Evolution of infotainment screens: BIG IS THE WORD !!!!

dhruvtalksstech
Nov 12, 2022
5 min read

Updated: Dec 3, 2022

Infotainment screens are sort of like the bloodline of cars. According to a recent survey by JD Power, 90% of Americans won't consider buying a car if it lacks an infotainment screen. This is an incredibly high percentage of buyers in the world's 2nd largest and most competitive car market. This just goes on to show how much influence technology has on our lives and the integration and connectivity that people demand and expect nowadays their cars to have. They first started appearing on the scene around the mid-'90s initially in expensive luxury cars such as the S class and 7 series.

Since then, a lot has changed and now even 8000$ cars in India get infotainment screens. They have become more of a necessity and now no longer fall into the category of luxury features. The size has gone up much fold too. Cars started with 6-inch screens and now there's Mercedes's 55-inch hyper screen on the market. Even mass-market 25000$ cars get at least a 10-inch screen and the number is more than 12 inches for luxury cars worth more than 80,000$. Ultra-luxury cars such as the new Range Rover has a screen that stretches over 13 inches. Manufacturers are also looking for ways to make screens appear big and that's why they employ a bezel-less floating screen design.

Infotainment screens initially only did what normal radio was supposed to do except it used touch as the means of input but their role has expanded ever since and now have the same computational and processing power as our phones. You control all of the car's settings from the display, it is used for navigation, Android Auto and Apple CarPlay, taking calls, listening to music, controlling smart home devices, making concierge bookings, setting up appointments, comfort features, and anything you can name. It all seems pretty understandable when you take a broader view of the advancement and think about why phone manufacturers want to get in your cars and design your screens.

There's nothing wrong with it. If someone is excellent at the job they do, you outsource the work to them when you are aware that you would never be able to match their standards since it's not your area of expertise and specialization. Apple CarPlay and Android Auto were the first steps towards achieving this and have been hugely popular because they replace the car's navigation system which is frankly worse than most. That's why Apple has introduced plans to expand Apple CarPlays's role and move away just from bringing your phone experience to the infotainment screen to making the infotainment screen, speedometer and every possible screen inside the car use the company's software.

Apple announced that it planned to effectively take over the car's displays and use its UI and customization for everything from the speedometer to navigation and everything in between. The icon, transitions, and wallpapers that we are all familiar with and love so much would now also be natively available in our cars. This would also mean that a lot of services for which we currently use CarPlay in our cars would no longer be required since they would be in-built into the car from the ground just like Google Maps are natively installed in Tesla cars.

This would not only ensure consistency of the experience of moving from your phone to your car but also ensure that all of it is better intertwined and cohesive. The expansive screen size is not the only thing that has developed over the past decade. The number of screens in cars has also increased and almost everything now, including controlling cabin lights, is done by screens. This has led to the elimination of buttons and switches from doors and other panels which gives it a very clean and continuous look and feel. Luxury cars now come with rear entertainment screens that were earlier controlled by remotes but are now fully touchscreen. The responsiveness has increased very much and car makers are also tying-up with OTT platforms to provide streaming services even in cars.

Others who don't have expensive luxury cars use Amazon Fire TV stick inside cars by connecting it to the HDMI port and get after-market entertainment screens to fit on the back of the driver and co-driver seats. BMW 7 series and Audi A8 also have a small tablet in the rear armrest of the car that acts as a control of all comfort settings and you can even control blinds, windows, ambient lighting, massaging, seat recline, rejuvenation settings, and navigation from those displays.

Unlike phones, our infotainment screens are getting slimmer as manufacturers move away from LCD panel technology to LED and even OLED. The earliest version of infotainment screens was plastic but then they transitioned to glass which is premium to the touch and doesn't flex as you provide input. I called the development of infotainment screens an "evolution" in the thumbnail but considering how far we've come, it's better to call it a revolutionary change. Technology changes faster than most of us can keep track of and with this sentiment in mind, car manufacturers are making it easier to receive over-the-air (OTA) updates to the infotainment screens that make sure that your car never runs out of date and feels obsolete.

We live in a world where the degradation cycles matter highly to most of us especially since we have become accustomed to longer support cycles emphasized by tech giants. It only makes sense that car manufacturers would want to bring it to cars. Earlier, updating the car's infotainment required downloading software on a USB drive from the official website of the manufacturer and then inserting the USB drive in a port of the car to wait for it to upload to the system while the car was stationary. Most manufacturers now provide OTA updates and automatically update the systems when the car is sent for servicing.

Better infotainment screens have also given rise to voice assistants which can carry out all commands at the touch of a button. This not only makes driving safer by making sure you don't take your eyes off the road for adjusting settings but also gives birth to a multi-billion dollar industry and a plethora of jobs for call centers and AI engine engineers. The car industry relies mostly on the development of technology only and it is this advancement of technology only that has led to improvements in leaps and bounds.