Optical wireless communications for vehicle operator personal computing devices is provided. In one embodiment, a system comprises: a bus I/O processor coupled to a vehicle data bus, the I/O processor executing a protocol converter; an optical communication transceiver coupled to the I/O processor, the transceiver in communication with an optical unit comprising an optical emitter and sensor, the optical unit within a control compartment of the vehicle; the bus I/O processor exchanges vehicle operational data with on-board data processing devices over the vehicle data bus using a vehicle data bus protocol; the transceiver controls the optical unit to establish a bidirectional optical wireless communications (OWC) link with a personal computing device in the control compartment using an OWC protocol; the I/O processor communicates information relevant to the operation of the vehicle between an on-board data processing device and an application executing on the personal computing device over the OWC link.