Hot Consumer Product Gets Thumbs Up From 12 Volters

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Navdy

Larger car audio retailers say they are eager to sell Navdy—the new advanced and easy-to-use portable heads up display (HUD)—to be distributed by Harman starting next month.

At a $799 street price, Navdy is not cheap, but it offers many high tech features like augmented reality.

CarToys, WA with 50 stores is backing the product, so is Stereo King, OR (5 stores), and Columbus Car Audio, OH and Avenue Sound, NY.

Other store owners say they want to try out the Navdy, but some are steering clear of it, as it will be sold at Best Buy and it is available online.

Harman says, the product needs demonstration and consumers who have never entered a car audio shop, will seek out a proper demo at 12 volt shops.

Avenue Sound is already preparing to take advantage of that. It plans to sell Navdy at $999 installed with a full tutorial including a demo before the sale and a demo in the customer’s car afterward.

“We’re going to build in 2 hours worth of labor that includes tutorials,” said Vikas Moolchandani. “We’re taking the Apple Genius approach and catering to that type of client.  They want a full experience with the product. The installation is pretty straight forward, but the demo can take anywhere from 30 minutes to an hour.”

Moolchandani has some experience with charging for tutorials.  “We get a large portion of clients that come in with [OEM] features [on their own cars] they don’t know how to use.  We set up 30 minute “classes” at $50 for their own car.  An hour of labor in our stores is $95.  If the customer has the goods already, we can’t sell him anything but service,” he said.

John Coleman of Stereo King said he believes Navdy will open the door to a new set of customers and new sales. He plans to promote it on social media and demo it at car show events. Coleman added, “Unfortunately, it’s not something that could be done on Groupon, but Groupon would be a fantastic outreach.”

Car Toys said there’s a lot of pent up demand for a great HUD.  More than half of people buying a new car want one, according to IHS Markit.

Harman says it is still working on merchandising aids for Navdy, but most likely it will involve a running demo of the product.

Navdy projects an image so that it appears to “float” 6 feet in front of the driver where it may be easily seen.  It feeds you messages and tweets, navigation cues, real time traffic updates and rerouting in bright colorful images floating before you or announced audibly.  You can swipe away a call with a hand gesture. There’s a quick demo here.

Not every dealer is a fan.  Mark D’Elia of SoundFX, West Warwick, RI said the product is great, “but if I can’t make 40 points why bother?”  On the other hand, he says the way Navdy projects 6 feet in front of the car is a game changer that makes the product better than many OEM HUDs.

D’Elia wishes Kenwood or Pioneer (his two key suppliers)would take the same technology and adapt it to their radios.  Both companies have actually demonstrated HUDs at CES.  “With Navdy, your phone is the engine.  Why not have the engine be a Kenwood or Pioneer radio?”  So an aftermarket dash device would project anything from a car radio onto the windshield. CarPlay would be on the windshield with a tie in to the steering wheel controls, he suggested.

Harman became the exclusive Navdy distributor for auto/audio channels in December.  It is also investing in the company and will sell the Navdy co-branded as “Navdy with Harman.”

The device will also be sold at car dealers, telco stores such as Sprint stores, and it will be sold to automotive companies

Navdy works by pairing with your smartphone and a separate OBD2 device that comes with Navdy. Then a wire runs up to the Navdy from the OBD2 device.  There’s also a wireless steering wheel control knob that can activate Siri and Google Voice.

Navdy got a lot of media attention after it was announced about 2 years ago. When pre-orders began on its web site at that time, it ignited such interest that over 2,500 retailers and distributors from around the globe (at last count) contacted the company, said CEO Doug Simpson.

 

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5 Comments

  1. I am not a fan of how this technology is being used so far and this picture is very misleading. That being said, it is certainly designed for a particular segment of customers that we all know and that is the DIY crowd. I don’t see it being a real profitable item but it could be used as an incentive to bring people in the door which we all know is often the challenge these days. I agree that it would make a lot more sense for Kenwood, Sony, Pioneer, etc. to take this tech and run with it because it would be a real game changer if it integrated Android Auto and Car Play.

  2. It doesn’t have enough features to justify the price, I seen one i action it sounds better than it actually is.

  3. That screen shot isn’t a Navdy, go on their site and see the 1/2 brick sized projectile with a plastic screen sitting on a round dashboard, we have to stop letting this Plug n Play world take over, Where is the professional black box with a universal video/led/laser projector and a stick-on reflection screen we can install onto any vehicle. We need products to install in cars by our trained technicians. That opens new markets, These kind of things just confuse customers that technology is an app away. Products like this have been on the market in Japan for over ten years, Why are we getting old tech a decade later, that plugs into the lighter and gets double face taped on the dashboard. Respect the tech!

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