Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Getting to Know XCode

After a fair amount of reading and tinkering around I've come out with a basic view that will establish the basis of the climate control system. This however is a work in progress and I have a few plans I still want to include here before moving on.

Home Screen of IPad simulator


 Example GUI for Climate Control




This basic layout provides most of the necessary settings that one would need to control the climate system in any car. 
  • Temperature setting replaces old knob with something a bit more 21st century (left hand side)
  • Fan Speed initial setup to provide 10 speed settings over the 4 original (right hand side)
  • Mode selector is pretty much the same story of whats already there... just digital
  • Fun features that my car currently does not have! Outside temperature reading, Cabin Temperature reading, Auto Climate setting.
  • Auto Climate is just as it sounds... set the temperature and it will regulate the fan speed temperature at the vents to maintain the desired set point. 
Currently I'm working on ideas of things to jazz this up a bit so its not so boring to look at. Current thoughts are:
  • animation for fan speed (spinning fan)
  • weather forecast (current condition - sunny, cloudy, rainy, snowy, ect... ) displayed as an image under outside temperature
  • appealing background instead of the plain white... 
Plenty of work left to go in this department! 



A Novel Idea

Out of curiosity I'm setting out to jazz up and old dash with some modern technology. My goal is to transform an ordinary IPad 2 into a climate controlling, weather showing, media playing head unit. Basically a single 9.7" touch screen that interfaces with the cars existing climate controls and audio system while integrating weather, navigation, video, and audio. Can't think of a better way to learn XCode and enjoy car audio!

The Ipad
 16GB Ipad 2


The Future Home




General Idea of Placement