Five o f the best

We recommend the best five in-car gadgets for you

1 Pioneer SPH-DA 120 $400 pioneerelectronics.com

Also known as the AppRadio 4, Pioneer’s in-car entertainment system can give your car a major digital upgrade, with touch controls and support for Siri and CarPlay. Pioneer provides its own apps to play a variety of digital music formats, and you can connect a rear-facing cam.

2 Pioneer AVH -3800BHS $230 pioneerelectronics.com

Pioneer’s in-dash DVD receiver offers a whole lot of stuff for the price, including Bluetooth control, Sirius XM satellite radio, HD Radio, Spotify app control (new to this model, in addition to the existing Pandora support), and integration with Siri’s Eyes Free functionality for spoken directions.

3 WheelWitness HD Pro $130 wheelwitness.com

The WheelWitness’s camera and recording resolution is impressive at 2560x1080 pixels, and with a 170-degree wide-angle lens, it’s recording virtually the entire field of view in any given direction. You can also follow your recorded video alongside a Google Maps screen to precisely pinpoint an event.

4 Cobra JumPack CPP 8000 $100 cobra.com

More brute-force than smart tech, but this could be a life-saver in an emergency. It looks like a conventional battery pack, with a USB port for charging your iPhone – but it’s also powerful enough to jump-start a car, and even includes its own set of jump cables.

5 Parrot MiniKit Neo 2 HD $70 parrot.com

With phone handsfree kit available for next to nothing, manufacturers have to justify higher prices. So Parrot has incorporated support for dual phones with simultaneous connections, “HD-quality” sound, voice control (though not through Siri), and more.