Hudway Glass, the $50 Gadget to Curb Distracted Driving
Heads up, phones down.
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Another day, another Kickstarter. Keeping with the latest trend of projects that cleverly—and cheaply—bring older cars into the era of in-car connectivity, we have Hudway Glass. The product is less an actual gadget than a little bit of hardware that turns your smartphone into a bootleg head-up-display.
What amounts to a clamshell of plastic and curved glass essentially reflects your smartphone screen. Placed on top of the gauge cluster, it sits within your field of peripheral vision. Hudway has produced a few apps of their own as well as partnering with other map-app companies—all with an eye toward maximizing drivers’ display options. Given that Hudway creates a reflection, each of the apps have to mirror the phone screen in order display properly on the head-up-display. Screens may simply reflect your speed, or more robust information such as forward hazards or the curvature of the road just out of view.
Is it necessary? Not really. A windshield-mounted smartphone will fulfill the same tasks, but there may be an unintended benefit of the Hudway. By requiring the phone to be placed in a face-up position high on the dash, the solution keeps a phone out of reach for text messaging or a quick game of Candy Crush. This is undoubtedly a good thing.
The Hudway Glass is available for $49.
