Every once and a while, a product grabs your eye and you think to yourself, this is outstanding. Today I saw such a product. You may need FB to see the full ad, but I'll try to post a photo grab so those of you wise enough to avoid Zuck's rabbit hole can still see it.
GRM staff: Sign this man up for advertising.
Keith T and crew: Talk to this man about marketing for him.
Digital Miiata Dash
Photo:
Disclaimer: Would I buy it, no, I would not. I hate technology. I drive my Miata to get away for wizards, gizmos, nannies and conspicuous technological tomfoolery. The 20 somethings I know who own Miatas will, however, buy them by the thousands if the product is as good as it looks.
In reply to NickD :
I hear ya. I'm not personally interested, but I suspect if this doesn't suck there's gonna be a lot of people in "take my money" mode.
Will never put that on my 95R or my MSM. Yuck.
Isn't that EXACTLY what everyone complains about on the ND?
A better solution is to put a screen down where the radio goes. It's much better integrated and you don't really need the radio anymore. I've thought about building an auto HVAC system that would render the HVAC controls redundant as well.
Note that this is just a screen mount - basically, the aluminum face place, a 3D printed housing and a back plate. Actually driving it and making it do something are left as an exercise to the user.
Looks nice but i wonder if id be bothered by the lack of adjustability of the screen portion.
Just bend the aluminum face plate :)
I've been speaking to a friend of mine about this - he has a screen mounted in the low radio position. His thought it that it would be great for a track car running RaceCapture Pro, to put the screen for alarms and predicitive lap times etc up where it's visible. In a street car, you're more likely to use it for aux gauges or displaying things that don't need to grab your attention so you don't necessarily need it front and center. Now, if you use it as a primary control for the car (hello Tesla and 2020 Mazda) and/or a nav system, then the high-visibility location is good.
The screen casing is printed from PLA, which has a heat deflection temperature of 125F or so. That may be a problem in a hot area.
Touch screens suck so we'll put one in our old roadster. Brilliant.
There's another major issue with this type of product, changes in supported technology. You know keeps up with that? Cell phones. Just give me a decent phone mount and I'm good. I also happen to be paying for the features and display already as well.
To counter all the grumpy naysayers in here....
I applaud the design and the ingenuity. If I could do something like this to my S2000 without cutting a massive hole in the dash I would. I'm sure most of the kids on the Clinically depressed mazda miata posting facebook group will love this if its not out of their price range.
Hell if he needs an investor to help get things off the ground I'll help.
I'm not sure he needs an investor. It's two pieces of laser-cut aluminum and a printed housing. Everything else is off-the-shelf. The hard part is 1) coming up with a reason for the screen and 2) programming the Pi to do it, which is left to the installer.
captdownshift (Forum Supporter) said:
There's another major issue with this type of product, changes in supported technology. You know keeps up with that? Cell phones. Just give me a decent phone mount and I'm good. I also happen to be paying for the features and display already as well.
WHICH IS WHY IT USES A GENERIC SCREEN AND YOUR OWN DEVICE TO DRIVE THAT.
Sorry for yelling, but using this with an Autosports Labs RaceCapture or similar would provide some future proofing. There are other options as well, like a Raspberry Pi, an Arduino or just a SFF PC.
Man, what a bunch of acerbic Luddites around here lately. Some of y'all need to up your Vitamin D amounts.
One of the things I like about a Miata is its analog dash, so the add=on screen wouldn't be for me.
I've owned my current NB for a year and a half, and haven't bothered to put a working radio in it, even though I have a new one in the box.
Keith Tanner said:
Just bend the aluminum face plate :)
I've been speaking to a friend of mine about this - he has a screen mounted in the low radio position. His thought it that it would be great for a track car running RaceCapture Pro, to put the screen for alarms and predicitive lap times etc up where it's visible. In a street car, you're more likely to use it for aux gauges or displaying things that don't need to grab your attention so you don't necessarily need it front and center. Now, if you use it as a primary control for the car (hello Tesla and 2020 Mazda) and/or a nav system, then the high-visibility location is good.
The screen casing is printed from PLA, which has a heat deflection temperature of 125F or so. That may be a problem in a hot area.
PLA will 100% be a problem pretty much anywhere in the south.
NickD said:
I'll pass.
Big video screens have no place in a car.
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
NickD said:
I'll pass.
Big video screens have no place in a car.
In a race car they absolutely can and often do.
You do you though.
Mr_Asa said:
Keith Tanner said:
Just bend the aluminum face plate :)
I've been speaking to a friend of mine about this - he has a screen mounted in the low radio position. His thought it that it would be great for a track car running RaceCapture Pro, to put the screen for alarms and predicitive lap times etc up where it's visible. In a street car, you're more likely to use it for aux gauges or displaying things that don't need to grab your attention so you don't necessarily need it front and center. Now, if you use it as a primary control for the car (hello Tesla and 2020 Mazda) and/or a nav system, then the high-visibility location is good.
The screen casing is printed from PLA, which has a heat deflection temperature of 125F or so. That may be a problem in a hot area.
PLA will 100% be a problem pretty much anywhere in the south.
Agreed, ABS or PETG should be used, PLA is fine for testing, but not for long term use outside of your home.
In reply to Stefan (Forum Supporter) :
That would be the same vehicles that they need to have the oil pressure warning light a bright-ass 3" light so that the driver might notice it?
Snrub
HalfDork
9/11/20 8:49 a.m.
Even if you don't like it for you personally, how is a new product and continued enthusiasm for a 20-30 year old vehicle a bad thing?
It's not something we could sell, though. It's raw material for hard-core hobbyists of a certain type. Can you imagine the technical support questions? "What's a Pi? Can I use this $5 one? How do I wire it in? How do I get the data from my 1990 ECU on the screen? Can I run it off my Megasquirt? Does it run Apple CarPlay? Do you have it in carbon? Why does it cost more than the raw materials?"
that looks way better then A-pillar mounted gauges.
add back-up camera, apple car play, maybe a video rearview mirror (like in some race cars).
Pete. (l33t FS) said:
In reply to Stefan (Forum Supporter) :
That would be the same vehicles that they need to have the oil pressure warning light a bright-ass 3" light so that the driver might notice it?
More like endurance race cars that use screens like that to relay information to the drivers about their times, provide light filtered rearview camera solutions, and of course information about the state of the drivetrain.
A team I know has a Porsche 924 Turbo with something like this in it. They won the Chumpionship with that car and they also race in LuckyDog, etc.
So you don't have to have one, but E36 M3ting on it without considering who it might be useful for, is pretty narrow minded.
