
Show HN: Gping.io – Like TinyURL for your car - dustball
http://gping.io
======
Mister_Snuggles
I don't know if I'd describe it as "TinyURL for your car", but after reading
about what it does the description makes sense. It might be hard for people to
initially "get" though.

Where I see some future potential is in fleet management for smaller fleets
(think your local plumber that has a couple of work vans, or maybe a small
taxi company, etc). Being able to inexpensively monitor the locations of the
vehicles, how far they've been driven, whether there are any trouble codes,
etc, might have potential. I could also see potential for having maintenance
reminders built in (e.g., set up the maintenance schedule, have it remind you
say 500km, 250km, 100km before maintenance is required).

All of that would require some user management stuff and vehicle management
stuff, but that's just software. You've got the hardware side of things taken
care of already.

~~~
dustball
Thank you for your comments. Agree with everything you wrote.

The words 'fleet management' may have bounced around in my head once or twice.
Nod.

~~~
phaed
I still don't get it. TinyURL gets a url and makes it smaller, how is this
TinyURL for your car?

~~~
dustball
I agree the connection is weak. The similarity is that both services provide a
short URL for a resource. In the case of TinURL, it is a longer URL. In the
case of gping.io, it is your vehicle.

Gimme a mulligan on the tagline and I promise to come up with something better
:)

~~~
enraged_camel
"Dude, where is my car?"

------
r2dnb
Interesting but there might be a major gotcha. I see on the demo page that
they are using Google Maps, however the free version of Google Maps cannot be
used for assets tracking as per their terms of service.

You'd need a Premier subscription starting at 10,000 per year to track 100
vehicles. Then it's around 24 USD per extra vehicle.

You can use Open Street Map to avoid that (but then forget about Street View
and the like)

~~~
intelekshual
Just FYI that's not the current pricing: it's $6 per asset, with a minimum of
1667 tracked assets ($10000 / $6).

~~~
joshstrange
Where did you find these numbers? Do you need to login to the premium support
portal? I can't seem to find these numbers publically.

~~~
intelekshual
They don't publish them publicly, you have to speak to a sales rep.

------
finnn
No TLS anywhere on the site, manually forcing it returns a cert for
sni.dreamhost.com.... have you considered (1) ditching dreamhost and (2)
getting basic security? This looks really cool but lack of security in
handling my location data makes me really nervous to send it all off to you.
If this could be self hosted, on the other hand...

~~~
rcpt
You can get almost the same thing self hosted with a tiny amount of work

[http://ryancompton.net/2015/02/28/mpg/](http://ryancompton.net/2015/02/28/mpg/)

~~~
finnn
That's pretty cool. Looks like you're using the Torque app[0], which doesn't
seem to do any real-time uploading. Not the end of the world, but would be
kinda nice.

[0]:
[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torq...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.prowl.torque&hl=en)

------
niftich
"Like TinyURL for your car" confused me too; sorry, I think that's a risk with
catchy slogans.

But, it's build-you-own-car-tracker (for 5 bucks)! That's pretty cool too, and
likely resonates with the IoT/tinkerer crowd.

~~~
r2dnb
I like "build-you-own-car-tracker" very much.

I feel that it really helps explain and accept the long list of readme-like
instructions thrown on the landing page.

Otherwise one is inclined to judge the project by the standards of mainstream
products (tinyurl is quite mainstream) and will likely conclude that it is
overcomplicated.

------
sspiff
Judging by the number of car hacks through OBD-II lately, it sure sounds like
a great idea to connect an always on, internet connected android phone with
some dubious software to the OBD interface of your car!

------
seanp2k2
[http://www.opengts.org](http://www.opengts.org) build your own if you want.
Works with android phones or IoT devices if you want to do some integration
work. Also supports things like boundary areas (get alerts if a thing being
tracked enters / leaves a defined area). Works with open street maps to around
the GMaps ToS stuff about tracking mentioned elsewhere. I forget the name of
the android app which sends the location pings to this but it's a thing.

Re: Automatic, it's slightly different. Automatic connects via Bluetooth to
your phone to periodically upload batch data. This seems like it could be more
useful for fleet management. Automatic is more tailored to consumers who are
more concerned with e.g. Where did I park, maximizing gas mileage, tracking a
teen driver, driving more smoothly, gas costs, etc. automatic can also read
and reset DTC (diagnostic trouble codes) and e.g. Pop an iOS notification when
you're low on gas. Yes it's $100 (or $70-80 on sale) but it does a lot more,
doesn't require a dedicated phone, and tucks away out of sight under your
dashboard. It's a pretty slick little gadget. I have them on 2 vehicles.

------
btgeekboy
I own a wifi-based OBDII adapter, but two things concern me about it that
likely apply here as well.

1) It's always on, as the port is always powered, to my knowledge. I usually
only drive on the weekends. Should I be unplugging it after each drive?

