Hasn’t it been your dream to drive around and stay connected to the Internet just about wherever you are? You might want to take a look at a few Audi cars (the A6, A7 and A8), it has partnered with RACO Wireless to effectively turn their cars into giant mobile hotspots and connected devices. Powered by T-Mobile, RACO will allow you and your passengers (preferably just your passengers if you’re driving) to connect your smartphones and tablets to the car to get online. Pretty nifty and convenient.
Additionally, as a driver, you can focus on the road thanks to the Google voice commands. If you don’t want to fiddle with controls to select and get to your destination, simply speak the directions or point of interest and RACO and Google will do the rest for you. In our demo, we chose In-N-Out burger – mostly because I don’t have those in New York and I’m wondering why I put up with those harsh winters, muggy, smelly summers and lack of In-N-Out – and the car picked five nearby locations for us to choose from. You simply blurt out the one you want to go to, and you’re immediately routed to that location.
Overall, it was a pretty neat experience and there is much more the car can do thanks to RACO Wireless. Diagnostics, web connectivity (for weather, news, etc.) and navigation is just the starting point. New Audi owners will get to experience RACO Wireless’ service free for six months, and after that there is a monthly fee (RACO was unable to tell us the rate because it hasn’t been officially announced).
See the video below for a quick demo.