Lexus is well known for pushing the technological envelope in their cars. Radar cruise control, automated parallel parking (you control the speed and it does the steering), the industry’s first eight-speed automatic transmission, and so on.
But now the Lexus LS 460 can monitor your own body temperature and adjust the cabin temperature accordingly. A little too clever maybe?
Can a computer really know better than you how comfortable you are? Lexus is betting on it.
justin p
on 16 Oct 06please insert temp. probe before starting
Walker Hamilton
on 16 Oct 06heh. funny.
and no, They can’t know any better then I do. What if I’ve got a fever with chills? Does this mean it’ll lower the temp to make me colder, just worsening my chills?
Oh, and does it know if the windows are open?
Rob
on 16 Oct 06This isn’t mentioned anywhere in the website. Are you lying?
JF
on 16 Oct 06Rob, see this BusinessWeek article.
Mark
on 17 Oct 06Standing on it’s own, or installed on a car that has nothing else really luxurious about it, yeh it does seem to be a bit over the top.
But taken with everything else that’s available on that car—rear massage, leg lift, ice box, swing out table, dvd player, automatic sunshades…it seems to fit right in there.
I found the delf-parking feature to be a bit overkill initially, but then again, if you’ve got an important someone in the back watching the DVD, then the rear-view is probably going to be obstructed anyway.
The cool thing is that you can have a lot of these features, and still keep the car under 6 figures in cost. I’d be surprised to see if you’ll ever get that from Mercedes, BMW or Audi.
Francis Wu
on 17 Oct 06It’s pretty clever, yes.
But if the car’s air filters can analyze my sneeze/cough, determine the appropriate meds for me, and recommend a nearby drugstore via GPS - one that actually carries the item in stock, no less - THAT would be super-clever!
I, for one, would welcome our new Lexus-doctor overlords.
:P
Amit Patel
on 17 Oct 06Francis, you’re not thinking big enough. The true luxury car will automatically order the meds and have them delivered by courier to your car. Your car will automatically slow to 60mph as the courier pulls up beside you, and then your car window will open and the courier will give you the pill and a glass of spring water.
Nathan Jones
on 17 Oct 06I have enough of a problem with airconditioning that only monitors air temperature.
Our car’s airconditioning is all based on desired temperature and fan speed. Which is fine in theory, but it also means that we can’t just turn on a heater when we want the car to warm up quickly. Instead, we have to fiddle with the temperature and hope that the difference between that and the current temp. is enough to make the system spit out hot air. (We just get warm air if ambient temperature is approaching the target.)
Just give us a cold <—> hot slider and let us adjust as needed.
Rimantas
on 17 Oct 06I’ve seen some interesting things in Honda’s world too: GPS tracking the position of the car, so the system can adjust air streams from AC – sunlit side gets cooler air than that in the shade. Another thing on this car – phase invertors to fight the noise.
Geoff B
on 17 Oct 06Ever use a heart monitor when exercising? I’ve done that a couple of times, and it actually does a pretty great job leading me to an optimal training pace. If I run too slow, I’m wasting time, if I run too fast, I run out of steam. The monitor did lead me to the sweet spot. Maybe Lexus is on to something here…
Francis Wu
on 17 Oct 06Amit Patel, come to think of it, instead of delivering the meds to you, the car automatically dispenses the meds in the air through the climate control system. That means every Lexus will be a fully-equipped drugstore on wheels.
Rimantas, which Honda has that cool feature where the sunlit side gets cooler air?
Jens Meiert
on 17 Oct 06Interesting question… but it could work. And as long as you’re nonetheless allowed to adjust temperature, it even sounds cool.
By the way, Justin’s comment is interesting as well ;)
andrew
on 18 Oct 06When I first saw the ad for Lexus’ magic self-parking car, I wondered how many people would get out of the car expecting it to just park itself, leaving their gagillion dollar Lexus double-parked?
Aristotle Pagaltzis
on 19 Oct 06It doesn’t have to know better than me whether I’m comfortable – it just has to pay more attention. I’d totally dig such a thing for my computer cave. I will often sit in there for hours, lost in my coding or my feed subscriptions, never noticing that I’m getting cold (or hot – or hungry for that matter) until my clattering teeth rudely pull me back to reality and I get up to put some extra clothes on me.
No idea if it will be as useful on a car, though; driving doesn’t invoke the same sort of concentration.
Justin Bell
on 19 Oct 06Sounds interesting. Perhaps it’s like a normal climate control, except if it detects that you are hotter than usual, it turns the temp down a bit untill you cool down a bit, and visa versa.
Justin Bell
on 19 Oct 06Oh yeah, as far a telling if you’re hot or cold, perhaps it learns you temperature range by your hands on the steering wheel? Sounds better than an anal probe, unless it also vibrated :o
Noel Hurtley
on 20 Oct 06I would love to experience this technology first-hand. This is a remarkably cool idea.
Ankur
on 24 Oct 06Question is, does it control temp to make only the driver comfortable, or does it take everyone in the car to account?
Ankur
on 24 Oct 06So I RTFA, and it does!
This discussion is closed.