2) Security. The wifi adapter presents an open wireless network; I assume
security on these bluetooth modules is also similarly lacking. What can an
attacker do given the device's built-in capabilities, and what _else_ can they
do if they're able to compromise it?

To the author of this package though, it looks great. As others have
mentioned, there's lots of room for growth here, and you've got the key data
pipeline established.

~~~
serf
> What can an attacker do given the device's built-in capabilities, and what
> else can they do if they're able to compromise it?

well, bmw DIY people have been using the OBDII port (over bluetooth, wifi, and
cabled) to rewrite ECM fuel and ignition mappings between models for a very
long time...

the least clever destructive thing I can think of is just zeroing an ECM out
as much as is allowed by the hardware.

p.s. i'm sure other car communities do similar stuff; i'm just not well versed
on them.

~~~
btgeekboy
Yikes. Well that pretty easily validates that decision to not leave it plugged
in continuously.

------
wcarss
There seem like so many ways to make this more secure than a public-but-hard-
to-guess URL. Am I missing them? Does anyone have ideas on why it's a bad idea
to for example require a login?

Edit: just want to append that this is really neat! I don't think it's dumb at
all but my knee-jerk reaction was "aaah somehow this will turn into someone
hacking cars that aren't theirs"

~~~
dustball
I agree users will want something better. I want to learn a little more about
who the potential users are before implementing an authentication system for
them.

For example, if this were to be strictly a consumer app, then Google or
Facebook auth would make sense. If this ends up being used by businesses, that
speaks to another solution perhaps.

Thanks for the feedback!

~~~
OJFord
Could just start basic - set a passcode on the phone; require it to be entered
in the browser.

------
sah2ed
Like "Find my iPhone but for your car" has a better ring to it as suggested
elsewhere in the thread.

------
instakill
In South Africa, many insurance companies won't insure you unless you have a
tracker. There's an entire industry waiting to be "disrupted":

[http://www.tracker.co.za/](http://www.tracker.co.za/)

[https://www.ctrack.com/za/](https://www.ctrack.com/za/)

[https://www.cartrack.co.za/](https://www.cartrack.co.za/)

[https://www.matrix.co.za/](https://www.matrix.co.za/)

[https://www.beam-e.com/](https://www.beam-e.com/)

------
spilk
So, since this is asking for what boils down to a cheap/disposable android
device, what is the cheapest one you can buy readily without resorting to
sketchy ebay sellers, etc.? Used/refurb is fine.

~~~
breckenedge
I use a 1st gen Moto E for bluetooth OBDII monitoring. They were $99 new, and
I think the latest 2nd gen is $69 new. Used ones are in the $20-$40 range.
Torque Pro runs well on it, but the screen is kinda small.

------
sangnoir
> Upon launch, gping.io will show you your distinctly private-but-shareable
> monitoring URL.

This is bad for privacy if you will be using short URLs similar to
TinyURL/bit.ly since short URLs can be bruteforced[1]. Additional
authentication is probably a good idea.

1\.
[http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.02734v1.pdf](http://arxiv.org/pdf/1604.02734v1.pdf)

------
kingkool68
For $99 Automatic already does this
[https://www.automatic.com](https://www.automatic.com)

~~~
dustball
Okay, my solution requires a $5 adapter.

I did not know about this; really exciting to find a competitor with a
solution 20 times as expensive. Thank you!

~~~
IgorPartola
There is also [https://dash.by](https://dash.by) which works with many cheap
OBDII devices, including Bluetooth ones. I was actually about to get started
with them, but your setup is actually a cool idea. That is to say, you are
combining an OBDII dongle and a cheap phone into what is essentially a single
"device" which is actually internet connected.

My suggestion would be to research Automatic and Dash and see if you can
improve on their setup by bundling all three components into one: try to
actually create a device that combines and OBDII dongle, a GPRS modem, a GPS
chip, etc. Also see if you can find and white label a cellular provider
similar to RingPlus do you can do the whole thing as a service: $5/month plus
a $100 device is not a bad deal.

~~~
pmontra
There are devices like [http://www.ebay.com/bhp/bluetooth-gps-
receiver](http://www.ebay.com/bhp/bluetooth-gps-receiver)

I have one from 2008, which I don't use anymore. It speaks NMEA and it sends
the data over GPRS. I guess there are 3G devices now. An advantage of GPRS is
that it's everywhere (at least in Europe) because basically it's data over
GSM. It's cheap. A data only SIM with 2 MB per month per year (yes MB) was 12
Euro per year. But you're not sending many positions and it's few bytes per
position. I made a site like gping.io back then. Not enough customers but it
could be different now.

A word of caution for any kind of GPS device, phone included. The GPS antenna
needs to see the sky, best if a lot of sky. The roof of the car is enough to
severely shield the GPS signal. You need assisted GPS then.

