you are using one screen for instruments, you will have to either thread your fingers through the steering wheel for use the touch screen, or use some alternate input device to manage that. So there is one more piece of hardware floating around the cockpit, in addition to the risk of having to poke your fingers through the steering wheel while parking to turn on the rear camera. Do you really want to poke fingers through the steering wheel to turn on a fan at 70 MPH? Alternatively, you can have another screen in the center stack, but by the time you add that in, you are looking at a solution that will almost certainly be well over $2000, even with a group buy.
Finally, unless you are pretty good with managing drivers, playing with XML and otherwise fooling with PCs, this may not be the project for you. I'm guessing that maintenance (keeping current with fixed versions of whatever software you have installed) won't be trivial.
The only significant thing the MiMod seems to offer is explicit integration with ISIS. But ISIS says they will release a version of their InTouch software for Android, and there is already an IOS version that could be used with the new Ipad Mini.
Don't misunderstand- the idea is great for the center stack, where nav, infortainment and other non-critical things live. But for the drivers stack, I wonder if this is the right solution, even if cost is not a factor.
For context, the included Koso and a $200-400 7" tablet driving an amp and some speakers will go very far in terms of feature set (including bluetooth access to OBDII data, a very wide range of music and video players, email, browser access, etc.), have instant startup, will last for weeks without a charge, have no power consumption issues, uses off the shelf hardware that is designed for touch, and will have an installed cost that is a fraction of this approach.
Just food for thought.
However, there are several problems that I don't see addressed in their demos and web site.
For example, since it uses Windows, there is a substantial boot time before anything shows up on your dash. If you are relying on it for oil pressure, for example, and you drive away immediately assuming all is well right after you forgot to put the oil pan bolt back in, you could be out of oil before the gauges came up. That's a recipe for a Bad Day. There are optimizations, but even with SSD and a slimmed-down version of Windows, things will be coming up very slowly from a cold boot, and there are plenty of people for whom the hibernate feature causes problems in mobile apps. I don't see a way around this with Windows.
Windows also has an issue with power consumption. Even a hibernating PC takes a fair amount of power- enough to drain a battery in a couple of days. So you'll always need to keep the car on a trickle charger when it isn't moving, or become very friendly indeed with the local tow truck company if you find a dead battery on the road.
Another problem is that they show Garmin as their navigation choice. This was once a logical choice, since it can be embedded easily in a custom front-end. However, it has been discontinued for some time, and there is no explicit support for map updates, even if you do happen to find a NOS or used copy around. Do they support other choices like Sygic, etc? If so, why show a discontinued product in their demos?
If you are using one screen for instruments, you will have to either thread your fingers through the steering wheel for use the touch screen, or use some alternate input device to manage that. So there is one more piece of hardware floating around the cockpit, in addition to the risk of having to poke your fingers through the steering wheel while parking to turn on the rear camera. Do you really want to poke fingers through the steering wheel to turn on a fan at 70 MPH? Alternatively, you can have another screen in the center stack, but by the time you add that in, you are looking at a solution that will almost certainly be well over $2000, even with a group buy.
Finally, unless you are pretty good with managing drivers, playing with XML and otherwise fooling with PCs, this may not be the project for you. I'm guessing that maintenance (keeping current with fixed versions of whatever software you have installed) won't be trivial.
The only significant thing the MiMod seems to offer is explicit integration with ISIS. But ISIS says they will release a version of their InTouch software for Android, and there is already an IOS version that could be used with the new Ipad Mini.
Don't misunderstand- the idea is great for the center stack, where nav, infortainment and other non-critical things live. But for the drivers stack, I wonder if this is the right solution, even if cost is not a factor.
For context, the included Koso and a $200-400 7" tablet driving an amp and some speakers will go very far in terms of feature set (including bluetooth access to OBDII data, a very wide range of music and video players, email, browser access, etc.), have instant startup, will last for weeks without a charge, have no power consumption issues, uses off the shelf hardware that is designed for touch, and will have an installed cost that is a fraction of this approach.
Just food for thought.
