SAMSUNG NOTE 7 · 2016. 10. 18. · SAMSUNG NOTE 7 FROM A DEBACLE TO AN OPPORTUNITY A PROPOSAL by ROBERTO A. FOGLIETTA [email protected] October 18th, 2016 Revision 0.55 Licensed

SAMSUNG NOTE 7FROM A DEBACLE TO AN OPPORTUNITY

A PROPOSAL

by

ROBERTO A. FOGLIETTA

[email protected]

October 18th, 2016

Revision 0.55

Licensed under

Creative Common BY-NC-SA 4.0

Samsung Note 7: from a debacle to an opportunity Pag. 1

mailto:[email protected]

INDEX

AUTOMOTIVE SMARTDASH PLATFORM

1. INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pag. 3

2. VISUAL PRESENTATION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pag. 6

3. SMART GADGETS EXAMPLES . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pag. 7

4. SMART FUNCTIONS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pag. 8

5. HARDWARE ENHANCEMENTS & CABLING . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pag. 9

6. USB DAB & CAN PERIPHERALS. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pag. 10

SAMSUNG FOR PERSONAL CREATIVITY

How to collect the budget to ignite the Smartdash platform

7. SAMSUNG NOTE ZX 7 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pag. 11

COPYRIGHT DISCALIMER

8. CREATIVE COMMON CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . pag. 12


1. INTRODUCTION

Some ideas are quick to catch, others lesser. Despite simplicity, we are used to quickly catch what we quickly recognize. Because of this, every innovative idea or approach need a bit longer of narrative than an ordinary executive presentation to get the whole picture and to connect all the elements inside it.

The intuition works fast while the rational thinking proceed slowly. This introduction aims to fill the gap between where we are and where we may want to go.

Once Upon a Time

Samsung managed to became a leader into the smartphones market pushing forward their technology for years. Unexpectedly, they hit the ground with their Note 7. Wisely, they recognize the mistake and decided to stop production and collect back 2.5 millions devices world wide.

The Broken Dream

This incident may prevents Samsung's plan to get into automotive market buying Italian Magneti Marelli company. A delay in getting into such a market will produce an experience gap in the future. Such gap will make them harder to enter or compete into infotainment market, in the future.

What would be the future of 2.5M pieces of high-end electronics? Is this huge amount of silicon hiding a big opportunity? How to regain an opportunity to get into automotive infotainment market? Did you ever compared an embedded navigator versus a Waze traffic killer application running on a smartphone?

Never say Never

Battery is not any more a component under the pressure of space and size strict limitations into a conventional cars and everybody will love the idea of having a Note 7 like a dashboard car computer but nobody likes the idea of poor cockpit integration, exposed cabling and no chance to keep with them the device off the car. This would be a problem, unless cockpit smooth integration will became a reality.

Nowadays, 3D scanners are really cheap (€400 to final consumers) and easily recognised by Windows 10 net-books (tablets with keyboards, cheap and light). 3D printers are cheap (less than €3.000 for the final customers), going to be cheaper, very useful for fast prototyping and a viable solution for a limited customized production. Moreover, the 3D models could be improved by many people (crowd intelligence, wiki economics [¹]).

We have a Dream

A lot of car owners face two options: to buy a newer car or to keep their phone attached to their car cockpit with a shaking sucker, powered by a floating cable with poor or no any integration with their car audio system, etc. This is the right time to change the music.

In the space left from removing Note 7 battery, it would be possible to put a DAB USB receiver and a CAN USB interface. In the space left free from the S-pen, it would be possible to bring out all the infotainment cabling and connections. Professional car audio installers and auto body shops will do the rest of the magic with the help of 3D technologies for customized cockpit add-ons.


Wait a minute

Do you really want to attach an Internet connected Android smartphone to a car CAN bus? Relax, as long as CAN USB interface is set in reading-only mode, there will be no any danger. Optoelectronic insulators will legally and practically grant that reading the CAN bus will be totally safe for everybody like car makers, installers, vendors and car users.

