The importance of health and wellness has come into sharp focus in recent months. Consumer technologies such as fitness trackers have been popular for some time, monitoring our heart rates, performance and sleep, but how might the renewed focus on wellness translate to the automotive space? To understand the current technology and what we might expect in years to come, Matthew Beecham caught up with Tim VanGoethem, vice president of advanced mobility solutions at Harman X, Harman’s division focused on innovation and future-facing technologies.
Health and wellness have never been more important or held greater value. Can you tell us about the current state of technology contributing to wellness in the vehicle today?
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Certainly. At present, a lot of the developments around wellness in the vehicle are focused on safety. There are a host of advanced driver assistance systems (ADAS) that support safe operation of the car, such as blind-spot detection, directional sound steering and lane keep assist. The car is starting to act as an advocate for the driver, with systems making decisions on their behalf and occasionally taking control for safety reasons – if the driver is comfortable for the car to do so.
Running in parallel to the safety demands, we’re looking at what other aspects people are interested in getting out of their vehicles. How we spend our time in the car is changing rapidly and consumer expectations are increasingly centred around experiences. The vehicle is no longer a utility or simply about transportation, we want to be as connected as we’ve grown to be at home or in the workplace, and we want to feel good while we spend our time there. We call this ‘EPM’, experience per mile – the experience is defined by the entire journey. It’s here that we see the crossover of safety and consumer demand. The technology put in place to support safety can be used for additional health features that will be compelling for consumers, enhancing their experience of the car and their wellbeing during journeys. It’s currently a little experimental and many companies, including Harman, are looking at these opportunities.
Can you give some examples of future opportunities that could arise from these systems?
We are starting to see technologies that can deduce if you are distracted, indicated by parameters such as gaze detection and pupil dilation. Normal cameras are now picking up the biometrics and facial cues to understand these topics and assess the driver’s cognitive load. These technologies will be imperative on the road to autonomy, as the car must determine the driver’s readiness to take back control of the vehicle if needed.
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By GlobalDataUsing the same infrastructure and monitoring systems, the car has the potential to deduce your health and mood, whether you are stressed, sad or tired. From a safety and wellbeing perspective, the car could make the decision to alter the cabin environment such as the air temperature or lighting to help improve alertness. In the future, it might be possible to take that information about the occupant’s state of mind and act upon it in a more personalised way, such as change the music playlist to make it more upbeat or more calming. However, deciding exactly what the car chooses to do in that situation will be a major hurdle to overcome.
At CES earlier this year Harman demonstrated the ExP Integrated Solution Suite, which bundles advanced technologies to support OEMs unlock these new market opportunities. The bundles include technologies that improve awareness, personalisation and productivity, as well as our current point of discussion – wellbeing and safety. By blending cloud, ADAS and telematics – as well as integrating technologies such as Virtual Personal Assistant (VPA) – the awareness, alertness and wellbeing of the driver and occupant can be enhanced while also staying connected.
And what about further ahead? Can you speculate what other health metrics could influence actions undertaken by the car?
Monitoring glucose levels could prompt people to take breaks on long journeys when blood sugar drops, or could be used to pre-empt significant fluctuations in those that have diabetes.
In the longer term, the car could interact with wearables, such as fitness tracking apps and devices that are helping us monitor our sleep, exercise and stress. Once such devices are capable of detecting serious health issues – that your heart rate is indicating a heart attack, for example – then sharing such data with the car could mean that it takes control to safely manoeuvre you to the side of the road. Similarly, monitoring glucose levels could prompt people to take breaks on long journeys when blood sugar drops, or could be used to pre-empt significant fluctuations in those that have diabetes.
Through the use of Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) technology, pedestrian safety can also be improved thanks to Harman’s Vehicle-to-Pedestrian ADAS technology. This utilises low latency 5G peer-to-peer signals and proximity scanning to identify and notify drivers of objects in the vehicle’s path, using the location of smart phones being carried by pedestrians or cyclists.
How far off are we from the car interacting with wearables? Do you foresee issues between consumer tech companies and automotive OEMs in making this happen?
Harman’s Vehicle-to-Pedestrian technology is anticipated to hit the market in 2021/2022 and will increase as 5G becomes standard. Inside the car, once wearables are capable of detecting such health issues, it will be a case of establishing a connection between the device and the car. The protocols and interfaces in wearables aren’t standard, so there is a challenge of ensuring the two can operate together, but that’s a solvable technical issue.
