Automatic Shutting Down and Connected Car Service is Ending on May 28

[MacRumors]

Automatic, a company that made the Automatic Adapter that plugs into a car's OBD-II port to provide vehicle information like distance traveled, gas used, time spent in the car, and more, is shutting down.

The imminent shuttering of the company was announced on the Automatic website, which says that the global health crisis has impacted its business.

The Automatic connected car product, service, and platform are shutting down at 11:59 p.m. Pacific Time on May 28.

All services, including crash alerts, roadside assistance, and real-time location and sharing will stop when the shutdown occurs. Automatic recommends that non-functional adapters be recycled using standard electronic recycling procedures.

Automatic released several adapters over the course of the last several years, and its products were popular among those who wanted to use an iPhone to monitor vehicle diagnostics and sign up for services like crash alerts. Service plans were priced between $2 and $5 per month.

Article Link: Automatic Shutting Down and Connected Car Service is Ending on May 28

 

[JoEw]

Took a world pandemic to finally kill off non-viable subscription services.

 

[realitydcf]

Automatic abandoned me. I was an early adopter and really appreciated the product. For no necessary reason, they discontinued the product, and released the new one with the subscription model for features I already had. This insured that I would NOT upgrade nor support the company. It was a poor decision, and one that appears to be part of the destuction of the company now. It's too bad they made the wrong choice. Anyone have a suggestion of a viable alternative? I know there are many on the market now.

 

[vipergts2207]

Took a world pandemic to finally kill off non-viable subscription services.

At least this one wasn’t for a toothbrush.

 

[wellander1]

Another bad decision by SiriusXM ( the owner)

 

[oregon.trader]

I'm another unhappy former customer, abandoned by Automatic when it stopped supporting the 2nd generation (non-subscription) product.

Has anyone found an acceptable replacement?

 

[ersan191]

Automatic abandoned me. I was an early adopter and really appreciated the product. For no necessary reason, they discontinued the product, and released the new one with the subscription model for features I already had. This insured that I would NOT upgrade nor support the company. It was a poor decision, and one that appears to be part of the destuction of the company now. It's too bad they made the wrong choice. Anyone have a suggestion of a viable alternative? I know there are many on the market now.

Bouncie is popular.

 

[jonblatho]

Automatic abandoned me. I was an early adopter and really appreciated the product. For no necessary reason, they discontinued the product, and released the new one with the subscription model for features I already had. This insured that I would NOT upgrade nor support the company. It was a poor decision, and one that appears to be part of the destuction of the company now. It's too bad they made the wrong choice. Anyone have a suggestion of a viable alternative? I know there are many on the market now.

Same here. I resolved not to buy the newer adapter after they shut out early adopters like me and demanded that we buy a new adapter to continue receiving support.

Ridiculous; good riddance.

 

[adamjackson]

I'm pretty bummed about this. I've been Automatic customer since 2013. I have an Automatic Pro on 4 vehicles and have been waiting for them to support motorcycles as well since 2 of my 4 bikes have OBDII and would totally work with this system in theory.

I use it to "life-log" my annual mileage in my year in review posts, I use it for monitoring MPG and for my taxes in tracking mileage. I thought when SiriusXM purchased them and they started leveraging the personal data of customers for selling aggregate driving data to insurance companies that their future was secure but I guess now.

I am actively seeking a replacement to this. If anyone knows of a cloud based service< id not' mind paying monthly but I really have grown to love the vehicle tracking and would like to keep doing it.

I've given Automatic about $1200 in total with 3 generations of devices and 6 vehicles total and would like to find something that replaces it.

I'm using a service called Rever with a $150 a year RevLink auto tracker for my motorcycles now (I ride 12-15K miles a year) and have it on 4 bikes which is costly. Here's an example of how that looks visualized:

and here's a few months of Automatic Driving data on my 2 primary vehicles:

Obviously, Automatic and Rever have exported GPX file support so I can compile everything in QGIS or Google Places and do other data extraction with it.

I can track all of this with my iPhone manually but auto-tracking is fantastic.

 

[Rudy69]

Automatic recommends that non-functional adapters be recycled using standard electronic recycling procedures.

This is the problem with all these devices. They should all be forced to have an open firmware available in cases like this. That way instead of creating garbage someone could host their own

 

[natallica]

Anyone know of an alternative that will let me tag trips as business-related? This is why I've been using Automatic since gen 1.

What rubs me the wrong way is that they blame the pandemic for this, but it feels disingenuous.

 

[CarlJ]

Took a world pandemic to finally kill off non-viable subscription services.

I wonder how many companies who were on the path to demise anyway, will bring up the pandemic on the way out as a convenient excuse.

