Do you like the idea of car decals celebrating your mood, team affiliation, politics or sense of humor but can’t bring yourself to permanently stick anything on the rear of your pristine chariot? Perhaps you feel that in-traffic hand gestures can’t quite capture what you’d like to say to the tailgater hanging mere inches off your bumper? If these, or any other form of self-expresssion-while-driving, sound like your kind of thing, then the Mojipic voice-controlled emoji car display might just be right up your alley.
Launched on Indiegogo, the Mojipic is the brainchild of brothers Ilya and Igor Pashko, who wanted to show off their love for the Pittsburgh Penguins (their favorite ice hockey team) with a little more 21st-century pzazz than a mere bumper-sticker.
We’ve seen other products similar to the Mojipic which didn’t (or are yet to) make it to the production stage, and cheaper, simpler devices, such as the CarMoji, which turns a single face on and off and the long-gone Drivemocion. There’s even been a number of attempts by auto makers to build emotive displays into the car itself, such as the Toyota Pod, but the team behind Mojipic thinks it’s aced the concept with a simple, highly visible device, and a smorgasbord of features.
First of all, the Mojipic is controlled by a smartphone app (iOS or Android) – which you’d expect these days. It’s also voice-controlled (Siri or Google Assistant) which also makes sense, especially from a road-safety point of view. But then things start getting crazy.
The Mojipic comes with over 1,500 smileys and emojis – most of them animated. Sports team logos, national flags and symbols, logos, memes and more. And when you’ve tired of the 1,500 built-in offerings, you can use the app to create your own images and animated GIFs, upload images from your phone library or a URL, or just draw directly onto your phone (not while driving of course) and display your masterpiece in real-time for your fellow commuters.
But as they say in the classics, that’s not all. You can also create web-linked QR codes to promote your business website; display your Uber, Lyft or other ride-share logo or detach the Mojipic and entertain your passengers with pre-installed 8-bit games. The app is even capable of controlling multiple Mojipics at the same time, although it’s unclear how that might work using the voice-command feature.
Specs-wise, the Mojipic sports a 6,000-candela, 32 x 32-pixel display (bright enough to be seen in full daylight), housed in a 140 x 153-mm (5.5 x 6 in) casing. It has an 8,200-mAh, rechargeable lithium polymer battery and comes with a five-meter (16.4-ft) charging cable.
Pledges begin at US$69 (RRP $99), which includes the Mojipic device, the adjustable window/dash mount, an in-car charging cable and the app. If all goes to plan, production is expected to begin shortly with shipping following in August for backers who pledge early. The video below has more.
Mojipic puts a voice-controlled, emoji-based animated display in your car window [New Atlas]