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

I'm another of the original users of the non-subscription dongle. When they said they will discontinue support for that, with no real reason, and that the only way forward was to move to the subscription option, I unplugged the dongle from my car and stored it somewhere. I did enjoy it, the reports and so on. In my case, being in Mexico, other than the logging of trips and the error code interpretation, there was no more features that worked here, but it was enough. And suddenly they just decide to kill it so I have to buy into the subscription? Screw them.

No wonder months later they are shutting down. Health crisis or not, it's just a lame excuse.
 
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tutt said:
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...
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Hard to feel sorry for them. The original version used Bluetooth, not cellular, and worked fine.

As far as I can tell, their argument, that the BT version was undesirable because BT is unreliable and sucks, was some combination of their lousy BT chip and Android phones; I never had a problem with it. And, like so many others, I walked away when they tried to force me onto what was, for me, an objectively inferior product [their cellular connection was always a LOT slower to connect than the supposedly inferior BT].

Who exactly is to blame when some business genius says "sure, we have to pay for cellular, and sure we don't quite cover those costs with our subscription. But hey, we'll make it up with volume"?
[automerge]1588443335[/automerge]


Jaddie said:
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?
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Or
en.wikipedia.org

Automatic (automobile company) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
?
 
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Automatic was unable to sell it's adapter and app worldwide. A one reason more for the shutting down.
 
I had the original which I liked quite a bit. It had the driving assistance beeps.

The 2nd generation had much quieter beeps, I think it was a hardware change. Then they stopped playing the beeps at all.

The next one I got was the Automatic Pro which had cellular, but no subscription. That worked (and still works) like a dream for my daily driver. I moved my 2nd generation dongle to my weekend hauler (old van), which worked until they pulled the plug on it. Classic app crashes whenever I try to connect now.

I haven't upgraded to their new subscription dongle, which I'm quite glad with now.

I'm looking at an AutoPi (https://autopi.io), so this doesn't happen again. It's a bit more pricey that the Bouncie, but is open which I really like. I'll need to run the numbers to see if that makes sense, their store is overloaded at the moment.
 
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zander said:
I'm looking at an AutoPi (https://autopi.io), so this doesn't happen again. It's a bit more pricey that the Bouncie, but is open which I really like. I'll need to run the numbers to see if that makes sense, their store is overloaded at the moment.
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About how much were the monthly charges and hardware costs? I haven't been able to find a cost on their website.
 
realitydcf said:
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.
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I too left Automatic after their new direction. I switched to ZUS from Nonda
 
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kubmeister said:
I too left Automatic after their new direction. I switched to ZUS from Nonda
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It looks like they only have one tracker for $8.74 ($0 tracker and $8.74 for shipping). It doesn't do gps live tracking like automatic does, but it is cheap.... Were you able to keep a stable connection to the adapter? Some reviews ay it drains the battery and doesn't connect to the phone well. Some features are locked behind a paywall too.
 
That's too bad for people that relied on it. I've been using T-Mobile's SyncUp service with my car and find it very useful.
 
I owned three generations of Automatic Links. First one broke, they sent me a replacement AND a beta version of the second generation. When it went out of beta, they sent me a final version and told me to give the beta version to a friend. Then I bought the Automatic Pro with 4 years of cellular service for... was it $129? Loved that device. It followed us through three moves from Michigan to New York City, where it saved us many times while having our car parked in a garage. Helped solve more than one dispute with the garage employees, including damage that happened while their employee was parking our car. I’ll miss Automatic, but we finally sold our car in November when we moved to Midtown, switched jobs and no longer needed a car at all. RIP Automatic.
 
KTK1990 said:
About how much were the monthly charges and hardware costs? I haven't been able to find a cost on their website.
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The hardware looks to start around $100 for the DIY version (bring your own Pi), up to $250 for the highest end one with cellular, GPS, etc. https://shop.autopi.io/en/products/category/devices-1/

In terms of their subscription costs, all the devices are listed as including a "Lifetime Community Subscription". It looks like they're model is to sell subscriptions to fleets, while letting consumers use the service if they buy the hardware.
 
zander said:
The hardware looks to start around $100 for the DIY version (bring your own Pi), up to $250 for the highest end one with cellular, GPS, etc. https://shop.autopi.io/en/products/category/devices-1/

In terms of their subscription costs, all the devices are listed as including a "Lifetime Community Subscription". It looks like they're model is to sell subscriptions to fleets, while letting consumers use the service if they buy the hardware.
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Based on a email from their sales department. $250 does seem very high but it is a pi so there should be a ton of things you could do with it and re-purpose it later in life. It looks like the cost for this becomes profitable in approximately 1-2 years assuming you compare it to a $100 adapter purchase price and $10 monthly fee ( The pi is about $250 up front and $0 on day 2 - EOL).

