Your car can feel like a furnace when you first get in on a hot day. Often, the first thing we do is put the air conditioner on full blast and point as many of the nozzles as possible directly at our face and body. Newer cars with climate control will generally automate the latter job of cranking up the cold, but directing the vents is traditionally left to the occupants of the vehicle. One of Ford’s latest patents could change all that, however.
The Michigan automaker has been busy over the last few years, patenting everything from in-car sanitizer bottles to in-car sanitizer lamps. However, not every idea the company has is reflective of a tortured post-pandemic society. Ford has also come up with a nifty “Vehicle Air Vent System” and secured a patent for the concept. It’s a nice feature in which the HVAC system will direct the flow from its vents directly towards a given target, such as an overheating driver or passenger in need of thermal relief.
The concept would sound fantastical just 15 years ago, but today, it’s something any moderately experienced maker could build with off-the-shelf parts. The key to the system is a camera built into the dashboard. This camera captures vision of the driver, and using simple face-detection algorithms, can figure out their position in the vehicle. Armed with this information, the vehicle can then adjust the up-down angle and left-right angle of the HVAC vents to direct air directly at the driver.
On the surface, it sounds kind of frivolous. How hard is it to adjust the vents yourself? And yet, in some cases, it’s easy to imagine the utility of such a system. In some larger trucks, for example, you might find yourself sitting a ways back from the vents. You can lean forward to adjust them, sure. However, this often involves trial and error as you try and get them positioned right to direct air towards your position when you’re sitting normally. Simply having the vents aim at you automatically is much easier by comparison, and kind of luxurious.
It’s the kind of feature you’d expect to see in a Mercedes-Benz S-Class or a Rolls-Royce. Indeed, you can get digitally-controlled vents as part of the Thermotronic system on the latest Mercedes E-Class, but it’s not the same thing. The vent positions can be controlled via the infotainment touchscreen, with selections for the head, upper body, or to aim away from the passenger and driver. However, there doesn’t appear to be any intelligent sensing going on to get the aim right. The vent positions are just simple presets.
The optional THERMOTRONIC with Digital Vent Control in the new #MercedesBenz #EClass can adjust the air vents in the dashboard automatically. It also saves and remembers your individual settings in the user profile.
Learn more: https://t.co/3VoSsZYG8e pic.twitter.com/dlAbJ27SND— Mercedes-Benz (@MercedesBenz) February 24, 2023
Implementing this feature is actually very easy with today’s technology. First, you need a set of vents that can be moved on command. This is trivial for automakers, who mastered electric windows and power mirrors years ago. It simply involves adding some servos or motors to existing air vent designs. Beyond that, you just need an imaging system that can track humans in a video feed. This is easy, with face and body detection a problem that was solved long ago in the computer vision space.
Indeed, you could realistically build such a system into your own car if you’re handy enough. I’d start with a Raspberry Pi, which is a kind of credit-card sized computer. Hook it up with a camera with a fish-eye lens placed far back on the dashboard, and it should be able to see the driver and passenger perfectly well. Have it run a face-detection algorithm using the freely-available OpenCV library, so it can determine the positions of the driver and passenger. Then, you just need to calibrate a map correlating vent positions to the positions of the driver and passenger in the video feed. If you wanted to win a Nobel Prize for your work, you could also read the position of the seat rails. This would allow you to better account for the driver and passenger sitting closer or further back from the dash, and aim the vents accordingly.
Realistically, the hardest part would be modifying your vents to be controllable by the Raspberry Pi. I’d probably use some tiny servos to control stock vents, or maybe just 3D print some new vents from scratch. Ultimately, you’re just building a robotic sentry turret, but instead of shooting people with bullets, it’s blasting them with air.
We could also see the technology being used for mischief, too. Mount a windscreen washer nozzle on the vents, and have them track the passenger as normal. Then you can squirt them in the face at will. Probably not good for maintaining a friendship, but perhaps a useful bargaining tool if your pals aren’t coughing up for gas money on the long drive home from The Autopian meetup.
For now, it’s just a patent. There’s no word on whether Ford plans to bring the tech to market on any vehicles in particular. It’d make a pretty fun demo for dealers doing a sales pitch, though, and we’d love to play with them too. Maybe they could call them Terminator Vents because it’s a die-hard robot that won’t stop until it finds the human its looking for? In any case, here’s hoping Ford makes these a reality sometime soon.
Image credits: Ford, US Patent and Trademark Office
Can I have it aim at my crotch instead ?
I’ve not had a car with crotch vents since my ‘86 MR2. Great feature, can’t understand why it’s not universal.
I think one of my Volvo’s had one
Volvo understands the challenges of getting older (swamp crotch).
