About
HUDWAY CAST. Keep your eyes on the road!
$583,563
2,552
To all our backers: We thank you so much for supporting this campaign — and we once again pledge to deliver you a product you will be proud of.
You're welcome to get in touch with us anytime.
Best way to reach us: support@hudway.co
Product website: hudwaycast.com
Help Center: hudwaycast.com/help
Press-kit: hudwaycast.com/presskit (.zip, about 20 Mb)
Facebook: facebook.com/hudwayapp
Instagram: @hudway_drivesafely
Twitter: @hudwayapp
Hi Kickstarter!
We're HUDWAY. Since 2013 we’ve been working to help reduce drivers' distraction behind the wheel. Today, having joined efforts with Carrobot company, we're proud to introduce HUDWAY Cast — a one of a kind, break-through solution for stress-free and safer driving.
HUDWAY Cast is a portable head-up display for your car to get directions, receive calls, texts and control your music in a safer and easier way. It works wirelessly with both iOS and Android devices: you always see your directions in your line of sight, while your phone acts as a quick-access control panel.
Head-up display (HUD) devices allow drivers to see directions and other critical navigation information right in front of their eyes.
HUDs have already made their way into the automotive industry, but mostly as a premium built-in option only a few can afford. Not to mention, these HUDs are programmed to display a very limited set of information preset by the vehicle manufacturer. And because of that, chances are — you will still be using your smartphone for navigation, especially if you prefer driving with Waze or Google Maps.
But when you use your smartphone as a navigation device — wherever you mount it, it will either block your view or make you look away from the road to check directions.
Besides, you don’t limit using your smartphone in the car to navigation only, do you?
At the same time, you must be well aware that using a smartphone behind the wheel is dangerous. Not only does it take our eyes off the road, but also reduces our visual scan, and increases cognitive load. Smartphone distraction behind the wheel is reported to have taken more lives than alcohol.
Holding a phone while driving has been banned in a number of the US states, but the National Safety Council still reports that cell phone use while driving leads to 1.6 million crashes each year.
We can’t deny there may be a need to stay connected even when you’re driving. But we believe there should be a safer way to use a smartphone behind the wheel, and we hope to change everyone’s driving habits for the better— with an affordable and universal HUD solution.
Throughout the past few years the team in Beijing has been working to create an uncompromising alternative to built-in vehicle HUDs. After rounds and rounds of making, testing and updating prototypes, experimenting with lens curvatures, projection screens and body designs, a full-fledged aftermarket HUD device was finally developed — versatile, powerful, and affordable.
Device specs
Device size: 15.4 x 10.1 cm (6.1 x 4 in); height: 4 cm (1.6 in)
Lens size: 16.2 x 9.2 cm (6.4 x 3.6 in)
Operating voltage and current: 12—14 Vdc @ 1 Amp (Max)
What's in the box
Attention! To check whether it will fit in your car, print a device mockup, cut it out and take it to your car.
The hardware part has been created in partnership with one of the leading aftermarket HUD manufacturers, Carrobot, and is based on their Carrobot C2 Lite model.
More accessories, like alternative mounts, cables, etc. will be available at our website when the campaign is finished and we launch the production.
In essence, HUDWAY Cast is an external display for your smartphone — bright, transparent, and driving-oriented. Here's an overview of its features.
Gives a real head-up display feel
The image from HUDWAY Cast display is taken to a lens which enlarges it to 20" and focuses the virtual image about 9 feet or 2.8 meters in front of you. This way, it feels easier for your eyes to readjust focus from the road to the projection — just like using a luxury vehicle built-in HUD, but about a dozen times less expensive.
Bright and contrast image in any conditions
A display 20 times brighter than a smartphone screen gives an excellent full-color projection even on a sunny day — on a completely transparent lens. The display brightens and dims automatically, and the projection quality does not depend on how bright your smartphone screen is.
And here's a longer video on how well the virtual image is seen under direct sunlight:
Easy to install
Just affix it to the dashboard and plug in the cigarette lighter socket. That’s it. Take it off the mount and put to a gloves compartment when you’re leaving the car.
We suggest that you tuck the cable under the windshield to keep it out of sight.
Besides, after the campaign finishes, we'll be selling cables to connect to OBD-II port and use this alternative way to power HUDWAY Cast. With this connection you'll be also able to get your car data (RPM and speed) and select what you'll see on the heads-up display — car data or directions. Be sure to check first whether your car maker allows this.
Connects to any smartphone, mirrors any app
It wirelessly connects to any smartphone that supports Miracast or Airplay — and that means virtually all modern smartphones. Pairing with a smartphone is very easy, as both iOS and Android devices allow to cast the screen image to an external display wirelessly with just a swipe and a tap.
You launch a navigation app on your smartphone, select to stream it to HUDWAY Cast — et voila — enjoy driving with your directions projected in your line of sight.
