People spend a ton of money on their cars every year, from car payments to insurance to gas to maintenance. But for such expensive assets, most people normally don’t know a whole lot about what’s happening under the hood, or how they can drive or maintain their cars better over time. The folks at Automatic want to change all that, with a smart combination of hardware and mobile apps to keep people better informed of how their cars are doing.
Automatic has two main components to it: There’s a small hardware dongle that connects to a car’s onboard computer, which provides data about the state of the car and trips it makes, as well as a mobile app that collects and analyzes all that data. Together, they can provide a whole lot more insight into users’ vehicles than they have currently.
The Automatic Link, which connects to a car’s diagnostics port, is a $70 piece of hardware with built-in Bluetooth connectivity for transferring data from your car’s computer to your mobile phone. The app then looks at the data to act as a “smart driving assistant.” Based on what it knows about each trip, it can provide users with tips to help get better fuel efficiency, drive more safely, and extend the life of their cars.
