The 10 essential high-tech accessories for your car

There is always something missing to make us love our road trips even more. 01net.com offers you its selection of accessories to make sure you are always well equipped.

To afford a 100% techno car, you have to pay the price for it… or personalize it with a few accessories that stick as closely as possible to our uses. To choose them well, we came back to a selection of products tested by the 01net.com lab and others unearthed on the Web and which have already caught our eye. Car radio, hands-free kit, charger… So many devices that will make life on board your car more pleasant than it has been until now.

1 – Multimedia console – Parrot Asteroid Smart

The multimedia system is one of the key elements of your comfort during the journeys. Today we are no longer content to listen to the radio. Even if it means spending two hours in traffic, why not take the opportunity to listen to podcasts via your smartphone, listen to your favorite music stored on a USB key or even make a few phone calls via the Bluetooth hands-free system. These functions are ultimately fairly standard today, and the Parrot Asteroid provides them all… like a good number of competing car radios from Pioneer, JVC, Clarion or even Sony. We could also have told you about Apple CarPlay and Google Android Auto compatible systems, but not only are they not there yet, they also don’t do as much as our Asteroid Smart. If we particularly like this model, it is that it runs on Android, which allows you to install applications of all kinds. It comes with navigation software (iGO) and apps for refueling at the cheapest station or even finding a parking space, but it would be playing the prude to say that the Waze app is a must.

You will obviously have to share your smartphone connection, because the Smart does not include a data connection, but it’s worth it… provided you have an appropriate package. but it would be playing the prude to say that the Waze application is a must. You will obviously have to share your smartphone connection, because the Smart does not include a data connection, but it’s worth it… provided you have an appropriate package. but it would be playing the prude to say that the Waze application is a must. You will obviously have to share your smartphone connection, because the Smart does not include a data connection, but it’s worth it… provided you have an appropriate package.

If your vehicle has a double DIN slot, the Smart is a reference to remember. If, too, however, you have 550 euros to spend, to which you will have to add around 100 to 150 euros for installation. We will soon offer you to discover our test of the Asteroid Smart in video.

2 – Tablet stand – Motionperformance Essentials

If you have kids at home and you have a tablet or two, then you definitely need this tablet stand. Driver comfort begins with peace in the cabin. And to limit the bickering, the film’s recipe for the passengers in the bench seat is still the one that works best. Tested on a long journey of 700 km, towards the ski slopes, we were particularly surprised by the comfort of this support found at 10 euros on Amazon. Its adjustable jaws up to 25 cm apart and up to 3.5 cm thick, can accommodate a wide variety of tablets. A universal solution right down to attachment to the car’s head restraints, provided by a clip system. In our case, we installed two 10-inch models there, an Acer weighing 560 grams and a Lenovo weighing 550 grams, both were perfectly held in place and well oriented towards our spectators thanks to a ball joint system allowing the screen to be oriented. Pair it with headphones, wired or wireless, and you’ll have peace for hours. When the break comes, either you remove the tablet or you unclip the support, in both cases it’s very simple to do, avoiding attracting malicious people.

3 – Diagnosis unit – Eliocity Xee

Even used cars can transition into the connected era. For this, some manufacturers offer Bluetooth boxes which interface with the diagnostic socket (OBD2) present on all vehicles. We also told you about Xee, from the Lille company Eliocity, a solution that we installed on a Polo and that we have been using for several months now . Location and indications on the state of the vehicle (doors open, headlights on, number of kilometers, etc.), Xee collects some data and transmits them to your smartphone via its integrated SIM card.

We also discovered another very promising solution on the internet: Akolyt from Drust. In addition to locating the vehicle (practical if you no longer know where you parked), this solution is able to read the famous “error codes” of the vehicle. A great product for DIY enthusiasts who will no longer need to go to the garage to identify the fault. Akolyt also teaches you how to improve your driving and will automatically activate a call for help in the event of a detected impact. This box is manufactured by former engineers from the PSA group, but is not currently available for pre-order on Indiegogo and will be delivered from September.