A friend showed me the HUD in his new Prius last weekend, and after seeing Greg's announcement and the 30 day return policy from Hudly, I decided to order one for my truck (2011 Ford Ranger). I ordered the OBD2 powered unit with the iPhone interface.
I installed it yesterday, so this is more of a first impression review rather than one with much experience.
I now have an OAT display in my truck, which is something I've wanted for awhile.
Hudly has two recommended mounting positions for the projector, both of which placed the projector in my line of site looking out the window. This will vary depending on how high the seats are in your vehicle, and how tall you are, but in my case I determined that it presented a safety hazard. After placing the projector and screen in a variety of places to test, I ended up mounting it behind the left side of the rear view mirror with about half of the projector visible below the mirror. I was careful to preserve the angles and distances between the projector and screen as laid out by the paper template they provide.
The display is bright, and I had no trouble seeing it in the bright sunlight this morning. I have not yet tried it at night.
Due to the curved nature of the projection screen, it is hard to get a perfect image. However, with large icons/numbers, the display is very usable. My default is the OBD2 info with speed, rpms, and OAT. Running an app on the iPhone like Google Maps is usable viewing the map, although reading the small text is more difficult, but bear in mind that the Google Maps app is not optimized for a HUD display. I'm hoping to test more apps over the next few days.
It has a somewhat limited field of view. I could move my head about 2 inches in either direction before the edges of the image became distorted/fuzzy or started to get cut off. This will likely vary depending on the distance between your head and the projection screen, and possibly the mounting location.
My wife came out and asked me what I was tinkering with, so I let her try it. She is shorter than I am and could not see much of the display without boosting herself up a bit in the seat, so the screen will have to be adjusted for each driver. On the positive side the adjustment of the projection screen is easy to do, but on the negative you can't reach the screen when sitting in a normal driving position so it takes a few attempts to get it adjusted properly.
There is a difference in focal distance between the outside world and the HUD display. My wife wears bifocals, and was having a hard time seeing it. I wear single prescription glasses and did not have that problem, but did note my eyes changing focus when moving back and forth between looking at a vehicle in front of me and the HUD. I found that quick glances worked better than trying to focus on it, especially when you have large numbers being displayed like the speed or temperature.
I also noticed that each eye was seeing a slightly different image, again presuming this has something to do with the curved screen. What I mean by this is that closing one eye then opening it and closing the other to compare the images, you could see slight differences in the edges of the image. This made it harder to focus directly on the screen, but using the quick glance method seems to work well.
Another observation is that it is a "floating" display, which means that when you move your head, the image appears to move slightly. It is a bit disorienting at first but I suspect that with more use this will not be an issue.
Since it has speakers built in I was hoping that I could use it as a hands-free device for phone calls, but this does not seem to be the case (and nowhere does Hudly claim it will do this). The projector speakers do work for playing music, voice from turn by turn directions, etc, but they are of poor quality. The speakers in the iPhone are better, IMHO.
The iPhone does get charged when plugged into the HUD.
Overall I think a lot of people will like it, and others will not. I haven't yet decided if I want one in my Glastar tied to the GRT HX, and am hoping that more experience with it in the truck will help with that decision.
-Dj