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Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant

automatic.com

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Re: Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant

#3
post #2

This is really intuitive! I never even knew my car had this port. If only they could support Android sooner, I'd preorder right now.

Do most cars have an Onboard Diagnostics Port or is this more so in newer cars only? I wish there was some information about what cars this is expected to work with.

Re: Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant

#5
post #3
post #2

This is really intuitive! I never even knew my car had this port. If only they could support Android sooner, I'd preorder right now.

Do most cars have an Onboard Diagnostics Port or is this more so in newer cars only? I wish there was some information about what cars this is expected to work with.

1996 and later. http://www.epa.gov/obd/

Re: Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant

#7
post #3
post #2

This is really intuitive! I never even knew my car had this port. If only they could support Android sooner, I'd preorder right now.

Do most cars have an Onboard Diagnostics Port or is this more so in newer cars only? I wish there was some information about what cars this is expected to work with.

It says on the page "It works with just about any car sold in the United States since 1996." It's been mandatory for all car manufacturers in the US since 1996.

Re: Automatic: Your Smart Driving Assistant

#9
Wow I had an idea similar to this back in college, couldn't get any co-founders interested in doing a proper startup sadly!

iPhone accessory manufacturer had a smartphone-OBD-II product called CarTrip which they discontinued:

http://www.griffintechnology.com/blog/new/cartrip-and-cleand...

As others have noted, you can buy the hardware yourself for pretty cheap: http://dx.com/p/obdii-bluetooth-car-diagnostic-cable-black-b...

Combine it with an app like Torque...: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torq...

...or Rev and you've got some of the functionality already: http://www.devtoaster.com/products/rev/

edit: the advantage of Automatic is that it's an all in one solution for the mass market, rather than the DIY/car enthusiast nature of the existing apps and hardware.

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