The old cars could be safely extended to be smart cars. No one will be able to remotely drive out of the road such cars because an optoinsulator transforms electric signals into light and back. Data will flow in one direction only and the Smartdash platform will be electrically insulated from car CAN bus connected systems. Whatever the infotainment software does, it cannot affect the car functioning.

A bit of Temperature

Automotive electronics is certified to work in extended range temperature and to be unaffected by electromagnetic interferences. So far, the use of a mobile phones is not an issue inside a car and external antennas will improve both humans safety and signals.

Moreover, independent tests verified that Samsung mobiles are those among others able to work within the widest temperature range (working between -20 and +50, storage between -40 and +70 Celsius degrees). In any cases, humans comfortably drive in a smaller temperature range (above 0 and below +40 Celsius degrees).

The Smartdash Platform

The Samsung Note 7 will take years to be obsolete for infotainment purposes and the produced items (2.5M) will lasts enough to fuel this new market and convince many to invest on it. Multiple players will join a commercial network based on a single hardware product and will create a community interested in improving cockpit integration and new infotainment solutions.

The creation of a dedicated application market, a knowledge base about car cockpit customization, CAN integration and installation manuals will lead Samsung to collect a lot of knowledge about a lot of car models and car makers, even in the case that authorized branded car dealer networks will decide to not initially join this opportunity.

On the other side, used car owners and used car dealers will have the opportunity to upgrade their cars choosing a single brand product integrated by many professionals and among many options and gadgets.

A bit of Business

Could Samsung be interested in developing a Smartdash platform based on refurbished Note 7? Is their interest in automotive and car infotainment systems strong enough for stepping in despite Note 7 losses? It depends on other options, they may have.

Unbranding and reselling the hardware may drive them to face a cheaper smartphone clone competitor in their more profitable market segment. Safe and ecological disposal will be an extra cost and recycling will rescue only a little part of consumed resources. Refactoring Note 7 and storing them will be an extra cost, as well. This last one option has a good chance to let Samsung to enter into a new market with an innovative approach.


Undoubtedly, the car parts market is not as fast as the consumer electronics mass market. So far, pushing a huge budget on it, will not accelerate the sales proportionally. The budget is necessarily the most important KPI for starting a new business. Samsung has 2.5M of returning but gorgeous devices to make the difference. A sunk cost, otherwise.

An open community approach could lower significantly the investment on the Smartdash platform and it will be able to collect much more knowledge and new ideas because innovation happens elsewhere [²]. This approach is the only one could face the challenge to investigate the huge number of different car models without the need to rely on automotive producers only. Once a car model will be successfully included into Knowledge Base Centre (KBC), everyone else owning the same car could do the same upgrade with much less effort and may improve the current solution, as well.

Mass consumers may not be happy to mod their cars but a lot of people are significantly involved in car modding for years. A Knowledge Base Centre and the Smartdash platform could bring the infotainment car modding out of hobbysm and drive it to a wider segment of consumers. For car modders this initiative will constitute an extra incoming to fuel their own passion about car modding: the same pleasure but get paid, instead of spending for it. Let them do what they dream to do.

An investment plan will be necessary to ignite and sustain the Smartdash platform and community. As less start-up resources will be deployed as long the warehouse costs need to be planned. The right balance between these two dynamics could be initially estimated and quarterly managed: the supporting investments versus adoption curve speed.

Notes

[¹] WIKINOMICS

How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything

Anthony D. Williams, Don Tapscott

Atlantic Books Ltd, March 1st, 2011, 300 pages

The knowledge, resources and computing power of billions of people are self-organizing into a massive, new collective force. Interconnected and orchestrated via blogs, wikis, chat rooms, peer-to-peer networks, and personal broadcasting, the web is being reinvented to provide the first global platform for collaboration in history.

