FEATURE Story:
Some of the Innovation Award Winners in car electronics were announced Thursday, and others will be announced at CES.
Preliminary winners include a “speakerless” audio technology called Ac2ated Sound; VOXX’s LOOK-IT wireless backup camera and a new connected car 4G Dashcam/Heads up display called Raven.
Additionally, about a dozen other products were named Innovation honorees in the In-Vehicle Audio-Video category and the Vehicle Intelligence and Self-Driving Technology category.
Here are a few of the 2018 winners:
Ac2ated Sound –There’s no need for a traditional woofer and tweeter in a new type of sound system developed by major car supplier Continental.
Instead, the system uses the car’s headliners, A-pillars and other parts to act as vibrating “speakers.”
Ac2ated Sound replaces conventional loudspeakers with actuators that create sound by vibrating certain surfaces in the car. You can read more here.
LOOK-IT—VOXX began shipping the Look-It wireless Bluetooth backup camera late last month. LOOK-IT’s
backup camera is pre-mounted in a license plate frame. It communicates via Bluetooth 4.0 to a smartphone mounted in your car to create a do-it-yourself backup camera. Street price is $299.
Raven is a high end 4G dashcam from Klashwerks that went on pre-order on Friday. It has two cameras, one facing forward and one pointed in the car cabin. If there’s a theft you can see into your car in real time to check it out. Or you may watch your teen while he’s driving.
The dashcam with built-in screen connects via a cord to an OBD2 device. You can control it by swiping gestures in the air.
You can read more about it here and here. For a limited time, Raven will be available at $269 at www.Raven.is. Shipping is slated for February 2018.
Click here to see more 2018 CES Innovation Award winners. (Towards the top of the page, click on the drop down arrow by “Best of Innovations” to choose the In-Vehicle or Vehicle Intelligence categories).
In other categories one of the Best of Innovations 2018 winners was Buddy the robot that interacts with the whole family including entertaining the kids. Buddy is from Blue Frog Robotics.
