Claudia Bacco, Managing Director – EMEA for RCR Wireless News, has spent her entire career the telecom, IT and security. Having experience at an operator, software and hardware vendors and as a well-known industry analyst, she has many opinions on the market. She’ll be sharing those opinions along with ongoing trend analysis for RCR Wireless News.
The AT&T Drive Studio has received a lot of press as the first operator-founded center for research and innovation related to connected cars. What many people may not know is that AT&T’s Foundry is also working on connected cars. The Foundry consists of innovation centers in which AT&T works with partners as a team to develop applications and services.
There are 17 projects highlighted in the innovation showcase where current effort is being focused. I will touch upon those related to connected cars, but they are all worth a look to understand the program’s future priorities.
Cascade for Cars enables voice and messaging via the vehicle’s head unit as opposed to over a Bluetooth link from your smartphone. It also allows multiple devices to connect to a single head unit. Think about it in the context of using your primary identity (phone number) with multiple devices and securely enabling these connections. For example, in the vehicle you may have a smartphone, tablet and a wearable of some type that you’d like to connect while in the vehicle. Presently, you would only be able to do so with one Bluetooth connection per device.
Cascade for Cars only requires a one-time pair at the initial set up and then works via proximity of the device to the head unit. The functionality is agnostic to the operating system of the device or the brand of the head unit. The original equipment manufacturer would enable embedded authentication and security via a data channel delivered over the mobile network. There is a catch though as voice over LTE is required. When you think about the timing for this functionality, it is less about the in-vehicle functionality and more about the mobile network functionality to make it a reality.
Onramp is a platform of APIs to allow developers to create new cloud-based solutions on top of connectivity. Being worked in conjunction with AT&T Drive and using the automotive service delivery platform enables ease of growth across the connected-car ecosystem. Some examples of the type of functionality being developed include vehicle remote controls (start, lights, climate), vehicle information queries, user information queries and e-commerce from the vehicle. The work being done by this team envisions the car as the next mobile platform for development of applications.
The next two don’t really have anything to do with connected cars, but since they are car-related and interesting topics, I will also mention them. Electric Vehicle Heads-Up Display is a great idea. It allows you to simulate driving an electric vehicle in your current gasoline-based vehicle in advance of making a purchase. This is a topic I raise regularly on the discussion of electric vehicles. I always say I’m not against them, I just don’t know how to judge them. I know what I can do with a half-tank of gas, I don’t know what I can do with a vehicle that is half charged. I know how long it takes me to put fuel in my car, but don’t know how long it takes me to charge an electric one. This tool lets you emulate a specific model of electric vehicle and go for a test drive. Great marketing tool.
The last item is a car seat that can sense when a child or pet is left in a locked vehicle and how the temperature in the vehicle is changing. If the temperature begins to rise, the driver can be notified by text message to return to the vehicle. There is also a vision for the future where additional issues can be tracked such as carbon dioxide emissions or a vehicle that is in motion that shouldn’t be as a result of a theft. Additionally, there is a concept to be able to remotely start climate control in the vehicle to address any temperature issues that have been identified. Of course the reality is you really shouldn’t be leaving your child or pet unattended in your vehicle for anything other than a brief stop, but we know this isn’t always the case, so anything that can minimize a dangerous situation as a result is well worth considering.
