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Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

developer.automatic.com

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Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#41

Post by hatsix »

kolev wrote: post #37
thejo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry you did not have a great experience with our first gen device. We're announcing the second generation device today with the developer platform. The connectivity issues some of our users experienced with the first gen device were mainly due to BTLE. The second gen device has MFi support which allows us to support classic Bluetooth with iPhones. It's much more reliable. You must have received an email with a…

You should offer discounts to all who kickstarted your product. I'm also disappointed and don't look at the app anymore as it's missing trips and because we share a car with my wife, trips either get registered to her or my phone when we're in the car together. Haven't you thought about this basic use case?

I would assume that the most basic use case is one car, one driver... Nearly every person I know that would care about having a device like this meets these criteria.

How, exactly, would you expect it to work with two phones in the same car? It's not like it could tell which of you is driving...

I guess my argument is that it is likely less 'basic' than you think. Having two people share a car, and both interested in accessing their data, sounds like an edge case.

I imagine that it'd be easier to either get rid of one of your accounts so everything goes to one single account, or have multiple plugs, and you swap out based on who is driving.

Also, I got a discount as an original kickstarter. You should check your email/spam folder to see if you got one as well.

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#42

Post by webjprgm »

hatsix wrote: post #41
kolev wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should offer discounts to all who kickstarted your product. I'm also disappointed and don't look at the app anymore as it's missing trips and because we share a car with my wife, trips either get registered to her or my phone when we're in the car together. Haven't you thought about this basic use case?

I would assume that the most basic use case is one car, one driver... Nearly every person I know that would care about having a device like this meets these criteria. How, exactly, would you expect it to work with two phones in the same car? It's not like it could tell which of you is driving... I guess my argument is that it is likely less 'basic' than you think. Having two people share a car, and both interested in…

In my case I have one car and one account but my wife is usually driving in the morning and drops me off. So those trips get chopped in half and messes up the data. I basically use it only as a novelty at this point.

I could set it up on her phone but then we have the two phones problem. Obviously she isn't the driver all the time so I can't just delete it from my phone either.

Ideal would be to connect two phones to one account and if one phone disconnects then resume the trip on the other phone. If the data is in their cloud anyway this should be possible.

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#43

Post by kolev »

hatsix wrote: post #41
kolev wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should offer discounts to all who kickstarted your product. I'm also disappointed and don't look at the app anymore as it's missing trips and because we share a car with my wife, trips either get registered to her or my phone when we're in the car together. Haven't you thought about this basic use case?

I would assume that the most basic use case is one car, one driver... Nearly every person I know that would care about having a device like this meets these criteria. How, exactly, would you expect it to work with two phones in the same car? It's not like it could tell which of you is driving... I guess my argument is that it is likely less 'basic' than you think. Having two people share a car, and both interested in…

Never said it's most basic, but it's basic across the globe. Only in America a car per person is the most common case. I do live in Orange County where there are more cars than people, but I work from home and I don't need to maintain a car that stays in the garage 99% of the time.

How do I expect it to work? I do have an NFC tag in the car where the person driving places the phone. Automatic can ship with a sticker tag like that.

Request a Massdrop here: https://www.massdrop.com/buy/automatic-smart-driving-assista...

P.S. You're right - I got a $20-off loyalty discount. Thank you, Automatic! It's definitely worth the upgrade at least for having the built-in GPS!

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#44

Post by [deleted] »

kolev wrote: post #37
thejo wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry you did not have a great experience with our first gen device. We're announcing the second generation device today with the developer platform. The connectivity issues some of our users experienced with the first gen device were mainly due to BTLE. The second gen device has MFi support which allows us to support classic Bluetooth with iPhones. It's much more reliable. You must have received an email with a…

You should offer discounts to all who kickstarted your product. I'm also disappointed and don't look at the app anymore as it's missing trips and because we share a car with my wife, trips either get registered to her or my phone when we're in the car together. Haven't you thought about this basic use case?

[deleted]

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#45

Post by [deleted] »

hatsix wrote: post #41
kolev wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You should offer discounts to all who kickstarted your product. I'm also disappointed and don't look at the app anymore as it's missing trips and because we share a car with my wife, trips either get registered to her or my phone when we're in the car together. Haven't you thought about this basic use case?

