BAD WOOT! So ashamed of you. You used to be such a good boy too.
TLDR - Recomended Product BUT… Cheaper on actual Amzn site.
http://amzn.to/23xdiEQ
*Heads up on the Heads Up. If you drive a Hybrid or any other modern car where the engine shuts off every time you stop, like at a stop light or in, I don’t know, traffic! This thing will turn off as well. And then it will turn on and beep at you, yes YOU! Yes it’s anoying. Yes, you will learn to tune it out in a day or two. And yes, in fact, you can stab that little speaker to death with a pin if you are careful. Or if you are not careful it will just continue to wail a painful, sad, demented little warble after that.
Verbose mode: I have two of these, exact same model. I bought them on woot last month. They were $40 at that time but the Amzn price was almost $50. I am quite happy with it (for the money). I’m a big time gadget geek and an early adopter type. Add to that I commute 4 hours each word day. I spend a lot of time in the car. A lot of time. Srsly who drives this much?
I have an electrically heated, plug in, car seat cover. I use a dash cam that has saved my bacon more then once. Misc cell phone accessories and my HUD. One a daily basis this is the best thing I have added to my car. I remember back in the 90’s when GM tried adding this to cars but it didn’t catch on. People can be idiots. You drive, you don’t have to take your eyes off of the road to make sure you are not going to get a ticket. How does every car not have one of these. Forget anti-lock breaks, we need these.
The good. Its puts your speed right up there on the big screen where it needs to be. It is affordable. It’s easy enough that almost anyone can set it up.
The bad… Ok, bear with me. Only the speedometer is really useful. Honestly anyone who has been driving for longer then six weeks doesn’t need to look at the RPM’s unless they are doing some sort of diagnostics. So it does not need to be on a hud. The rest of it is mostly gibberish as well. Also it will come set to metric. And your controls to adjust it are limited. Like limited to just one stupid stick lever thing. Who came up with this and what were they smoking? But I didn’t even look at the manual, I just futzed with it for 5 min till I stumbled across the means to switch it to the correct settings. It will be slightly off. Why? Because this is not data from the wheel, it comes from the cpu that is monitoring the transmission. So any change in tire size or even pressure can vary the true speed of the vehicle. There is a way to adjust it. It’s not the simplest thing to do but it can be done. The plastic sticky thing that comes with it is krapie. I don’t like those things and even among their kind this one is not at the top of it’s class. It sort of works but any slight nudge and it will move. Double vision. They don’t show it on woot, and oddly they do show a carry case, like you are going to pocket this thing and carry it around. I did not get that carry case and in fact got the exact one shown on the Amazn page. Complete with the plastic film. (Woot are you going to comp me for the lack of a the worthless fabric bag?) Anyway, that plastic is there to fix your double vision issue and to make it easier to see in the daylight. Without it you will not see a thing in direct sunlight. Also you will get double vision at night because your windscreen is made of two panes of safety glass. You get a reflection of of both of them. Makes the image a bit blurry. You just peel and stick your little plastic film right where the reflection should be and Bill’s your second cousin twice removed.
So it sounds like I have put a lot of negative stuff on here, so how is this a good product? Ok, it’s not the “best” product for the job. However, those better products start at about $250 dollars.
My first foray into this world of exotic, low priced, automotive add-ons was ordering directly from China on that web site who’s name must not be said (At least not while J.B. might be listening). That was two years ago. I took 45 days to get here. Cost $80 and the instruction booklet was one page and all in Chinese. I was never able to get it to switch off of the metric system. It is currently living in one of the junk drawers in my house. Never spending two consecutive nights in any one drawer. Running, hiding, knowing that one day I will find it and think “WTF is this” and put it back.
My second try was a tad more ambitious. I bought a bluetooth enabled OBDII reader and connected it to an app on my phone. The app could not only read the codes but even has a free HUD mode that most people who use it don’t even know about. And yes it does reverse the image. You just start your car. Turn on the BT. Connect the device. Start the app. Switch to hud mode. Place your very expensive phone up on the dash in the hopes it does not go flying out an open window. And since it is connected to the ODBII reader, now when you get a phone call, all you have to do is disconnect it from the reader. Connect it to your hands free system. Answer the call you just missed. Wait for the voice mail. Play phone tag. Then disconnect it from the hands free. Reconnect to the ODBII, all while driving of course. Put your phone up on the dash, just as that idiot, I mean your beloved boss, calls you back.
Yeah, it was a total PITA with sauce. This is dead simple by comparison. It works, good enough and its not that pricey.
All that said, I love having a hud in my car. Especially at night. I’ve been driving, legally, since I was 14 (Its a midwest thing). I drive better then the average bear. But I am also old enough to know what stuff can still go wrong even when I’m not the one doing something stupid. Having my eyes on the road just that bit more just feels like the right thing to do if you can do it. And for $34 its the best small bit of assurance that you can buy. That and get a damn dash cam if you haven’t already. Two weeks after getting it some idiot rammed me in a parking lot and tried to claim it was my fault. You should have seen his face when I pointed to the camera. He went white as a ghost. Ha!
![[Preview 1]](https://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/40f905a2-52e0-4c92-abd0-a4e1fff8beb7.jpg){kind=link}
![[Preview 2]](https://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/48b2cc54-20f7-4ce2-a07d-c1eca5a99fbc.jpg){kind=link}
![[Preview 3]](https://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/355de873-067a-4b34-8dd2-9a0d81e29ca2.jpg){kind=link}
![[Preview 4]](https://d3gqasl9vmjfd8.cloudfront.net/a8462253-f57f-4144-b65d-0095bb765093.jpg){kind=link}
