Are you a Smart Traveller?

💬 Lounge
1

Share your experiences of:

  • Smarts in cars - Android Auto, smart EVs, starting / stopping and other car controls, Onboard Data, etc
  • Keeping tabs on traffic and other road conditions
  • Knowing where you loved one's are
  • Stuff I haven't thought of....

Or perhaps we could go all dark and "of the times", saying that the "smart traveller" is someone who travels less....? So more:

  • How have you introduced smarts into catching up digitally, whether it be with loved one's or work colleagues?
  • How do you manage your home deliveries?
  • How do you control your time on home automation forums? :wink:

Almost forgot, perhaps you need to get out explore nature, with smarts in a Caravan or SUV, boat, etc....

Discuss.....

2

I like the free leccy at my nearest Tesco

3

Worth the trip.... :slight_smile:

4

Very much so, especially since their are now only 3 manned or womanned checkouts now the queue to get out with a packet of biscuits is so long it gives me around 50 miles of free range

5

Heh, I paid $750 for my wife's first gps because she'd get lost on church youth roadtrips to Kings Dominion or Disney and call me at 10pm to describe obscure highway intersections or signs and want to know how to get home. So she was an avid early-adopter of Waze (a 'royal' user when Waze was karma-ing) and now won't go to the local grocery store without Waze.

Waze was her gateway to installing Amazon's Echo Auto, which she uses for voice controls of her radio, Pandora, etc and its interface with Waze. All this 'travel chatter' used to run me crazy, as I like dumb vehicles and never even turn on the radio, but I've almost grown numb to it now.

My dislikes aside, the combination of Echo Auto and my HE zigbee range-extending router gives her voice control of the garage door a half-block away, which is pretty neat and ranks very high on the WAF scale.

1 Like
6

I must admit, while I don't surround myself with it, I do have a healthy appreciation for old-school mechanical inventions that were built to last and reliability, or at least the ability to repair, were a key feature....

1 Like
7

I used to have one of these in my car for 4-5 years:

But they went out of business during the pandemic.

I use Apple CarPlay - although almost exclusively to play podcasts, send receive messages and make calls.

Finally, I have @iharyadi's Car Arrival Sensor - my garage door goes up when I'm within 30 feet of my house.

2 Likes
8

Yep, I did dabble with an OBD II adapter, but sadly earlier Subaru's didn't play nicely, and a 2008 BMW only offered up limited stats. Though a mate did get some useful info out of one for his later model diesel ute when he had issues with it blowing smoke, so they can certainly be useful to diagnose an issue.

1 Like
9

I ran an OBD II for a while when I was toying with all digital gauges on a tablet.

1 Like
10

The modern day taco.... And no, not the Mexican meal....

1 Like
11

We do miss voice control of the hotel room lights when we travel. However, most of our usual hotels have added the ability to use your own streaming accounts (Netflix, mostly) on the tv so we're not stuck with the usual cable news and game show drivel. Some chains are also pretty good at dispensing digital room keys and email receipts, so we never have to go to the front desk.

1 Like
12

Up until recently I worked for a travel IT company called Amadeus so very much at the sharp end of travel technology, especially airlines/airports, although most of it probably invisibly behind the scenes for the majority of travellers.

Personally, things like online ticket purchase, mobile check in, e-boarding cards, Uber (or Blacklane if I'm feeling indulgent :slightly_smiling_face:), online banking (and Paypal), Google maps, AirBnB (the list goes on) make travel just so much easier these days. I've had Bagtag eTags on my cases for several years so I can even check in my cases from home (I still need to carry them to the airport though). And Tripit manages my itinerary automatically.

Much more is coming, driven in part by the pandemic - things like touchless airports, disruption management systems, mobile passports/visas...

Many years ago I set myself a challenge of spending a week in London (I was living in Germany at the time) without using any cash whatsoever. It used to be quite difficult, especially on public transport. Then came along things like Oyster (pre-paid cards which you could load up and use to pay on Tube, bus etc). These days the Oyster card is losing ground to mobile phone (Apple Pay, Googe Pay) and every shop accepts it too. Even Big Issue sellers take contactless payments now!

Now a week in London without cash is incredibly easy - all you need is your phone. Many cities (Copenhagen springs to mind as I've visited recently) are reluctant to even accept cash on public transport, nor in most shops.

Funnily enough, despite Amadeus being based near Munich, Germany was one of the worst places for technology. It's a very fiscally-conservative society, especially in Bavaria. My local bar was cash only, not even accepting debit cards. To use a credit card you had to travel into Munich centre , and even then it was mostly tourists using them! But the pandemic quickly forced people to stop handling cash, and seemingly overnight supermarkets and shops switched to touchless payment methods (but still not credit cards!)

But I embrace all travel technology - bring it on :+1:

2 Likes
13

I use a cheap ELM clone, an old galaxy S5 cell phone, and the Torque Pro app when I'm pulling the travel trailer so I can keep tabs on the trans temp and other interesting tidbits. Been using it for close to 10 years now.

The bride and I use life 360. A couple days ago she was a passenger and involved in an accident (rear ended and then they hit the car in front of them) and I knew via a text message she may have been in an accident and where she was before she even realized what was going on.

3 Likes