Either way, you may be surprised to hear that the internet isn’t just for funny cat memes anymore. Plug your car into the internet, and the options for entertainment and edification are nearly endless. In fact, we’ll stick to just seven of the great ways to use the Internet in your car, just to try and keep things under control. And here they are: The radio industry had pinned its hopes on HD Radio, and is clinging onto OEM head units for dear life, but by now you’ve probably moved on to using your phone as an in-car music player or even signed up for a satellite radio subscription. And that’s all fine, if you’re okay with a limited selection of music, or paying for something you probably only use in your car. If you’re not, well, then here comes the internet to the rescue. Internet radio isn’t really radio at all, mainly because it’s a nebulous term that covers a huge spectrum of ways to listen to music via the internet. Some terrestrial radio stations have internet simulcasts, which allow you to listen to a station that’s halfway across the country, or even halfway across the world, through the magic of a wireless internet connection. Or, if you prefer, you can opt for a free, or paid, internet radio service that offers either customized “stations” in the form of playlists that are tailored to your personal tastes, or on-demand access to virtually any song you care to hear. Some head units come with built-in support for internet radio, and some cars even come with built-in internet access (and even act as wi-fi hotspots), putting all of these options and more right at your fingertips. In other cases, you’ll have to pipe your phone’s internet connection to your head unit via Bluetooth tethering, or just use your phone to run an internet radio app, and connect it to your head unit via your means of choice. You can always pay for an expensive upgrade, or just turn to the internet, where free mapping and route planning services are almost never out of date. Check out our list of the best free turn-by-turn navigation apps to see what’s out there. If your nav unit doesn’t have a live traffic option, or you don’t want to pay for it, the internet has you covered there, too. Whether you go for an app, or just stick with the traffic data that’s available for free from most mapping and route-planning services, and sometimes also from local municipal sources, there’s no surer way to curb road rage than to just avoid getting into bad situations in the first place. Apps like Waze essentially crowdsource this function, allowing you to tap into the combined knowledge and experience of hundreds or even thousands of drivers in your area. If you want to pull down hilarious Youtube videos via your phone’s internet connection and pipe them to your head unit’s high definition display while cruising down the freeway, that’s certainly your prerogative, although it may not be the safest decision. Most of the in-car entertainment options—from watching time-shifted television to playing around with social media—are far more appropriate for your passengers, whether you’re carpooling to work, or trying to keep sane on a long family road trip. Some head units even come with this type of functionality, where you can search for specific information via an internet connection, but why not just fire up Yelp for a good restaurant on your route, or check out Gas Buddy to see where the cheapest gas is? Other baked-in telematics and infotainment system features are only available if you bring your own internet connection along, like the built-in internet radio apps mentioned earlier. Ultimately, your in-car internet experience is what you make of it, and you can make quite a lot of it if you try.