Can they improve the ventilation at the floor level? Only my right foot as a driver gets warm while the left one doesn’t receive the same . Can they track my feet to blow air to them? lol
Now this man is genius. I am pretty much 100% disappointed with heat and ac distribution at the foot level. I’ve frequently considered using something like a wide vacuum nozzle and some hose to try and move the air vent more directly above my feet and blow more even across both. Never have done it though.
I drive RHD. My left foot gets warm, my right foot freezes, not helped by the aluminium throttle pedal that I have my foot on all the time. It’s stupid and lazy.
See! This is why I avoid cars with air conditioning! Don’t say I didn’t warn everyone.
There’s got to be a “not the face” joke in there somewhere.
I love this idea. I waste more time than you’d expect fiddling with vents to get them blowing right.
While I agree with literally EVERYBODY here so far, I will just add that my wife would love this feature.
Go for the eyes, Boo. Go for the eyes!
Automotive HVAC engineers of the 1990s: Here is Three Dial HVAC that works, enjoy.
Automotive HVAC engineers ever since: We made it worse!
Well, for me just sounds like one more failure point in useless option.
I mean, can I adjust it manually without either navigating thru a lot of menus in a giant screen or directly without damaging the motors?
A better implementation would be aiming vents on hotspots in car interior, using a thermal camera.
Still useless, but better.
If I wanted air blowing directly in my face I’d bash out my windshield.
Am I alone in HATING air blowing on my face? I always aim mine lower on my torso or even offset to the sides somewhat.
I’m glad im not the only one here who doesn’t want the vents to be pointed directly on my face. if this must be a thing, let people turn it off.
Lets take a poll- who here actually wants this?
I just want a goddamned 5 speed manual transmission!!!
4,5,6, I am not picky
So, add complexity for complexities sake, cost, a new mode of failure, cost, more weight and equipment, cost, and charge more for something NO ONE has asked for.
Between this and Ford patent for self driving repos, I think I will pass on ANYTHING Ford is offering for their amazing over-priced quality.
Let’s not forget the battery drain. Sure, it’s small, but we see articles about adding complex aero systems to eke out 4 miles per charge, and this would waste what? Half a mile? For something silly and as mentioned another failure point (and no doubt not a cheap one).
Really, Ford, is this the level of problem you want your precious automotive engineers working on? Do your belted-in passengers flop around so much that they need an inertial air stream guidance system?
I wager the folks who worked on this are lawyers and product managers, rather than a cadre of engineers.
First I don’t like the vents pointed at my face.
Second, do you really need all the AI tracking etc to do this? Everybody’s head is roughly in the same spot even with different heights. the vents are not pin-pointing in a 1 square inch spot, the air fans out from the vents which covers a larger area. There could be one preset spot for the vents at the headrest height which would cover most people.
So what you’re saying is, Ford just gave Skynet a targeting system. Great.
Given that I never want the vents blowing in my face, I hope this never makes it into a product. It’s a waste of money even if it can be turned off.
I don’t want to become robot target practice for the “I ROBOT” uprising, I WANT SWING VENTS
Car are too expensive as it is. I don’t need this crap!!
I can’t remember the last time I adjusted my vents. I set them how I wanted manually, and they have stayed that way ever since. Keep this lazy people crap out of cars
As a contact wearer, I often don’t want the vents pointing at my face, because it dries out my eyes. So as long as it’s an optional setting, I would be okay.
Nope. Don’t like that. Just let me aim my vents. Manually. Don’t add additional failure points and additional interior sensors/cameras. Also, when it turns out they’ve trained it entirely on white men and it doesn’t aim properly for others, that is going to cause all sorts of additional problems for them and the drivers.
No, aim it straight at my balls. Bring back the ball vents!
The only problem with ball vents is that as they get older they can get a bit droopy.
The vents?
Sure, ummm, the vents. Yeah, we’ll go with that.
(actually if you google NA Miata droopy ball vents it really is a thing, one of the first easy fixes I did on mine)
I presume the OP was referring to the under-the-steering-column vent that was common in the 1980s.
Not the spherical vents like in a toyota echo or a miata
That vent is glorious.
I do not want robots aiming things at my face.
This is the last thing I’d want. Can you use it to adjust the vents to not aim for your face?
Also, I bet it comes with a disclaimer that they’re also recording the cabin for marketing purposes.
Exactly. I don’t need ford recording my every move and sending it back to HQ which is fully what I would expect of them. And I drive a Black on Black for a daily driver, in place that reaches 100 degrees over the summer, yet it is rare that I actually point AC vents directly at my person at all. I hate the concentrated cold spot of the directly aimed vents. Auto targeting my face with AC sounds like Hell on ice.