If the car knows you had a bad night’s sleep, it may suggest a route plan that might not be the fastest but is the least cognitively demanding.
There are certainly discussions taking place between the major consumer tech, internet companies and automotive players in this space, and there’s a balance to be found. Understanding what you did before getting into the car would be valuable and could shape the car environment. For example, if the car knows you had a bad night’s sleep, it may suggest a route plan that might not be the fastest but is the least cognitively demanding. Or, if it knows that you’re headed to the gym, motivational music could be played to get you mentally prepared for the next task. The biggest challenge we face is anticipating what people expect the car to do in all these situations.
Do you feel that consumers will be receptive to cars taking action in this way?
As I’ve touched on, while the car may be capable of deducing your emotional state, deciding what to do with that information will be one of our biggest hurdles. What you expect the car to do in certain circumstances may be very different to what I expect. Take changing the playlist as an example. If I was stressed, jazz music may soothe me, but it may rile you. Rock music may get you energised but might stress me out. One of the challenges will be getting the car to learn what you expect, understand your current state and do something personalised that will be magical for you. This will be incredibly valuable for the consumer.
Some people are uncomfortable with the idea of machines making decisions for them, even seemingly small decisions like changing the playlist. In the early days of telematics, people were uncomfortable with the car monitoring where you had been. But the car is learning from you, and there’s value in that history. By knowing where you’ve been and how you got there, it can learn from your previous decisions and align with your expectations. If the car foresees traffic on your usual way to work, it might choose to send you on an alternative route based on decisions you’ve made before. The car mimicking you is positive as it aligns with your expectations. If you’re sitting there concerned and thinking ‘why is it going this way?’ that’s only going to create stress, not alleviate it.
That’s the balance the industry will have to find – that symbiotic relationship between man and machine.
People need to consider it more as being learned than tracked. When such learning is used in conjunction with a safety and wellbeing narrative, it’s hard for people to argue against it, so it will be easier for drivers to accept and begin building trust. That’s the balance the industry will have to find – that symbiotic relationship between man and machine.
But what about security and ownership of that data?
Data from the car is at an all-time high, so security and compliance with regional data policies like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), is a top concern for automakers. We’ve developed a highly sophisticated suite of technologies for end-to-end cybersecurity, Harman Shield that detects and manages anomalies to mitigate threats. It’s scalable and customised to the customers’ architecture and needs.
What has been the OEM feedback so far?
We’re in discussions with OEMs about opportunities and potential capabilities in this space. The safety technologies are regulated by NCAP and it goes without saying that NCAP ratings are hugely important for OEMs. Traditionally, ratings have been based on the physical performance of cars during collisions, but we’re now seeing software being taken into consideration. We anticipate increasing manufacturer adoption as ratings are increasingly influenced by software capabilities.
With significant investments being made in the technology to serve NCAP requirements, once that infrastructure is in place – the right sensors, compute environments, the core enabling technologies – then you have a lot of possibilities. Safety sponsors the infrastructure, with a lot of discussion taking place to figure out how to make it fun and compelling for the consumer. A lot of really clever and fun things are being discussed that will leverage the investment in that technology, things that will get consumers excited.
What is the timeline for when we can expect to see such options in the car?
With the current requirements for NCAP ratings, we already have driver distraction and basic controls in the car, and there is a guideline of when certain features must be in place. But in terms of the wider wellness applications, I think you can expect to see some of these things in two or three years.
We’re working with OEMs to pre-empt consumer take up as such features continue to expand. As new services come to market, consumers are expecting to be able to upgrade their in-car services as they already do with their mobile phones. OEMs need a way to deliver new experiences, such as wellbeing services, and Harman has developed Ignite Marketplace that is designed to meet these changing expectations. Flexible and scalable, it provides OEMs access to a comprehensive ecosystem of cloud-based applications and services that OEMs can implement in vehicles. It uses the Harman Ignite cloud platform, which has currently been adopted by 29 global OEMs.
People will come to expect that there’s some playfulness about the car – beyond music and media – and making the most of the safety investment will create something fun and meaningful for consumers, making the car more than a utility, while of course not distracting from the primary mission of the journey.
