Ford Global Technolgoies, LLC

Daniel Smith

Michael John Harmon

Justin Yang

Eryu Shi

Rowell Dizon

Shane Patton

Bradford Zercoe

Henry Bernardo

Minsung Kim

Douglas Field

Raul Cenan

Alan Clarke

A physical toggle button located in a cabin of a vehicle receives input indicating a change in state of the physical toggle button from a first mode in which a plurality of functions of smart home devices are set to a first state to a second mode in which the plurality of functions of the smart home devices are set to a second state. Using a telematics control module of the vehicle, a state change request is sent indicating the change in state to a cloud service maintaining a function mapping including information for setting the plurality of functions between the first state and the second state.

Modular vehicle HMI

A modular programmable widget for a vehicle includes a front housing and a back housing defining an enclosure; one or more physical controls provided on a front face of the enclosure; a contact pad exposed by the enclosure for electrical connection to a dock, the contact pad providing for transmission of data and power between the modular programmable widget and the dock; and one or more features for mechanical connection and securing of the modular programmable widget to the dock.

A vehicle system is provided for a modular human-machine interface (HMI). The system includes a configurable display of a vehicle; and an HMI display system of the vehicle, in communication with the configurable display. The HMI display system is configured to, responsive to detection of presence of a modular programmable widget having one or more physical controls, present a user interface to the configurable display for the configuration of the one or more physical controls of the modular programmable widget, receive, via the user interface, input assigning functions to the one or more physical controls, save the function assignment to display settings of the HMI display system, and in a runtime mode, perform an assigned function responsive to user input to the one or more physical controls.

Growing community of inventors

Rolling Hills Estates, CA, United States of America

Daniel Smith