Deck the car this season
It’s the Holiday season once again and as much as I’m into it as the next Filipino, I gotta ask, “reindeer antlers and Rudolph’s nose on your cars, really?”
Now lest you mistake me for the Grinch, let me say that this ‘prop’ is so 2013, or whenever it was it really came out. Did you know that research has found that these antlers create wind resistance, increasing your drag coefficient and your fuel consumption by as much as half a kilometer per liter? So, allow me to suggest a much better expression of your Holiday spirit with these items that not only will you like, your vehicle may actually appreciate them too.
CarPlay infotainment
Unless your mobile device operates on Symbian (this was the OS of old Nokia smartphones) you can’t go wrong with buying a head unit that’s Carplay or Android Auto compatible. Units with this feature hover over and above the P8k range so it might seem pretty pricey but it’s a lot more convenient that having to peer at your phone mounted an arm’s length away while driving in traffic. And besides, it’s illegal now to touch to phone when you’re in a moving vehicle (even while stopped at a traffic light). With this, you just pair your phone and voila, all the important stuff like SMS, contacts, navigation and music are right there on your car’s touchscreen.
High-speed multi-charger
New car owners won’t have this problem because they’ve got a USB port (sometimes multiple) built into the dashboard or even behind the center console. If your vehicle only has the good, old 12V socket, get yourself a high-speed, multi-charger. The ‘high-speed’ is so that your device gets charged in close to half the time it usually takes and the multi-charger is so that others can plug in as well. If you’ve got more than one device, problem solved.
Mobile phone mount
I’ve never been a fan of any other mount save for the suction grip-type. Others mount on the 12V socket, CD slot, or the aircon vents and either way, they make the phone’s position impractical. Suction grip-type mounts give you a little more freedom as to where to position your phone (under the four-inch ADDA limit), as opposed to too high or too low with any other kind.
Backup camera
If your vehicle doesn’t sport one, then you definitely know what you’re missing. In this day and age when parking slots are getting more expensive and smaller, this one is a nobrainer, especially if you drive an SUV. Backing up to a slot, a parking
maneuver Filipinos love to do (even if the sign says ‘Park facing the wall’), is made so much easier and scare-free with these. If you don’t have a dashcam yet, most reverse cams come with it as a package so you’re hitting two birds with one stone.
Bluetooth adapter
Since you can’t touch your phone while driving and the ‘compatible’ head unit may