Gadgetory

apples Tim Cook has gone so far as to suggest that less their watch well one day replace the keys to your car and that elaborate wireless remote we're not quite there yet however even in these early days we're seeing a fair number of apps being offered by car makers and other car technology companies to hopefully make driving a little simpler a little easier a little better because you're wearing something smart on your wrist BMW's i remote was the first Apple watch car app we ever saw it came out on the debut day of the watch and it works with the company's eyeline of highly electrified vehicles you can do what is basically telematics that you're used to on your phone but now on your wrist check the charge of your car lock the doors unlock the doors get guidance back to where you parked it precondition the climate you can do that easily cuts an electric car doesn't really need to start the engine or any sense and you can also see how the charge is going to map out to where you might want to go the car will even through that watch app suggest the best time to leave to use the least electricity to get there but again not really anything you couldn't do on your phone already ditto for Porsches app which is the same basic basket of telematics although it works in a broader more conventional array of their cars they apply it to Cayenne makan and a few others as well as their 918 hybrid supercar but we're basically still in the telematics area Hyundai's blue link app is actually on Android first since that was the first SmartWatch platform of any scale but as of our show today it's still in the process of being ported to Apple watch now automatics a popular app you put on your phone it talks to an obd to wireless dongle you stick up under your dash and it gives you all kinds of information about your trips your driving style for economy or safety also where you park your car and which trips you want to tag as expensable for business now in terms of their watch app they've chosen to keep things pretty lean and taken just those last two functions where's my car and tag this trip as business expense and port those to the watch as the primary functions they can bring everything there they're just not sure it all belongs here which i think is good savvy restraint now pay by phone is one of the class of connected parking apps that lets you check your status of the meter feed the thing find parking spaces in some cases of these apps it seems like a natural to have on your wrist that's when you're away from the car but you want to have a very quick glanceable reminder that hey your time is running out and perhaps you can extend the time right from your ribs now you don't have to buy a new car to use Apple watch with it and on telematics makers like Viper for example know that porting their existing phone apps to Apple watch is a sexy headline allowing you to go to your wrist to unlock precondition or get the location alerts about your car that you already can get on their phone app and command a lot of these things by voice again not new but different okay a couple of organizing principles to help you think about where the watch fits in your driving first they have two basic locations one is wall driving glanceable on your wrist which tends to already be up high and in your view while you're driving tends to be good ergonomics and keeps your gaze roughly where it should be if those notifications are worthwhile the other area is of course out of the car when you're away from the vehicle and you need something to very quickly and cleanly remind you that if you need to get back to your car time running out on your meter or an easy way to get back to where your car is if you forgot where you parked it or tell you if it's charging or needs to be charged and then you've got two competing areas of platforms that are coming to compete with other perhaps augment the watch and that would be things like apple carplay and android auto which are going to bring a lot of this smartphone DNA to a richer fixed display in the dash that is better integrated with the car you've also got to keep an eye on head-up display which car makers are going headlong to adopt and that can give you an extremely elegant presentation of information right where your glance already is and should be and again highly integrated to the vehicle either way the watch is showing some early legs for the driver but as with most of its modes that it's promising it is yet to promise that it is better not just different from how we're doing things now more car tech demystified right now at CNET on cars comm click on car tech 101