[²] INNOVATION HAPPENS ELSEWHERE

Open Source as Business Strategy

Ron Goldman, Richard P. Gabriel

Morgan Kaufmann, April 25th, 2005, 424 pages

It's a plain fact: regardless of how smart, creative, and innovative your organization is, there are more smart, creative, and innovative people outside your organization than inside. Open source offers the possibility of bringing more innovation into your business by building a creative

community that reaches beyond the barriers of the business. The key is developing a web-driven community where new types of collaboration and creativity can flourish. Since 1998 Ron Goldman and Richard Gabriel have been helping groups at Sun Microsystems understand open source and advising them on how to build successful communities around open source projects. In this book the authors present lessons learned from their own experiences with open source, as well as those from other well-known projects such as Linux, Apache, and Mozilla.


2. VISUAL PRESENTATION

Cockpit integration without floating cables by a customized 3D printed dashboard support

The enclosure may be fixed or designed to be able to be closed.

A simple example of open-close and lock-unlock holder.


3. SMART GADGETS EXAMPLES

Bluetooth or wire connection may extend the number of smart gadgets managed by Note 7 Smartdash.

In the picture:

1. e-ink display (with soft back-light for the night) displaying essential driving notifications

2. viva-voice microphone for voice calls and voice commands (e.g. VIV assistant)

3. additional blue-tooth commands on the wheel (low energy consuming, powered by CR2032)

Traditional blue-tooth devices are power consuming compared to other Wi-Fi standard expressed designed for embedded low-power appliance. Single-mode chips running the compact Bluetooth Low Energy protocol stack (cfr. Power Consumption Analysis of Bluetooth Low Energy by Microsoft)

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/IWS20201320wireless20power20consumption.pdf


https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/IWS20201320wireless20power20consumption.pdf

4. SMART FUNCTIONS

Before facing the issues and risks, it is important to verify the competitiveness of the proposal. A list of features and functionalities are essential to see the advantages about having a smartphone based solution in infotainment market.

• The Note 7 back camera could work as dashcam with or without IR filter video for daylight or

night optimization video recording;

• The Note 7 front camera could work as rear camera for watching the kid on back seat;

• Black box data recording like GPS position, speed, acceleration and any other data read from

CAN bus could be downloaded and successively analysed (statistics and behavioural patterns);

• Navigation assistant with offline maps and/or online with traffic avoidance control in real time;

• Bluetooth or WiFi pairing with other devices, smartphones and gadgets;

• WiFi hotspot/server to download dashcam videos and blackbox data;

• Radio FM/DAB tuning: the radio station names and descriptions could be retrieved by online

databases, radio stations and programs suggestion based on previous preferences, different driver profile (user accounts) may have different preferences about music, relevant traffic notifications will override music;

• WiFi hotspot/server for remote control by any smartphone (e.g. the passenger select a

destination on his/her smartphone or tablet and decide to send the trip plan to the Smartdash navigation system; the passenger may decide in advance a list of songs among the radio stations broadcast plans which are available, time to time, during the scheduled trip plan roads)

• Voice assistant (e.g. VIV for navigation, phone calls, text receiving and sending, booking hotels

or restaurants, point of interest search, etc.)

Desiderata (almost required):

• Reserved Smartdash applications market (maps, maps updates, navigators, voice assistant

add-ons, etc.)

• Specific Android SDK for Smartdash applications development.

• A cryptographic Key will unlock DAB/CAN functions only for authorized Smartdash professional

installers and to deliver DAB licenses (optional).

Compared to a mass market smartphone the initial firmware would be much more simpler and much more basic. Users and/or installers may choose among themes and application templates in order to personalize the user interface both for appearance and for functionalities.

The Smartdash device (Note 7) will stay in the car during the night. The Note 7 is out of the market but once Smartdash will take off, it will regain value. User may set-up a PIN code to protect their data but this will unlikely prevent an hard reset. In order to prevent thefts, the device could be traced by its IMEI and remotely blocked by telecoms companies. Optional software may alert car owners about any unexpected event or any suspect operation.

The blackbox and GPS data are useful for fleet control and management or insurance discount bonus.


5. HARDWARE ENHANCEMENTS & CABLING

Samsung Note 7 could host USB-CAN and USB-DAB devices in the battery space.

Power, external antennas and CAN bus cabling could be find their way out trough the S-pen space.

The height of battery is similar to the S-Pen height, estimated in 4 mm, at least.

