The idea of holoride’s in-car virtual reality (VR) entertainment system was always an interesting one, albeit one that seemed a little way off. Things have certainly stepped up a gear in 2022 with the company revealing a partnership with HTC Vive last month, and now confirmation that the first cars to be holoride compatible will be select Audi’s this summer.
The rollout will begin in June 2022, coming to models featuring Audi’s third-generation modular infotainment toolkit (MIB 3) in Germany, the UK and the US initially. Those models will include the Audi A4, A5, A6, A7, A8, Audi Q5, Q7, Q8, Audi e-tron and Audi e-tron GT Quattro, expanding into further European, Canadian, Japanese and Chinese markets later on.
Holoride’s technology means that backseat passengers can put on a VR headset like the Vive Flow glasses and enjoy videogames, films and other interactive content. What makes the holoride experience slightly different from simply using any old VR headset in a car is its “elastic content”. This adapts to not only the movement of a car in real-time but also journey time and driving route.
So imagine you’re on a VR rollercoaster or in a spaceship, as the car accelerates so too does the ship or as the car turns a corner the spaceship does likewise. In this fashion, holoride claims that motion sickness should be reduced to a minimum.
And the system is completely wireless as well, with no cables running from the drivers’ console to the rear, all thanks to Bluetooth. The holoride system won’t support every Bluetooth-enabled VR headset, only those specifically enabled like Vive Flow.
No surprise really that Audi would be the first car manufacturer to feature this in-car entertainment experience, it was Audi that first envisioned the idea. Holoride was then spun out as a startup to further develop the technology for different manufacturers. The first example was an in-car Marvel VR experience during CES 2019.
The very latest version of holoride is being demoed at SXSW this week in Austin, Texas. For further updates on the latest innovative use cases for VR, keep reading gmw3.