If there’s one area of industry that’s famous for taking their sweet time to modernize, it’d be the Auto Industry. While self-driving cars are now in development from not just technology firms like Google, but also big names like Mercedes-Benz, General Motors and of course Tesla, the car is still, for the most part, stuck in the past. British carmaker Jaguar is looking to bring some of their offerings into the 21st Century with a new Android Wear smartwatch app, which will allow drivers to control and activate their cars from their wrist, further turning a “car key” into something entirely different.
During the London Wearable Technology Show the Jaguar Land Rover company announced their new Android Wear app which would allow users to remotely lock and unlock the car, adjust climate control before getting in the car and check the amount of fuel. It sounds as though this would mean the cars would also connect to the web somehow, as one example given by Jaguar’s press release is unlocking the car remotely for friends or family members if they’re not nearby. For the most part, these features seem pretty gimmicky more than anything, but then again being able to cool or heat your car before getting in it is the sort of luxury Jaguar owners would be expecting. Displaying how much fuel is available is a useful feature however, as it could allow people to leave earlier than usual in order to fill up and not be late. Much like the Tesla offerings, Jaguar devices now ship with a large 10.2-inch touchscreen system, and this new Android Wear app is one more way of modernizing things.
Jaguar is saying that the new app will launch “Summer 2016” and that the new F-PACE crossover will be the first car to support the new feature. Having said that the picture of the app supplied by Jaguar lists an F-TYPE, so there could be a new version of the F-TYPE coming with support for this feature, or some sort of software update. Either way, new Jaguar cars, starting with this year’s F-PACE will be able to display some information from your watch, which will no doubt work well for Jaguar as just one more luxury selling point.