There are two ways of cabling the connections, the second do not require less effort:

1. The metal body need a little of carving for complete the cabling out trough the S-Pen empty lodging. This solution is more expensive but allows to integrate more electronics components.

2. The cabling exits from the back. This is easier and cheaper way. To keep clear the bottom of the smarphone, the Audio Out (R/L/G) and the Mic IN (+/-) should included into this cabling (4 more contacts in the connector).


6. USB DAB & CAN PERIPHERALS

The Samsung Note 7 height is 7.9mm, we may assume that the battery is half of this size: 4 mm. We know from the empty area left from the battery is about 100 x 40 mm. The heigh is usually not a problem because most of the on-the-shelf electronics are made to be used by humans but could be easily redesigned to get into a tiny space. Instead, changing the area could be more expensive (PCB redesign rather than avoid to solder connectors or unsuitable/useless components).

The USB CAN interface ($25 final costumer price)

The CANable is a hardware clone of Eric Evenchick’s CANtact project, an open-hardware USB to CAN adapter compatible with socketcan. This small PCB is about 14 x 24 mm. The CAN connectors are not useful and dip-switch as well. So far, its height is about the as much as a coin.

https://www.tindie.com/products/protofusion/canable-usb-to-can-bus-adapter/

The USB DAB interface ($20 final costumer price)

NooElec NESDR Nano 2 is a mini set of RTL-SDR (RTL2832U + R820T2) receiver, MCX antenna, SDR radio, DVB-T and ADS-B compatible with electrostatic discharges. The size is 19 x 26 mm. The USB and the antenna connectors are not useful inside the enclosure. So far, its height is about the as much as a coin.

http://www.nooelec.com/store/nesdr-nano2.html

Summary

Both USB devices are really cheap ($45 for both, final customer price) and they fit into a 35 x 30 mm area, within 4 mm height without useless connectors. About 75% of the available volume could be used for cabling or others enhancement and customization.


http://www.nooelec.com/store/nesdr-nano2.html

https://www.tindie.com/products/protofusion/canable-usb-to-can-bus-adapter/

7. SAMSUNG Note ZX 7: how to collect the budget to ignite the Smartdash platform.

Do you remember the ZX spectrum? A smart “basic” keyboard we were used to connect to a TV.

The Samsung Note ZX 7 could offer the same concept with S-Pen software for personal creativity

The MHL support or USB audio/video DAC could be added to connect the monitor/TV with a cable.

Some extra hardware could be added into the space left empty by the mobile battery. The Note 7 is attached to a rotating dock. The dock could be unlocked and raised up to 90° in vertical in order to let the user access the SD/SIM slot and to use the back camera for double video conferences (an external microphone will be required). The integrated microphone will be set in viva-voice mode as default.


8. CREATIVE COMMON CC BY-NC-SA 4.0

© 2016, Roberto A. Foglietta, licensed under Creative Common Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike v4.0 International Terms (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).

You are entitled to share this document without modifications for non commercial purposes:

• Share — copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

• Adapt — remix, transform, and build upon the material (but not change the content)

The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow the license terms.

Smartdash trade mark

The term “Smartdash” should be considered covered by the same license terms for automotive market.

License Terms

This is a human-readable summary of (and not a substitute for) the license.

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode

Attribution — You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses you or your use.

Non Commercial — You may not use the material for commercial purposes.

Share Alike — If you remix, transform, or build upon the material (but not change the content), you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

No additional restrictions — You may not apply legal terms or technological measures that legally restrict others from doing anything the license permits.

Notices

You do not have to comply with the license for elements of the material in the public domain or where your use is permitted by an applicable exception or limitation.

No warranties are given. The license may not give you all of the permissions necessary for your intended use. For example, other rights such as publicity, privacy, or moral rights may limit how you use the material.


https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/legalcode

SAMSUNG NOTE 7 · 2016. 10. 18. · SAMSUNG NOTE 7 FROM A DEBACLE TO AN OPPORTUNITY A PROPOSAL by ROBERTO A. FOGLIETTA [email protected] October 18th, 2016 Revision 0.55 Licensed

Documents