
Fuel Book – Turn your car into a smart car - djrules24
http://myfuelbook.com
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zyxley
So... is this an app? A device? What?

Also, this website needs editing for spelling and grammar.

Edit: It's apparently a car diagnostic port dongle that connects to an app,
but I don't really see the point of this over Automatic, which already does
all the "car stuff" and integrates with a bunch of services, and Waze, which
handles the "social navigation" aspect and has a huge user base.

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cblock811
They are based in India, so the spelling/grammar aren't surprising to me.

Looks like they are cheaper, but do less than Automatic. So if monitoring your
car is all you want I guess this fits the bill.

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djrules24
They do have a nifty feature for opening doors with a knock on your phone or
Smart Watch. edit : and the Fuel Book accessory

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pc86
It's listed on Indiegogo, and it's listed as flexible funding (which means
they take the money even if they get less than they admit it will take to
reach the goal).

If there are any other gigantic red flags anyone has come across I'd love to
hear them, but flexible funding in particular screams "scam" about as loudly
as possible.

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djrules24
Never judge a book by its cover ;) Check out their radio coverage
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zilBkjpdVGA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zilBkjpdVGA)

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pc86
I don't know what press coverage has to do with the fact that they're trying
to scam people out of a few grand.

They’re saying it’s going to cost $50,000 to do this. They currently have less
than $1,600 committed. They get that money no matter what. So what are they
going to do when they get a $1,600 deposit? Have a nice dinner? Make their car
payments for a few months?

There is NO reason for a legitimate entrepreneur to use flexible funding. You
should ask for what you realistically think the bare minimum is and have
stretch goals beyond that. Anything else is one breath away from theft by
deception.

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VLM
(I can't believe I'm writing this phrase seriously...) Needs more synergy.

The page shows a large list of things I really don't care about, explaining
how it'll make it easier to do things I don't find interesting at all. And its
presented as a closed isolated silo. More than that, a collection of silos.

I have a gut feeling there must be some kind of synergy, some connectivity,
some compatibility thing that would make a connected car useful, somehow. If
someone messages you about your ETA or location it messages its best guess
back, perhaps. Or it links to your google calendar to remind you about service
appointments or google docs to store and graph long term trends in fuel
economy or engine performance. Or predicts on your google calendar based on
past use patterns and current tank level when you'll next need to fuel up (so
reserve an extra 5 mins on the way to work the day after tomorrow, etc). Or
has some kind of car brand oriented community / upload feature where citizens
and mechanics who know a lot about toyotas can see my engine upload and, I
donno, social web 2.0's me right in the inbox. Or integrates with social
location services so I can become mayor of my local gas station automatically
(does anyone still use that stuff?). Or integrates traffic/route stuff with
live weather radar. Automatic facebook like any place you stop at? Integrate
into google now for the benefit of the 5 people who still use google now? And
G+ while you're at it? I'm sure putting some actual effort into it could
unsilo the app and connectivity and synergy it all up into something more than
the sum of its parts.

I don't need another "Its Torque, but our ODB-II scanner costs 3 times as
much" or "We're a copy of waze with a new name, which you won't use because of
cognitive load while driving so you won't like us (waze makes me uncomfortable
while I'm driving)". Especially if the only distinction is something like "Our
only difference is we're on kick starter instead of the competitors that have
been on the app store forever, and we're from India, and our web design is
super cool web 3.0".

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jhugg
I have an automatic, and it's neat, but I'm not sure I like it. For $70-100,
it's not the cost in dollars. It's more about how much tracking data the thing
uploads. I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. It feels like the business model is
collect enough information that a company will buy you for the information.

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djrules24
But here the device uses the data to like ping the user if there's a chance
for an accident with another Fuel Book user or to detect pot holes ahead, I
wouldn't mind the device pinging those details.

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semerda
Does it have it's own sim card inside the OBD2 or a smart phone must be in
close proximity?

If latter than I do not see much value in what can be achieved by buying a $15
OBD2 bluetooth adapter from Amazon and a $5 app from Google Play/iTunes. Then
you own the data too.

Metromile did it right by embedding a sim inside their unit. Thus allowing you
to take advantage of it's remote monitoring capabilities and alerts when you
say park your car in a variable parking zone.

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djrules24
The Fleet version has the inbuilt GPS and Sim version the consumer edition
doesn't have it. Have you checked out the Fuel Book accessory HUD which works
side by side with the device

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djrules24
Fuel Book featured in Product Hunt
[http://www.producthunt.com/posts/fuelbook](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/fuelbook)

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djrules24
Fuel Books on Product Hunt
[http://www.producthunt.com/posts/fuelbook](http://www.producthunt.com/posts/fuelbook)

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ausjke
BAFX Products - Bluetooth OBD2 scan tool - For check engine light &
diagnostics - Android ONLY === this is $25 on Amazon for a while.

so what's new here?

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patcheudor
"Send the TAG link to another Fuel Book user and get to know their position,
be it a a race or travelling as a group, stay updated."

Forget grammar and spelling. Did they really just suggest this can help with
street racing? That's not going to go over well especially when this happens:

"Stuck in an Accident ! Need an Alibi ! With Fuel Book you can reveal your
driving speed and survive the predicament."

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bliti
I fail to see how they encourage illegal street racing. Some people use their
cars in legal and sanctioned race events. This functionality is useful for
people like me who cannot afford a telemetry system during races or high
performance driving events (so called "track days").

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patcheudor
I know very few people who a) have functional OBDII setups in their race cars
and b) if they do, they've got more important things plugged into the port
than a consumer targeted device. Further, it's pretty common when statements
are made such as that to include a disclaimer along the lines of "(* keep
racing to the track, not the street)."

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srameshc
Very impressive what this small team has built. Certainly they haven't
connected to cloud yet, but they have the metadata.

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djrules24
You are awesome !

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ephrem6393
Awesome !

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secondox
so how does stxxf like this gets on here to begin with? paid ads?

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jessaustin
It was posted, and then upvoted 18 times. Flag it if you don't like it.

EDIT: actually you may not have the karma to flag it; I guess just ignore it?