"...We are actively working on ways to migrate your data from Automatic to AutoPi, should you be interested in this. There will be a guide on how to so, but more on that later.

At the moment we don’t have a dedicated app, but its in the pipeline. Our dashboard does work as a webapp, so you would have almost the same experience from your browser. Its possible to receive notifications when you car starts, this can be done as a webhook or other means.

There is no subscription fee to our 4G devices, when you use it for personal usage."
 
And this is another sobering example of the fatal flaws in connected, company/service dependent products, and a reminder as to why you should ALWAYS favor devices that can operate independently from a connected service whenever possible.

There's little reason that this sort of product couldn't at least provide a lot of useful functionality without any Internet connection. A REALLY good solution would let you use any arbitrary service (Dropbox, Google drive, etc.) to store historical data (so the data remains in your control and is easily handled should you upgrade devices), would do all the calculations on-device (not depending on a remote server), and would also provide an open format for adding new control data (e.g. new vehicles) so that in the event that the company goes under, the product can still live on through volunteer or third-party efforts. I get that some services (like crash reporting) might not work without a provider behind them, but even partial functionality would be better than no functionality in the event of the company going under.

Sadly, more and more devices and products are moving in the direction of requiring a service to be online, and the horrible experience of having to scramble for an alternative solution (and pay for it, and possibly be unable to migrate historical data, etc.) is going to be with us for a long time. Just make sure you consider this possibility when investing a lot of money into a connected product, especially from a startup - there is every possibility that the company might go under, and you'll be left with a completely useless hunk of electronics and nothing to show for your investment.
 
zander said:
The hardware looks to start around $100 for the DIY version (bring your own Pi), up to $250 for the highest end one with cellular, GPS, etc. https://shop.autopi.io/en/products/category/devices-1/

In terms of their subscription costs, all the devices are listed as including a "Lifetime Community Subscription". It looks like they're model is to sell subscriptions to fleets, while letting consumers use the service if they buy the hardware.
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Just remember that "Lifetime subscription" means "for the lifetime of the company" which is generally a lot less than your lifetime...
I've been suckered by a few of those now. Never again...
 
I bought an OBDLink MX+ when Automatic decided to retire their earlier devices that near as I can tell all worked fine with the reason that they didn't want to support it any more because reasons. Their only other option was to pay for a potential subscription service that may or may not exist in the future. There was enough uncertainty there that I disliked the vibes and bailed. There are plenty of other folk on the forum who seem to have been of the same opinion. To be honest I don't think I would have objected to giving them some more money but they'd not added any visible features for my usage in any of the three or so year I'd used the app. They have to update the app regardless so their reasoning always struck me as odd. I suspect that is the start of their downfall.

I have a bunch of Nonda gear from when they crowd funded their products but it's mileage tracker for "free" only handled 60 trips which if you drive to work and back home again is probably ok. Less if you, like me, stop at your mailbox on the way home or drop off and pick up kids from various locations. They wanted money to track something that I really don't care about. What lets both this and Automatic down is they want to put it in the cloud instead of just leaving it in the device and obviously there is a monthly upkeep for that but I don't need it in the cloud.

What I like about OBDLink MX+ is that it lets me drop the data onto my own cloud storage (Dropbox or iCloud) and I can pull the data off it later if I want. It doesn't normalise the data in the same way that Automatic did but to be honest I actually like the idea that it gives me raw access to the fine grained data. It's not as smooth as the Automatic experience and every so often the device misbehaves but overall it's been a solid purchase.
 
name99 said:
Just remember that "Lifetime subscription" means "for the lifetime of the company" which is generally a lot less than your lifetime...
I've been suckered by a few of those now. Never again...
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Indeed. One of the advantages I see with this option, it's running on a RPi, so at least a lot of it's functionality will still work if it's web services go away. I am in no way affiliated with them, I'm liking this more and more as a replacement for Automatic though.
 
zander said:
Indeed. One of the advantages I see with this option, it's running on a RPi, so at least a lot of it's functionality will still work if it's web services go away. I am in no way affiliated with them, I'm liking this more and more as a replacement for Automatic though.
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i don’t like their price but at least the Apple Card offers free foreign currency conversion. I just wish there was a slightly cheaper versionas nearly 300 with shipping is quite high. But I guess the demands for live tracking from anywhere with 4G is still an expensive feature for now.

edit: support said that they are not charging for 4G service as it does not have a SIM card and you have to provide your own. It comes with a lte radio but no service. Thus you will have a monthly fee for movile service.
 
