Internet of Things (IoT) is quickly gaining popularity in our homes and business offices, our everyday props and appliances are connected to the internet to streamline our lifestyle. But now we have cars connected to the internet that are taking our driving experience to an entirely new level. By 2030, we will have an estimated 470 million connected cars in the US, China, and the EU alone. The connected car revenue across the world was $52.5 billion in 2017 and is now poised to reach $155.9 billion by 2023. Whereas, the US had the largest chunk in the connected car market.
The Basics
Your car is connected to the internet, it can share and receive data from other connected devices at your home, office, or even on the street to provide you comfort, safety, convenience, and improved performance. The machine-to-machine (M2M) connectivity facilitates interconnectivity between two cars, the sensors and processors provide accurate and real-time data to the driver.
Many car capabilities that we thought would only be possible in the Transformer’s universe are now slowly coming to fruition in our real world and that too commercially e.g. GPS navigation, windscreen head-up displays, M2M, or driver-assistance system performing complex driving tasks.
Should You Own a Connected Car?
Every latest gadget on the market has some new and wonderful functionalities never known before, so is the case for a connected car. With a connected car, you can control your car via your smartphone, which opens up a host of convenient options.
- You can lock or unlock your car doors remotely.
- Flash headlights or honk its horn to locate it in the parking lot.
- Switch on the car engine even a few minutes before you get in so that you don’t have to waste your precious time waiting for it to defrost.
- Perform your car’s health diagnosis and report them to you and your automobile dealer.
- Alerting the authorities if there’s an accident and pinpointing the location of the accident.
- A few systems even park your car themselves, particularly when you’re having trouble finding a parking spot.
- Other systems even offer you customer support, on which they can help you navigate unfamiliar terrain, book a parking spot, find the nearest ATM, gas stations, or restaurants on the way.
This is just the beginning of connected cars and the best of it is yet to come.
5G Bringing the Future Closer
If 5G comes into play, we will have cars that can interact with each other, the traffic lights, and other road infrastructure, and offers 360º non-line-of-sight awareness that can dramatically enhance road safety. Since 5G brings faster speed and bandwidth required to jumpstart small traffic systems and autonomous vehicles. An estimated 8.1 million car crashes and 44k deaths can be averted with the onset of 5G.
While we have an already established Wi-Fi-based Dedicated short-range communications (DSRC) to employ for connected cars, Cellular Vehicle-to-Everything (C- V2X) is a recently emerged technology, which has a longer range, greater bandwidth, and lower latency than DSRC.
The US is debating over which standard to adopt: DSRC or C-V2X, China is already ahead in the game since it has mandated C-V2X tech use in its vehicles that will eventually use 5G. C-B2X with its eventual induction of a new generation of cellular networks will make the IoT much simpler in implementation and ushering the era of truly autonomous vehicles.
While the western world decides which standard to approve, which might cause a five-year delay for the newest connected vehicle technology to be deployed, don’t ponder over these provisions too much. Get yourself a fabulous internet connection by contacting AT&T customer service and enjoy the IoT world with its endless possibilities.