------
rakoo
It's an interesting idea, but I fail to see how it compares to TinyURL.
Wouldn't this be closer to "Quantified self for your car" ? I could see the
data plugged into something that would allow me to predict when I should fill
my gas tank and how much I usually spend and stuff like that.

~~~
Mister_Snuggles
It could be considered that, but marketing it that way would make people go
"huh?", just like I did at first.

I see potential in turning it into a fleet management solution for small
businesses. Have it tell you when maintenance is coming up, track vehicle
usage, etc. I'm sure there are small businesses with vehicles where the owner
has better things to do that figure out what maintenance is due for what
vehicle.

------
jeffehobbs
Cool service, but I agree with comments below that state the analogy to
TinyURL is not quite right.

This seems more like “Find My iPhone” or “Find My Friends” for your car. It’s
true those services are most familiar to iOS users, but it’s overall a better
analogy.

------
alaskamiller
"Fitbit for your car"

------
michaelmior
On a mostly unrelated note, does anyone know of a good carrier like RingPlus
in Canada? Specifically something with no contract where I can opt to get only
data in bite-sized increments? This seems like it would be great for projects
like this.

Edit: Petro Canada seems to have something like this, but with a somewhat
annoying expiration policy.

[https://mobility.petro-canada.ca/plans.aspx](https://mobility.petro-
canada.ca/plans.aspx)

------
Moto7451
Mojio[0] makes a neat integrated device that hits some of the same bullet
points as this. I worked with some of their developers at an AT&T sponsored
hackathon and had a good experience working with their API. Worth a look if
you don't mind trading the open nature of this project for smaller packaging.

[0][https://www.moj.io](https://www.moj.io)

------
rburhum
I am not sure why everyone feels like they need to do a comparison with a pre-
existing product. How about "Find your Car"

------
kekub
Can you elaborate on a "free" prepaid plan? I do not know anything about
RingPlus. However I know that there are a few prepaid providers that offer
100mb/free a month. Would that fit?

I am also interested in which data is transmitted when? Is the data requested
when I access the Webservice or is it being sent at specified intervals?

~~~
kevhito
Checking the RingPlus site, the "free" plans seem to be $0/month for service +
$X per unit of usage. One of their plans, for example, is $9 for (250 minutes
voice + 250MB data + 250 sms + 250 mms). There is also an overage charge, but
I don't know what that means. They are also ad supported, apparently, playing
an audio ad before each outbound voice call you place.

This seems reasonable for some people. By contrast, for a tracfone, in
addition to voice-minutes/data/etc. you also have "service days" that must
paid for, even if you don't use the phone at all.

------
williamgogan
For the various 'gas as a service' offerings, this would be ideal seeing as it
offers current gas level.

Having this come with signup, and know that my car will auto-refill when it
gets below 30% and is at home or work, would be pretty darn useful.

Maybe one of the companies already does this and I just didn't realize?

------
edent
Great idea. One thing to note is that some cars don't like OBD dongles which
continually draw power after the vehicle shuts down.

My BMW i3 sounds its alarm because it assumes that an OBD connected when the
car is locked belongs to a thief.

So, worth finding someone with the same model car as you to ensure
compatibility.

------
finnn
>Vehicle VIN

Don't you mean Vehicle VIN Number? :P

(actually though, the V in VIN stands for Vehicle so Vehicle VIN is redundant)

~~~
skrebbel
Guess what the N stands for

~~~
heinrich5991
That was the joke. :)

------
thspimpolds
Something about android and an obd device working together terrifies me. Last
thing I want a phone which has exploits galore being able to turn off my
engine as I drive.

Frankly any obd device just freaks the crap out of me

------
uberneo
Do you mind sharing the Tech stack behind this .. does Android app is
uploading data every second and how you are ingesting all this data in
realtime .. which Database are you using?

------
botw
'gping.io only needs basic data services and consumes no "minutes". ', how is
that achieved?

~~~
kevhito
I think they mean it only uses the "data" (MB) portion of your usage, not the
"voice minutes" part. As long as they keep below a few MB per month, the cost
for RingPlus will be very low. Example, they give you a trial with 100MB
literally free, so perhaps they can make that last a few months or years with
typical usage.

------
suhith
Like TinyURL for your car is kind of weak, but it seems super cool. Great use
of an old android phone too!

------
swah
9/10 people will use this to track their family- might as well explain using
that example.

------
Apocryphon
It's more like IoT in your car.

------
formula_ninguna
is it geolocation for a car? or something else also?

------
anysz
How do you obtain OBD-II data from simple USB connection?

~~~
detaro
You don't, they list a Bluetooth-OBD-adapter as a component?

------
nightlust
lol. nice.

------
KevanM
"Dude, there's your car!"

