Everything You Need To Know About Heads-Up-Display (HUD)!

Features – something which every Indian looks out for while getting a new car. Considering its 2020, we have got many new features which have made our driving experience simple and convenient. One of the modern-day features that have made their way in the Indian automobile market is the Heads Up Display or the HUD. In today’s featured, we have a look at a car tech which is now familiar to many people in India. Thanks to Kia Seltos and its amazing sale numbers. Let’s dive in and see how this car technology works and why you should have it!

What is a Heads Up Display?

HUD is a transparent display that is mounted on to the dashboard of the car and displays crucial information and data without diverting the driver from their usual viewing position. This new-age car tech gets its name from the position it allows the driver to be in. By this, we mean that the driver can be in straight heads up position and have access to all the vital information that they need to see while driving the car. Be it the car’s speed or the navigation, you can have it all on the HUD. Initially, they were designed to be useful for military aviation but have gradually shifted to cars and other automotive now.

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Heads Up Display: Composition and Assembly

Commonly, an HUD is an optical collimator setup which consists of a convex lens or concave mirror with a cathode ray tube, light-emitting diode display, or liquid crystal display at its focus. An image is produced by this setup where the light rays are collimated. Confused? Read on! A collimated ray is a condition where the light rays are parallel to each other and do not diverge with distance. If the rays are not collimated properly, they will tend to diverge before reaching the source.

Coming to the main stuff now, the combiner is an angled flat piece of glass located in front of the viewer. This glass redirects the projected image in such a way as to see the field of view and the projected infinity image at the same time.

What does a HUD display?

This is the Heads Up Display from the Kia Seltos. You have a variety of customisation options available where you can choose from what you want to see in the HUD. Mainly, it displays speed and navigation stuff but so that you don’t have to look down or in the central console while driving. You can customise how the HUD looks through the infotainment system. You can select the size and colour of different information displayed on the HUD. Here’s how you can customise the HUD on Seltos.

Can you retrofit a Heads Up Display?

Absolutely yes. For those wondering only Seltos owners are having the convenience of the HUD in the affordable range, you are wrong. You can easily head to any online shopping portal and get yourself a HUD. Usually, these devices connect to your car through the On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) port and display the vital information just like any other HUD would do. Typically, you can get an aftermarket HUD under 10k.

Advantages of having HUD

• Helps you avoid turning your head to various places in search of different information. Be it speed or navigation, you have it all at a single place i.e. on the HUD.
• Eyes tend to re-focus faster on the road when you take your eyes off the HUD.
• You get all the information that you need while driving at a single place so you are not distracted from the road by your mobile or those fancy dials in the MID.
• Significantly reduces driver’s fatigue because they don’t have to struggle looking for information inside the car and can focus more on the road.

Disadvantages of having a HUD

• More development is required. Each and every vehicle cannot have HUD because they don’t have the required controls making it a hard to implement the technology.
• It significantly adds on to the cost of the vehicle. If the brand decides to make it a standard feature, they will have to put in money.
• Rather than being a convenience, this can be a distraction to some as well. Yes, some drivers don’t prefer using the HUD because they feel that the display distracts them rather than providing them with any useful information.

This was all about the Heads Up Display or the HUD. What do you think about this new technology which Kia Seltos has brought in the affordable segment? Are you a Seltos owner? Don’t forget to leave your thoughts in the comments section below about this new tech included in your car. Have any doubts regarding the HUD? You know where to go!