Plenty of gadgets to make trip more enjoyable
Planning a day trip out of the city? No problem. Chances are your car, truck or SUV has all the technology features you’ll need to venture confidently beyond the boundaries of your daily routine.
It may even have some techs you don’t necessarily use on an everyday basis, but which can come in handy as you expand your horizons.
A navigation system may be high on that list, although it’s far from a necessity. If you have nav, it probably lies dormant for many of your day-to-day forays, but here’s a chance to let it shine and earn its keep. It may do far more than you imagine.
Of course, if you know where it is you want to go, it can plot your route, give you turn-by-turn directions as you go and keep you posted on your ETA (estimated time of arrival). All standard fare.
But if you’re not committed to beelining to the spot, let it also suggest potential points of interest along the way — things you might not have considered before but which may help make some memories for the whole family.
Of course, it can also help find food and fuel stops along the way — all features that help take the stress out of what’s supposed to be a low-stress day.
But an even better use of the nav system may be just to turn on the map function, with no set destination, and drive aimlessly as the roads and the countryside strike your fancy.
The map will let you keep track of where you are (though it may not identify the roads you’re on if you venture too far off the mainstream paths) and all you have to do is select your home destination to find your way back, even if you get delightfully lost. No navigation system? No problem. There’s a very high probability your vehicle has some form of infotainment system or at least a Bluetooth connection to your smartphone. And they’ll do most of the same things, as well as providing access to the wide world of apps.
Therein you’ll have almost unlimited information support for any day trip and much more. Want to know anything about a potential stop, from where to get an ice-cream cone to the area’s history over the past 150 years or more? It’s at your fingertips — or just a voice request away.
Beyond what you can access through your vehicle’s own systems and its cellphone connections, a few new models are now themselves mobile Wi-Fi hot spots. So your kids and other passengers can stay Internet connected via their tablets or other devices.
Not interested in the passing panorama between points A and B? They never need to look out the windows. They can just stay glued to whatever online game or pastime they’d be addicted to at home.
If the car itself can’t be the hot spot, many smartphones can. Just select “mobile hotspot” in their settings and they’ll be Wi-Fi sources for other devices in the vehicle.
Of course, the disinterested may not need an Internet connection to avoid the landscape. While it may now be considered old technology, many family vehicles from the past decade and beyond have one or more screens to play DVD movies or inputs from other mobile devices.
But the drive itself is often as much what makes a day trip as the destination itself, so why not put all that technology to a different use?
Why not keep an eye out for passing landmarks and make a game among the passengers of learning what they can about the sites they spot, using their high-tech devices then sharing what they learn with the others? That game may itself spawn a new technology for travellers, according to a product idea pitched at a connectivity conference in conjunction with the Los Angeles Auto Show last November.
It’s still in development, but in concept it used a combination of GPS, navigation, camera and online data to identify the vehicle’s location and
The drive itself is often as much what makes a day trip fun as the destination itself, so why not put all that technology to use?
display descriptions and a history of scenes passing by on the vehicle’s side windows.
Such systems and others like them are likely to become available in the not so distant future. But wouldn’t it be more fun to do the researching and learning ourselves?
It could add a whole new dimension to day-tripping. And who knows what you might learn? Tech Talk columnist Gerry Malloy is a regular contributor to Toronto Star Wheels. For more Toronto Star Wheels stories, go to thestar.com/autos. To reach Wheels Editor Norris McDonald: nmcdonald@thestar.ca