Music is a very important part of today’s stressful life. On average, about 50 percent of music listening is done in the car. Thus, car audio is a very important segment for audio equipment manufacturers. There have been several innovations in this field in the past decade. From a basic cassette player, the USB player has become the industry standard. There are several innovative products in the market today, which offer double din touch screen display with video playback features.

The revolution started with the car audio system now embracing smart phone operating systems (OS) such as the ‘Android’ by Google. This is still in its beta stage and will be available to consumers in quarter two of 2011. Having a car audio system integrated with a powerful OS like the Android will enable the system to provide all the features of a smart phone today. This device will be very interactive, easy to use and customizable.

The credit for making it possible to integrate such high-performance hardware into the unit goes to the drastic fall in price over the last decade of integral components like the processors, memory and display. This is going to be a very new and exciting experience for all potential buyers. A car audio system running on the Android platform has endless possibilities. By just inserting a USB dongle, it will have access to the Internet. This will enable the head-unit to access Google maps to use as a GPS device and get traffic and parking updates. It can also access Internet radio such as Pandora. Another exciting feature of this innovation is that it can access the Android market, which will let it download several compatible applications for the device, including several utilities and games.

The company that has been the first mover to adapt this technology goes by the brand name Parrot. This is essentially a Bluetooth devices brand, which has entered the high-potential car audio industry. The innovative product recently showcased by Parrot at CES 2011 is called Asteroid. It is a CD drive-less radio using a specially customized version of the Android. It also has three USB ports situated on its rear side, which allow users to plug in their USB thumb drives to play music. One of the ports is reserved for the USB 3G dongle. Its data connection can support downloads of new applications used by the device.

In addition to the above-mentioned Android platform features, Asteroid will also be able to sync and connect the user’s Android or iOS based smart phones. This will allow the user to make calls by using voice commands and would work as a very efficient hands-free device. The traditional market leaders in this segment have not yet disclosed any plans for an OS-based head-unit; few Chinese OE manufacturers and Parrot are the early adapters.