Automatic [Your Smart Driving Assistant]

[eric/]

Hey gents and ladies, I assume most of us here drive, and if you drive you probably use gas and you're probably interested in your mpg and other useful information about how you drive.

I saw this today and thought holy crap this is a great idea, and I think many of you will like it too:

www.automatic.com

Everyone knows that mashing the gas, slamming on the brakes and cruising at high speeds kills fuel economy. And considering the average driver spends upwards of $3,000 a year on gas, you’d think people would be more inclined to change their driving behavior. But it’s like exercise: We all know we should do it, but we don’t have proper motivation. Automatic wants to change that.

Automatic is a hardware and app combo that works like FitBit for your car, helping you keep tabs on your fuel economy, speed and other information you need to make better, more fuel-efficient decisions behind the wheel. It brings the “quantifiable self” movement popularized by wearables like the FitBit, Jawbone UP and Nike FuelBand to the automotive world.

“[Drivers] are getting zero information about how they’re spending their money,” Automatic’s CEO and founder Thejo Kote told Wired. “They’re not getting any feedback.”

By plugging a small dongle into the diagnostics port of your car (standard on every U.S. vehicle since 1996), Automatic sends everything from fuel economy data to check-engine-light information over low-power Bluetooth 4.0 to a beautifully crafted app for the iPhone 4S and 5. With that info in hand, drivers can find out how much that trip across town cost them in fuel, their average speed on the way to grandma’s and what that damn light on the dashboard means.

 

[pixl8]

I wonder if the idea will take off. Actually, I think one of my coworkers got a request to test a device similar to this (she's got a blog with a lot of followers and reviews things like this). I don't think it was this manufacturer, though. Honestly, I thought the FitBit was a stupid idea since what it does just seems like common sense, but obviously I have zero business sense because FitBit is a success. This thing makes more sense to me than FitBit.

 

[acearchie]

I could see this becoming a standard in say 10-15 years time but at the moment £~50 entry fee as too pricey for someone like me (a student) that should really be spending that money on petrol!

 

[eric/]

I could see this becoming a standard in say 10-15 years time but at the moment £~50 entry fee as too pricey for someone like me (a student) that should really be spending that money on petrol!

Well, perhaps you could save that amount of money, and fix a problem with your car with the device.

It's an interesting trade off, to say the least.

 

[Lyle]

I just watched their little demo video and it seems like a neat gadget, but I too am unsure of whether it's worth it. FWIW, it does more than just monitor your fuel usage; it can warn you and provide details about maintenance issues, and if you're in a crash it can automatically dial some number of people (including 911 I assume) to alert them of the accident.