"My first car was a 1984 Accord," recalls Hazim with a look in his eye where you just know he's picturing it in his head.
Cars have always captured Distinguished Engineer Hazim Dahir's imagination. But never more so than when he first started thinking about "your car as a device" a few years back.
It was around the time Ford had announced they were moving to a new chipset.
Cisco's move from IT Partner to inside the vehicle
The chipset meant Ford would be standardizing on Google to run the Infotainment system. Also, they now needed an in-car collaboration partner.
Ray Cushman, Ford Client Director, saw this as the opportunity he'd been looking for — to get Cisco inside the car.
Ford has a history with Microsoft. They talked to Zoom. But the future Ford has in mind for their software-defined vehicles called for what Cisco is uniquely positioned to deliver — connectivity, security, and an exceptional experience inside.
Webex would be Cisco's way "in."
Shifting into a new gear
Over the years, Ray and Hazim have worked on the Ford account. Plus, with Hazim's IoT knowledge and broad architecture experience, Ray knew Hazim could lead the technical side of the project.
Hazim's wheels were already turning.
"When you relate 'your car as a device' to apps running on a smartphone, it might feel that this is a simple and quickly achievable goal. But when you look under the hood — pun intended — you realize the size of the obstacles you must overcome," says Hazim.
Considerations like: What's happening inside the car? What's happening outside? And all of it happening in a real-time environment that could be hurdling down the highway.
Innovating the hybrid way
"Android Automotive was still in the early releases and did not have support for everything we needed," explains Hazim. "Cisco and Ford developers would have to write additional features and devices into the code for Webex."
Like everything in tech, speed was of the essence.
The team got to work using what they call a "Car in a Box" — a tool development kit with the Qualcomm chipset Ford uses that simulates the car environment.
As a true role model for the hybrid work era, Hazim even set up one of these emulators in his home lab too.
Creating Webex on wheels
"How does the car know it's you in the vehicle and not your husband? Showing him all of your meetings instead of his? Or imagine if this a ride-sharing/car-pooling scenario and someone takes over the car after you leave it" asks Hazim.
Answers to questions like this meant needing to simultaneously solve for security and privacy issues too.
"We knew what identity issues to solve for, but who owns what? Is the identity resolved at the Android level and passed on to Webex? Do we do it at both levels and slow down the experience by adding multiple steps? How far do we take multi-factor authentication? Login/logoff?"
You can see how the criteria quickly becomes much more complicated than a smartphone.
The regulations and safety challenge
"We need to think about things related to distraction and the legal aspect of things," adds Hazim. "If you go from park to drive, what happens? The cameras have to shut down. The videos have to shut down. You must go on audio only."
It all must happen simply. Seamlessly.
"It cannot be like when you leave your car today, and you need to rejoin feeling like you lost 20 seconds of the conversation," says Hazim. "Similarly, we have to consider what happens when the driver arrives to their destination and wants to exit the vehicle. Do they have to exit the call too? All of these features may be available today, but do they easily apply to the car?"
Worthy of the Webex name
The team successfully solved for individual configurable cameras, microphones, speakers, and displays. They had considered how the experience would work for one person or many people sharing the same vehicle. But above all, they ensured the experience would be safe.
An immersive collaboration experience worthy of the Webex name was ready.
At Cisco Live, Ford President and CEO Jim Farley shared his excitement about how Webex would unlock hours of productivity for people stuck behind the wheel. But even more exciting was the ability to update software after the vehicle leaves the lot.
Webex: The platform to bring connectivity together
"We're not looking at Webex from the perspective that you and I are using now, but more as a platform that has the ability to host a variety of applications," shares Hazim.
Webex will connect people, but also connect experiences.
Hazim describes a future scenario, "Imagine, you park your car. Your car sits on top of a charger. Through induction, your car starts charging. Now the charger has to identify you. Identify your credit card. Bill it. Identify the type of car you have so it doesn't overcharge the battery. There's a lot of intelligence that comes into it. And we're working with partners on developing it and making all the communication as part of the Webex unified-app experience. Webex is the platform of choice to deliver diverse types of experiences."
Then there's the car-sharing, the opportunity with commercial fleets of vehicles like Amazon or FedEx trucks, and numerous other possibilities yet to be imagined.
Or maybe we have… and we just can't share them with you yet.
Applications: Get Out of Our Dreams, Get Into Our Cars
It wasn't long ago when a phone's purpose was to make phone calls.
Soon will be saying "Remember when, a car was to go from point A to point B and Webex was for video calls?"
Especially now.
Because every day, Hazim and his team continuously asks, "What else can we do with the car to help people live their lives?"
I for one, can't wait to find out.