I would assume that the most basic use case is one car, one driver... Nearly every person I know that would care about having a device like this meets these criteria. How, exactly, would you expect it to work with two phones in the same car? It's not like it could tell which of you is driving... I guess my argument is that it is likely less 'basic' than you think. Having two people share a car, and both interested in…

[deleted]

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#46

Post by kodeninja »

webjprgm wrote: post #42
hatsix wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would assume that the most basic use case is one car, one driver... Nearly every person I know that would care about having a device like this meets these criteria. How, exactly, would you expect it to work with two phones in the same car? It's not like it could tell which of you is driving... I guess my argument is that it is likely less 'basic' than you think. Having two people share a car, and both interested in…

In my case I have one car and one account but my wife is usually driving in the morning and drops me off. So those trips get chopped in half and messes up the data. I basically use it only as a novelty at this point. I could set it up on her phone but then we have the two phones problem. Obviously she isn't the driver all the time so I can't just delete it from my phone either. Ideal would be to connect two phones to…

I have the exact same situation (1st Gen Link). I take the public transport to office and my wife drives the car during the day. So, the app only registers data when I'm driving (evenings/weekends). All the data during the day is not registered :(.

Perhaps the 2nd Gen Link solves this, now that it has a built-in GPS?

Also, of late, it's been really troubling me connecting to my iPhone 6. I have a support ticket open with Automatic, where they basically suggested deleting and re-installing the Automatic iOS App. Going to try that today to see if it works.

I'm considering getting the 2nd Gen Link, but would love to know if these issues have been resolved. Also, a discount would be nice :D!

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#47

Post by kodeninja »

thejo wrote: post #31
gusmd wrote: post #29

Hey, is there any difference between this hardware and your typical OBD-II Bluetooth adapter? In case not, they could market the app separately and allow people to use their existing adapters.

The last thing we wanted to do was build hardware! But, we could not deliver the experience we wanted to without building it. This blog post describes some of the reasons we built hardware - http://blog.automatic.com/why-we-built-the-link/ If you want to learn more about the latest generation hardware - https://www.automatic.com/adapter/

@thejo so if we buy the 2nd Gen Link, will it keep exposing more data, simply via firmware upgrades, or will there be a 3rd Gen Link, at some point? I guess my question is, will these features be purely firmware-based, or will they actually require upgrades to the Link hardware as well?

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#48

Post by rcpt »

nradov wrote: post #38

For Android developers who don't want to get locked into Automatic as a platform I recommend the Torque app. It has the same basic functionality, costs less, supports a variety of third-party Bluetooth OBD2 readers, and provides a plugin development API. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torq... http://torque-bhp.com/

Yup, here's what I did with Torque http://ryancompton.net/2015/02/28/mpg/

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#49

Post by kriro »

burger_moon wrote: post #28
kriro wrote: post #18

I've never thought about this because I don't even own a car anymore. Essentially it's a device that converts diagnostic data to a standardized format (and displays this in a corresponding app)? +now you can use the data in your own apps Is the app required or is there a device that I can plug in, read data for a while, unplug and get the data to a desktop (like a usb key)...because that would be interesting for me.…

Data logging software has been around for a long time that does exactly that. Some quick searching for your car should turn up some results.

Yes I searched for it and there seems to be plenty of stuff for specific manufacturers or models but I didn't find anything that is universally useful and converts everything to a unified JSON or XML format. Sorry if that wasn't clear. And like I said I don't own a car :D

Re: Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform

#50

Post by gusmd »

thejo wrote: post #31
gusmd wrote: post #29

Hey, is there any difference between this hardware and your typical OBD-II Bluetooth adapter? In case not, they could market the app separately and allow people to use their existing adapters.

The last thing we wanted to do was build hardware! But, we could not deliver the experience we wanted to without building it. This blog post describes some of the reasons we built hardware - http://blog.automatic.com/why-we-built-the-link/ If you want to learn more about the latest generation hardware - https://www.automatic.com/adapter/

Wow! It does look like you did some serious work on the hardware part. Thanks for getting back!
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