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I used to have a Volvo with their On Call service, and it is absolutely excellent. Now I drive a BMW with On call, but it lacks ability to log trips and separate private from business driving. My complementary solution for that functionality could as well serve a lot of other people, it's an app service called MileCatcher. It works by tracking your driving by means of an app on your iPhone. It has a good interface in the app and online, and does a perfect job for my tax declaration.

Apart from that, there is an interesting OBD device by ZTE called SyncUP, which is used as a hardware by some mobile operators. ME living in Sweden can use it if I sign up with the provider Telia, and found that T-Mobile also has a plan in the US: https://www.t-mobile.com/tablet/t-mobile-syncup-drive-sd-7000t?sku=610214661159

Basically, it is marketed as a wifi device for in the car, using a sim card from the actual provider. Together with that there are bunch of additional services that should appeal to those getting kicked off their Automatic usability.

That ZTE device seems to be more versatile with regards to the fact that it is one device used by different service providers, which doesn't mean you'd have the frustration of it being locked to the supplying provider. Another thought I have is that mobile operators are way more stable companies than the one shutting down.

I know, there is not real escape of a subscription plan, as both the OBD device and the app mentioned above come solely handy by subscribing, but these seem more solid to me.

beanbaguk said:
If you have a BMW, I also use a combination of Carly (available for a lot of brands), and BimmerCode.
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Does Carly have any decent driving logging functionality, or other such things such as provided by other OBD devices? As far as I understand it is merely a tool for nerding with your car, which I could do for fun, but I would only be convinced to use it if it had real life functionality as well.
 
natallica said:
What rubs me the wrong way is that they blame the pandemic for this, but it feels disingenuous.
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Indeed. The pandemic was just the coup de grâce.

I almost bought an Automatic: My car's check engine light kept turning on intermittently and I was tired of taking off work to visit the dealer - only to find nothing wrong. But the dealer still found other little things needing fixed... and since I was off work anyway .... $$$$. Ugh.

So I toyed with the idea of getting an Automatic. But $100 and the thought of yet another subscription? Nah. I'd probably still end up at the dealer anyway.
 
There are other adapters that will let you check the OBD port, I have an OBDLINK MX+ which has it's own standalone app without subscription and will also dump telemetry data to Dropbox or iCloud for later processing.
 
OlliFlamme said:
Does Carly have any decent driving logging functionality, or other such things such as provided by other OBD devices? As far as I understand it is merely a tool for nerding with your car, which I could do for fun, but I would only be convinced to use it if it had real life functionality as well.
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No, it doesn't offer any sort of logging, but Torque does and so do a few others, so I recommend using these. For the coding side, it does offer a simple way to code basic functions to your car however.
 
i am not associated with any of these companies, just doing my own research as the deadline is getting closer...

while bouncie is on our radar, it seems that vyncs is overlooked as a considerable alternative.

two things about these alternatives:

1. bouncie currently has no way of tracking a vehicle when the ignition is off. this is a dealbreaker. however, support told me that in a few months they should have a tow feature, which is a software update and not a hardware one which allows pinging a parked vehicle. so the eta is pending and the details still unknown how this will function.

2. vsyncs has no monthly fees, but there is a purchase fee + an activation fee and later an annual fee. they have a price comparison chart (which includes bouncie) here, claiming to be the cheapest:

Comparing Tracking Devices | GPS Tracker For Car No Monthly Fee

An in-depth comparison of some of the most popular vehicle trackers against the one and only GPS Tracker For Car No Monthly Fee.
vyncs.com vyncs.com

i don't put the numbers since they could all change.

privacy:
automatic - make sure to check our their privacy pages if you haven't and if a california resident, opt out of their selling info to third parties - https://automatic.com/customerfaq

i'm still looking into this but bouncie had made the news a few years back about possibly selling customer data to insurance companies among other third parties. they are also linked with another company at the same address in texas. do you own research.

vynscs, still looking into this.

all other alternatives seem to have monthly fees that add up substantially or more focused on vehicle hotspots that become out of this scope, and focus more into the realm of cellular data rates and extra charges with less focus on vehicle tracking and vehicle data.
 
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