USB Tire Pressure mon / USB or Fiber optical pre-amplifier / USB Parking system.

[riv]

Based on my experience during creating my CarPC installation: I would like to see how many possibilities there for creating following devices and software (most like it will be opensource):
- USB Tire Pressure monitoring kit, which could support detection
o Sensor Battery level
o Last time of information received from the sensor
o Support more then 4-5 sensors at ones
o Faster response on critical cases (pressure, battery, temperature) then existing kit.
- USB sound or Fiber optical pre-amplifier, which is going to provide output enough to power OEM Car amplifier (I don’t see any real need for reproducing and going to existing amplifier market as it is really challenge)
- USB Parking system (as we already have one set) but support 8 sensors (or more?), better sensitivity and ability to connect to the parallel parking display, so we can use it without running PC.

So, I am looking for people who are going to be interested in those devices and see if there is a real value to throw bulk of money for the engineering and manufacturing those units. My goal just to cover cost of R&D and actual manufacture.

[DigitalVampire]

I'd be interested in a "better" USB TPMS.

I have the current implementation of the same. No offense but I consider the existing one more of a fancy add-on than something which is highly reliable and dependable. Also I'm not really sure whether it is fast enough for critical alerts. Though I have 5 sensors, I was never successful in pairing all 5 of them. For odd reasons, it always stopped pairing at 4 irrespective of the sequence.

Also since TPMS and parking systems would be in demand by most, why not integrate the TPMS and Parking Alert system into one unit. I'm sure a single microcontroller can handle both the jobs merrily.

EDIT: By current implementation, I meant, the TPMS system based on 3rd Eye kit, customized for USB use by RobbyBMW & later integrated into a single PCB by MediaPortal (Alok).

[riv]

Let me know if we can merge our effort together? if so - send me your contact info and I will join you with our folks.

[Jensen2000]

Has anyone thought about using the Microsoft Kinect product as a sensored parking system?

As a spacial recognition system in the car, it might also be useful in generating a real-time top view map of your position with relationship to other vehicles.

Kinect Developers Video

[soundman98]

Has anyone thought about using the Microsoft Kinect product as a sensored parking system?

As a spacial recognition system in the car, it might also be useful in generating a real-time top view map of your position with relationship to other vehicles.

Kinect Developers Video

it sounds like a really good idea at first, but the dirt and grime that might get on the lens could be a serious issue being that the kinect was never designed for outside use..