In-Vehicle Infotainment and Navigation: Part 2

In Part 1 of my post about in-vehicle infotainment and navigation, I talked about using Bluetooth for hands-free calling. While that feature is the strongest driver for Bluetooth use, new in-vehicle uses are emerging.

III. Emerging Bluetooth Profiles in the Near Term

Profiles such as A2DP/AVRCP for Bluetooth stereo streaming and MAP for SMS/email wireless connectivity via Bluetooth will gain widespread acceptance and will be widely adopted in the latest infotainment/navigation devices in the near term. This is following the trend for in-vehicle devices to integrate more and more of the consumer devices the customer brings into the vehicle.

A2DP/AVRCP – Wirelessly Stream and Control Your Music Collection:

Most Bluetooth enabled phones today are supporting the ability to stream Bluetooth stereo audio to a compatible device via A2DP. These devices are merging the role of the phone and the dedicated music device, sporting on-board and off board memory to store large music collections. As the iPod connector has proliferated in the in-vehicle space we are also now starting to see these devices wirelessly connect via Bluetooth to the infotainment/navigation system, something that will only continue to be adopted in this market. The complementary AVRCP profile allows the user to remotely control the portable device from the infotainment/navigation touch screen/User Interface (UI).  With the support of this profile the user can view the current track playing and also move forwards, backwards or pause the track as necessary. With the latest version of the AVRCP profile, the infotainment/navigation device can take the next step in integrating the compatible music device to the system. This latest specification innovation allows the entire device song database, including genre, album, artist, and song names to be browsed via Bluetooth. The profile provides a browse only or download feature to the device, so depending on its capabilities the manufacturer can choose to download the music database to the infotainment/navigation device hard drive or alternatively connect and browse the database via Bluetooth each time. The ability to browse the database may be rolled out on the lower end devices without hard drives while download could be available on the higher end models.

MAP, SMS, MMS and Email Messaging “On the Go”:

With the advent of the Bluetooth MAP profile another use case will empower users in the near term with the ability to view, control and respond to SMS and email messages while in the vehicle. Incoming and outgoing email/SMS messages will be transmitted to and from the infotainment/navigation device via Bluetooth. This offers the user a more comfortable and safer user interface (larger screen, easy to use input mechanism) to deal with incoming and outgoing messages “on the go”. Also those infotainment/navigation devices with TTS and VR capabilities may be able to further enhance the in-vehicle experience with button-less interaction with the phones’ messaging capabilities, i.e. TTS to read incoming SMS, MMS and email messages and VR to dictate simple, short messages. Enabling messaging in the vehicle via the infotainment/navigation device has of course safety implications which will have to be carefully considered by the infotainment/navigation designers and system integrators.

In summary, in the near term the hands-free calling experience will be enhanced with better, more reliable phonebook synchronisation using the PBAP profile while higher call quality with the adoption of wideband speech will also appear as well as near end enhancements. Bluetooth stereo streaming will gain wider adoption as it has matured significantly in recent years and now has a user friendly in-vehicle control mechanism with the AVRCP v1.4 specification. Access to phone messages via Bluetooth is also a perfect fit for the infotainment/navigation device and will be widely adopted in the near term.

More in Part 3