You probably know Meta’s Neural Band as the add-on controller that lets you use one hand as input for Meta Ray-Ban Display glasses, but it could one day be sold separately and work with a lot of other hardware.
Garmin, which makes a lot of technology inside devices, showed off a concept of its next generation of in-vehicle systems at CES 2026, one in which its self-made computer can power much more than just a head-up display and main display, but also integrate with dynamic lighting, ultra-wideband technology, and even new inputs from voice to hand gestures.
And while this is just a concept, I sat in the demo car, which was virtually immobile and only had four seats in a clunky frame, put on the Meta Neural Band and was off to the races, able to rotate the electronic version of the car on the main screen and even pinch to zoom in or out. It’s basic, but mostly it’s a testing ground for how these different types of inputs could be useful in the car.
It’s part of Garmin’s Unified Cabin concept, which is basically a much smarter, next-generation interior for future vehicles. The ability to use Neural Band is part of a collaboration between Garmin and Meta, which explores how this technology could be used.
The idea, however, is that within Android Auto, instead of saying “Hey Google” or swiping your fingers, you can use gestures without having to reach out. I was sitting in the passenger seat and had my hand right above my lap, able to make the right gestures to control the screen. It was limited, but you could also use it to slide around the interface and interact with various input elements.
There was no steering wheel in this cockpit concept, but it could even be operated with your hands on the wheel, although I’m not sure about the safety in that case. And the way Meta Neural Band works is pretty ingenious; This was my first demo with it and it is basically able to read finger gestures and movements through electrical signals from the wrist. It’s neat and provides feedback with subtle haptics on the band.
The unified cockpit concept also highlighted the ability of UWB, potentially in future vehicles, to learn the position of a digital key (be it a remote control, a phone or perhaps even a meta-neural band one day) to welcome you with illumination as you approach, but also to provide more precision when you are in the vehicle. If you’re with a partner who also has a digital key on their phone, you can be more precise in setting the right seating style for whoever is actually in the driver’s seat. That’s not perfect like it is today.
While this is just a concept, it’s good to see that the people behind the technology used in the vehicles are looking at future input. The Meta Neural Band could one day be sold on its own rather than simply bundled with display glasses, and who knows, it could be a smart car key fob you get in the future.
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