
Build Apps for Cars on the New Automatic Developer Platform - thejo
https://developer.automatic.com/
======
atonse
I didn't know there was already a second generation Automatic.

I pre-ordered the first one and had a lot of problems with it constantly
losing connection and not tracking trips. I checked the app a few times to
find out that data was just not collected, and it was just cumbersome to get
the device to reconnect, with having to turn off my engine and do a dance to
get it to talk to my car, that it just became a pain and sat in my glove box
for months.

Hope they've fixed these issues, but I'm skeptical about buying a 2nd gen
after that experience.

~~~
thejo
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 discount code. I hope you try it. We're also
happy to help you get to the bottom of your issues if you write to
support@automatic.com.

~~~
kolev
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?

~~~
hatsix
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.

~~~
webjprgm
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.

~~~
kodeninja
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!

------
mojoe
My friend and I built something similar to this a few years back, but we never
found the right audience. Here's the old kickstarter page:
[https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1847359812/motobox-
conn...](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1847359812/motobox-connect-with-
your-car-on-a-deeper-level)

Ours connected to WiFi in driveways and dumped all driving data to servers
that users could connect to via an API and web tool. I suspect our messaging
and graphics were not polished enough, even though our hardware and software
was cool.

I'd be really curious to find out what the most popular use of this
"Automatic" device is. I'm always excited to hear about new uses for
automotive data.

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TeeWEE
I'm browsing this website for 5 minutes, and still dont fully understand what
they offer. Do they offer an api to get data of their own drivers on the road?
Or do they offer an api to get data of any car out there? Or do they have a
box you need to install in your car, which has a built in rest api to get the
data you need? I think the initial value this company provides should be more
clear on the landing page.

~~~
codazoda
From what I gather, it's a bluetooth device that you plug into your cars OBD-
II port. That transmits data from your car to your smart phone. Your phone,
then, transmits the data to automatic.

So, you can look at daily gas mileage stats, error codes, and things like
that. I assume the GPS parts come from the phone itself (while in the car).

The idea sounds interesting but I wouldn't want the data to be transmitted to
the cloud. I'd also be worried that the data might be permissible in court if
you were in an accident, for example. As a result, they might see that you
were going 10 over at the time of the accident or that you had been doing so 2
minutes down the road. Lots of invalid conclusions can be made on such data
and I wouldn't want to share it.

~~~
TeeWEE
Ah indeed. Good point about privacy. Also they are not available in Europe.

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nradov
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...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torque)
[http://torque-bhp.com/](http://torque-bhp.com/)

~~~
abc_lisper
Does torque give an api to access that data?

~~~
nradov
yes [http://torque-bhp.com/wiki/PluginDocumentation](http://torque-
bhp.com/wiki/PluginDocumentation)

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jmspring
The actual car events listed on their website is incredibility limited. Anyone
who has spent time dealing with OBD-II ports, canbus, etc. knows that getting
access to data beyond basics like RPM, Speed, and maybe braking (Mode 1 PIDs)
is typically vendor specific and can vary between years of the same model, let
alone models within the same manufacturer.

Someone mentioned VW below. Remember, there has been discussion that the
automotive vendors want to lock access to OBD-II/Canbus info.

~~~
thejo
You're absolutely right that there is a lot more information in cars than we
expose right now. What we're announcing today is the first step. The goal is
to continue to expose more and more data over time via simple to use APIs.

------
okpgreg
Does anyone know if this works for any bluetooth obd-ii adapter? I have
another one I've used with Dash but wasn't sure if it will work with Automatic
or if they use proprietary hardware/software.

------
gusmd
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.

~~~
thejo
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/](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/](https://www.automatic.com/adapter/)

~~~
kodeninja
@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?

------
btbuildem
What do you guys use to collect / aggregate / store / analyze your users'
data? Do you do any kind of aggregate analysis to get insights into patterns /
behaviours?

~~~
rfergu
We store the data in Apache Spark using Databricks and Spark Streaming. We are
working on a bunch of really cool aggregate analysis that we plan to surface
in the app. Things like how does my car perform vs cars in my same class.

[https://spark-summit.org/east-2015/talk/spark-plugs-into-
you...](https://spark-summit.org/east-2015/talk/spark-plugs-into-your-car)

We have to be really careful about user's privacy, so we haven't released much
yet other than our dashboard:
[https://dashboard.automatic.com](https://dashboard.automatic.com), but I
think we'll be able to start pushing insights directly into the app in the
next release.

Best Regards, Rob Ferguson Director of Engineering Automatic Labs
[https://twitter.com/RobFergusonIII](https://twitter.com/RobFergusonIII)

~~~
btbuildem
Shameless plug: have you checked out mnubo.com? We provide a complete data
pipeline, from ingestion to visualization, for connected devices like yours.
PM me at bborowin@mnubo.com if you'd like know more.

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kriro
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. Anything with a mobile connection...scares me :D

~~~
burger_moon
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.

~~~
kriro
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

------
elyrly
Concerns that was brought up on another forum was the distribution of user
information to third-parties ie. insurance, auto manufactures, etc. I was able
to test the first iteration of the product a year ago and noticed it worked
fine for basic needs (seamless UI experience, useful information) but it
wasn't useful after a week of use.

------
CSDude
I wish you had international shipping. I have an OBD adapter but no good
application.

~~~
thejo
We've started accepting international pre-orders today!

~~~
timw6n
I really hope you've had some good legal advice on your international returns
policy: In particular I imagine that "our policy cannot cover damage incurred
during shipment" is not going to prevent CC chargebacks if that were to
happen.

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tempodox
Looks like part of the movement into a world where I need to “sign in” before
I'm allowed to build software. I'm sure Orwell would love this but I don't.

~~~
colbyh
The real question, given your reaction, is why you'd want to build software
for a closed platform?

