Las Vegas Sun

March 28, 2024

Road tech: See the latest car gadgets on display at SEMA

2015 SEMA Trade Show

Steve Marcus

Radio-controlled cars are taken through a drift course during the first day of the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) trade show at the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. The show runs through Friday and is expected to attract 140,000 attendees.

2015 SEMA Trade Show

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When SEMA, a trade organization for aftermarket car products, held its first convention in 1967, what would have been considered cutting-edge technology were upgrades to features inside the vehicle itself. Things like sequential tail-lights, electric sunroofs and eight-track stereos.

With the SEMA Show now in its 49th year, consumer electronics have a dedicated section at the four-day conference that began on Tuesday. And the technology offered in cars has shifted from only flashy enhancements to practical attachments, technology products advertised as options to make consumer vehicles safer and drive easier, making car rides more autonomous.

Of course, SEMA still shows a large share of technology that’s marketed to make drives more convenient, such as in-car wireless iPhone charging.

Much of this technology — the weighty and the light — is available now and has been for years. But with hype especially around autonomous vehicles and with technology increasingly prevalent in everyday life, some businesses are looking ahead toward what’s next, like head-up displays that show Google Maps across the dashboard, sensors that track and score driving, and vehicle-to-vehicle communications that allow cars to talk to each other and infrastructure.

As 140,000 attendees gather at the Las Vegas Convention Center this week for the latest in the automotive industry, the Sun scouted out some of these trends and aftermarket car products:

Watching the car and the road

Two products demonstrate how technology is being used to record driving, bringing the trend of collecting as much data as possible and saving it to the automotive industry. The products take two different approaches. One gathers video. The other, metrics.

• Redtail Telematics’ GPS Device, $99

Perfect for fleet managers and anxious parents, Redtail’s device plugs into a vehicle’s on-board diagnostic port, usually located under the dashboard. With a mobile application, users can see the car’s location and speed. For consumers, these metrics are powerful because they offer the ability to analyze driving records. A parent could use analytics to track a teenager’s progression as he or she learns to drive. Drivers could get discounts on their insurance premiums if they can prove they are safe. And victims of automobile accidents could avoid drawn-out tussles with insurance companies by presenting a time-stamped video recording that clearly shows what happened during the incident and who is to blame.

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A DOD LS470W+ dash camera is displayed during the first day of the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) trade show at the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. The new dash cam has a larger screen than previous models and GPS data logging. The device retails for $289.00 and is expected to be available in December 2015.

• DOD’s Dash Cam, $150-270

Many Uber and Lyft drivers, worried about incidents in their vehicles, have purchased dash cams to monitor a vehicle’s interior. DOD offers something different: an outward-facing camera that stores hours of video and location data that can be used as proof in an accident or wreck. As chip technology advances, companies like DOD could develop high-quality two-way cameras.

The path toward autonomy:

Nissan wants to sell a self-driving car by 2020. Google’s autonomous cars, which have been in the works since 2009, have traveled over 1 million miles and have been spotted on the road at its headquarters in Northern California. Autonomy is in the future. Some liberal estimates put autonomous vehicles at only three years away. But in the meantime, products are already on the market and are being developed to make driving less reliant on human intelligence.

• Brandmotion’s Advanced Driver Assistance System, $680

Many new cars already come equipped with devices that warn drivers when they are close to other vehicles. With the government mandating backup cameras starting with model-year 2019 cars, Brandmotion is hoping to jump on the safety trend by offering monitoring equipment for older cars. Their driver assistance system, equipped with a DVR for recording accidents, can be calibrated to most vehicles. The early-warning system monitors distance and lane departure.

• V2V Technology, TBD

If the automotive industry continues heading toward autonomy, this technology will be what sets the stage. Still several years away from being a standard feature, vehicle-to-vehicle technology will allow cars to communicate with one another and pedestrian infrastructure to avoid collisions and accidents. The 2017 Cadillac CTS is expected to be equipped with V2V technology. V2V will operate on a dedicated bandwidth that is encrypted and keeps driver information private.

A 360-degree view:

In 2015, video cameras are slowly becoming the new mirrors. Sort of. Ford’s 2015 F-150 still has its mirrors but the huge pickup truck also comes with a 360-degree camera. One company is bringing the technology to the aftermarket, seeing a potential need for patching the blind spots in trucks, vans or SUVs. Cameras can also be fun, and another firm is banking on that.

Brandmotion’s Full 360 Vision System, $800

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A Voxx 360fly HD video camera is displayed during the first day of the SEMA (Specialty Equipment Market Association) trade show at the Las Vegas Convention Center Tuesday, Nov. 3, 2015. The camera retails for $399.00 and transmits video from its 32 GB internal memory by Wi-Fi or Bluetooth.

Advertised as the next evolution of the backup camera, Brandmotion’s system stitches together four high-resolution cameras for a 360-degree view of the car. The camera system, made for larger cars, also creates a bird’s eye picture of the vehicle to make maneuvering easier and less risky. When driving forward, the system also shows a split-screen and a front camera view.

Voxx’s 360fly, $400

For those less concerned about safety and more enthusiastic about acceleration, this action camera could be a good alternative to a GoPro. The 360fly, made for extreme sports, is a spherical camera that captures 360-degree video and can be mounted anywhere, from a dashboard to a bike helmet. 360fly has a mobile application for editing and sharing video.

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