You'll get the best experience if you switch Waze or Google maps to night mode prior to streaming them to Hudway Cast
On the tablets, it will be all the same way:
Versatile: for any car and driving professional
As HUDWAY Cast supports streaming any navigation app, it will be helpful for those who spends hours behind the wheel every day — truck drivers, taxi drivers, public transportation drivers, rally pilots, etc.
Anything on your smartphone screen can be streamed as is to HUDWAY Cast lens. This way, you can create a route in your favorite navigation app, stream it to HUDWAY Cast and see directions you’re used to in your line of sight. That’s one way to go...
We’ve gone further and made an app that creates a game-changing experience, well beyond simply mirroring your phone screen.
It allows you to access the most needed smartphone functions in a driving-friendly way — and makes using smartphone behind the wheel safer and less-distracting.
The idea is that you mount your phone onto a magnetic holder where you can comfortably reach it, and with quick swipes and taps can answer calls, send quick message templates, share your location, or switch the tracks — all while seeing navigation in front of your eyes.
The interface is built of bright and bold color spots to make sure you distract your eyes off the road to the phone as little as possible, and rely more on your peripheral eyesight — a Tesla-like experience in your car. Here’s what we’re implementing in the app.
Dashboard
Quickly view and manage the most basic things like recent phone calls, smart navigation suggestions, location search, music, and your favorite widgets.
Navigation
Enter the destination and use HUDWAY Cast navigation to guide you — with offline maps, traffic info, and crisp uncluttered route view. Or switch it to Waze or Google Maps in the app settings.
When you’re using HUDWAY Cast navigation, you will always see the directions displayed on the heads-up display, no matter what you’re doing in the app on your smartphone. That is to say, you can handle calls or switch tracks and still see the navigation streamed on the lens. And here's how it will look:
Calls
Accept calls like you’re used to — using your headset, car speakers, or your smartphone. Use swipes to accept or dismiss a call. Make calls choosing from the list of favorites or recent calls — in a less distracting, hands-free way.
Messages
To avoid reading messages and texting when driving, HUDWAY Cast allows you to:
- Listen to a received message;
- Reply with a voice message;
- Reply with a quick template message;
- Share your position and ETA.
Music
Manage your music library or streaming services like Spotify by quick swipes and taps in our driving-friendly UI. You will still see your directions on HUDWAY Cast screen.
Due to the fact that Apple keeps a lot of things private, there will be differences in cans and can'ts for IOS and Android versions of HUDWAY Cast app:
We plan on implementing a voice-to-voice chat in the next versions of the app — so that you would be able to communicate safer behind the wheel on both iOS and Android.
We started HUDWAY project in 2013, and have since released several products sharing the same idea of reducing distraction behind the wheel by offering a specially designed experience.
We started with the apps; then, in 2015, we launched a Kickstarter campaign for our first hardware product, HUDWAY Glass, — a car accessory reflecting a smartphone screen image on a semi transparent mirror lens and this way transforming the phone into a head-up display. We aimed at $100,000 funding, but collected six times more, and shipped over 12,000 orders to over 9,000 backers in 97 countries 10 months after the campaign finished.
By now, we’ve sold over 40,000 devices globally and established an operating production and supply chain.
HUDWAY Glass has been our debut in hardware, and it has become successful, even though we had hard time dealing with its optical components.
HUDWAY Cast is a way more sophisticated and ambitious project. That's why we teamed up with the guys who are really good at hardware design and manufacturing.
Together, we are now ready to launch HUDWAY Cast, which is very different from HUDWAY Glass in terms of functionality, experience, software compatibility, certification, logistics — and, consequently, price. What could not be implemented in a simple accessory — all-day image brightness, comfortable focal length, wireless connection to a smartphone, unlimited app compatibility — has now become possible in an electronic device.
The team has grown a bit since our previous campaign, and we are proud to say that we’re truly global now. Meet the key team members:
Special thanks to Mike Sannikov, a natural born engineer, for sharing his sober advice, expertise, and irony. You rock, mate :)
Why are we on Kickstarter again?
When we launched our first Kickstarter campaign, we were a small startup, and Kickstarter got us global. We now have everything to launch a new amazing or cool or innovative project, except for a great community to launch it big. $100K target funding is the sum of the contract that will give us the most affordable price tag for the first mass production run. And we're offering you this best price and the earliest delivery in exchange for your support.
Timeline
We've already done a lot. Here’s where we are heading next:
Follow us to watch our progress:
Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | Vimeo | YouTube
For any press inquiries, please email pr@hudway.co, or access press materials.
Risks and challenges
We’re not on the idea stage anymore. We have a roadmap, a production contract, an established supply chain — and we will absolutely deliver.
It’s our second Kickstarter project, and we learned to always have a backup plan to minimize the waiting time.
Hardware production has its pitfalls: components procurement delays, certification bureaucracy, logistics issues — the list is long and the winter is coming.
We pledge to fulfill Kickstarter orders by Christmas, and we will do our best to break through pre-Christmas delivery hoax — with fully trackable shipments and quick delivery.
And we will always keep you posted — in public comments thread and updates.
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Funding period
- (31 days)