BMW slaps 31-inch screen onto rear ceiling of concept car

At CES 2022, BMW has been showing off all kinds of futuristic car tech, from a colour-changing paint job to this new giant in-car cinema display.

So far, the giant screen has only been shown off in concept form, but BMW says that it’s an 8K touch screen that runs Amazon’s Fire TV OS operating system. This means it should be able to stream content from just about every major content platform.

The videos will be streamed over the car’s internal 5G connection, and The Verge mentions that there are also small controls built into the door if you don’t want to tap the screen, especially if BMW decides to attach it to the roof.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a cinema display without sound, and BMW says that it has a 30-speaker system that can provide 4D sound since there can even be speakers in the seats themselves.

Demo of screen starts at 3:19 in video above. 

BMW also talks about being able to automatically shutter the car’s blinds to seal off any light when using the display to play movies.

While there’ a working prototype of this at CES 2022, it’s more like the back half of a car with a huge roof. This is likely to house all the hardware needed to show it off. In this version, the screen comes down like a little projector mat and blocks the rearview mirror, suggesting it can only be used when the vehicle is stopped.

With this in mind, the display looks like it’s designed to give drivers something to do while they wait for their car to charge. With that in mind, how much extra battery will it take to run a 30-speaker cinema setup for two hours? Because of this, I’m not quite sold on the concept yet.

Via: The Verge