 

[hourglass111]

What rubs me the wrong way is that they blame the pandemic for this, but it feels disingenuous.

Right? It seems like a convenient out. It also seems odd that they’re refunding purchases up to this point (if I read their refunds page correctly).

Someone recommended Bouncie and I really like the looks of it. But I give credit to Automatic for not making us pay monthly for cell service…

Am open to hearing of other recommendations. I just use it for map tracking, data reference, OBD codes, etc.

 

[slvrscoobie]

my Volvo app does all this for me... course the OnCall service is some $200 for 18 months or something but.. allows remote lock / start / location even when off or stolen (discount on insurance!)

 

[tutt]

Someone recommended Bouncie and I really like the looks of it. But I give credit to Automatic for not making us pay monthly for cell service…

You have to imagine they were losing money because of this, and Sirius finally pulled the plug. There are so many businesses that operate on razor-thin margins...

 

[Jaddie]

I've bought three Automatic adapters in seven years and have enjoyed having a record of all my trips.

No one wanted to buy Automatic? How about Automattic?

 

[turbineseaplane]

Another example that further sours my opinion of basically all of these connected devices depending upon backend services

 

[mannyvel]

Yeah, I too never bothered to upgrade my two Automatics. I don't mind subscriptions unless they provide no value..and their subscription didn't. Oh well.

 

[qCzar]

I'm pretty bummed about this. I've been Automatic customer since 2013.

I use it to "life-log" my annual mileage in my year in review posts, I use it for monitoring MPG and for my taxes in tracking mileage.

I am actively seeking a replacement to this. If anyone knows of a cloud based service< id not' mind paying monthly but I really have grown to love the vehicle tracking and would like to keep doing it.

I can track all of this with my iPhone manually but auto-tracking is fantastic.

Same here, I've created Year in Review posts for the last two years and was really looking forward to this year since I moved across the country and now live closer to work PLUS wanted to see how the epidemic impacted my driving. I'll now have to track these things manually. It isn't the end of the world but it is inconvenient.

That said, I'm not surprised. I'm no programmer but every time I went to their community forums with suggestions the support staff were always dismissive, saying they weren't adding new features. That was... 2 years ago? One thing I asked about was adding milage tracking to the gas fill ups. Should be super simple, since the app tracks how far you drive, and has the time you filled up. Being able to calculate the distance since the last fill up should be super easy. The data is there. But no, they aren't adding new features. I then asked about a notes field so we can just type it in our selves. Same spiel.

I'm not sure what would have made Automatic profitable, but maybe charging $1-3/mo instead of giving everyone 5 years of data would have helped. For the amount of data they presented, anything more than $3 is pushing it and $1 would be a no-brainer. If they had created a really awesome dashboard with metrics and ways to create slick reports and comparisons, I'd pay $5/mo or more. Instead I had to export all my data into Excel and create those reports and graphs myself.

Their dashboard couldn't show more than like 1,500 trips either. Which seems pretty arbitrary. They could have had a kick-ass product but instead that sat on their hands and did nothing.

I to am looking for an alternative, even if that means I pay for a subscription. I could go with my insurance but I doubt I'd have access to the same level of data Automatic gave us.

 

[Xenomorph]

Them blaming COVID-19 for this means they they feel that people will NEVER DRIVE, EVER AGAIN.

Slow March, April, & May? Time to GIVE UP, FOREVER.

Yeah, right. Obviously this was a dying service, and they just took this chance to stab their customers in the back by pulling the plug. I'm guessing they were making money selling data to Facebook or Google, and with no one driving they aren't making anything.

What are some good alternatives? ARE there any good alternatives?

My daughter is now of driving-age, and I looked forward to having crash alerts, GPS tracking, monitoring of braking and acceleration tendencies, etc.
I have the Automatic Pro connected in two of my cars, and we've really enjoyed their detailed info (it helped record total drive time for my daughter). Having detailed information when my "Check Engine" light has also helped.

 

[turbineseaplane]

So many "because of COVID" cover stories being used that really, let's be honest, have nothing to do with COVID actually.

 

[Osxguy]

TBH when Sirius took it over it kinda took a noise dive on quality... but.. i am looking for a replacement so i dont have to have the app running on my phone...

 

[Mansu944]

I felt bad at first...until I saw it was a subscription. Screw subscriptions...make it a stand alone one time purchase or I am not going to purchase.

 

[giantrobot503]

Bummer. I loved mine. I think I only paid $99 for it with lifetime service. It's a wonder how they even turned a profit.

 

[easy4lif]

Sad to see this die out. Bought the first and second gen models and was beta tester for 3rd gen. Really loved it but was hesitant to commit to the new subscription 4th gen model. I hope they release one last update to keep functionality on device like Bluetooth sync.

prob not though