
Comma Two Devkit - ryanlowun
https://comma.ai/shop/products/comma-two-devkit
======
iMuzz
Quick bit of feedback for any Comma employees lurking:

It took me a very long time to realize that this was a self-driving solution
for existing vehicles. The hero just says

"Driven over 6 million miles" and then a "Buy Now".

When I scrolled down and looked at the product and read:

> We’ve added an infrared camera to provide 24/7 driver monitoring, an
> integrated panda, a custom cooling solution, and an OBD-C port with power
> supplied directly from the car.

I thought it was some kind of dash cam + driver sleep monitor? Also, most of
those words don't mean anything to me.

Only after deeply investigating it did I realize that it's basically Tesla
Autopilot for existing vehicles.

You have an awesome value prop though, "Bring autopilot features, to your
car." Make that clear!

~~~
alpb
Count me in as well. I came here to make that comment.

I've had to scan the entire website and still cannot find a reference to a
simple term like "self-driving" anywhere in the website. It seemed like a
dashcam that warns the driver.

~~~
parsimo2010
While the website doesn't directly state it, the entire purpose of the Comma
hardware is to run the OpenPilot self-driving software (or "driver assistance"
software, whatever you want to call it). Sure, you _can_ run other software
with it, but it works _really well_ with the software that has already been
written for it and is available on the same website.

The FAQ clears some of this up ([https://comma.ai/faq](https://comma.ai/faq)),
but I agree with the idea that it is purposefully obtuse to keep regulators
off their back.

------
etaioinshrdlu
Comma.ai represents a strange attitude towards life in which you try to turn
hard, serious problems (like self-driving), into trivial problems (write some
Python and run it on Android phones and plug it into your car!) and try get
away with it. It only has a chance of working if you are cool enough in SV
such as geohot. I interviewed there once and it was extremely off-putting how
clear their demand for fast progress was, and how little they cared about
safety.

It's move fast and break things all over again.

Think about how the tech community rips apart Boeing and demands the utmost in
quality engineering, reliability, redundancy, testing. And then we have comma,
which controls your vehicle on a non-realtime system...

If you ran comma.ai in your car and had a serious crash, you could possibly be
found criminally negligent.

~~~
person_of_color
Great perspective. Why isn't SDC software held to the same regard as Boeing?
The safety framework is the same.

~~~
chris11
And comma ai deals with regulation by selling dashcams that can drive a car if
the user installs hardware and opensource software.

I use open pilot for highway driving and love it. But Comma AI is
intentionally making design decisions to get around regulation.

------
guu
Since the website is not clear, here is what it is.

Comma Two is an aftermarket dash cam that adds features like adaptive cruise
control, automatic lane centering, and forward collision warning to cars using
open source software.

It uses a combination of the dash cam and the vehicle’s built in radar to
accomplish this. It is able to control the car and receive its radar data by
connecting to the vehicle’s OBD port.

The unit is $1000 and also requires the purchase of a vehicle specific harness
for $200.

A list of compatible vehicles can be found here:
[https://comma.ai/vehicles](https://comma.ai/vehicles)

The source code that performs the driver assist functionality has to be loaded
by the user and is available here:
[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot)

There’s also a “prime” subscription which pays for cell service on an included
SIM card and allows you to see video footage or location data from your
vehicle remotely.

------
nojvek
A lot of commaai bashing here.

I was very skeptic too. However using their system for almost an year
everyday, I can deffo say it makes me a safer highway driver.

I have overall more awareness of the road since I don’t always have to keep
eyes on the lane in front. I look around more around the car and look side
mirror/rear mirror more. Once this asshole driver was zipping left and right
over taking and was gonna squeeze through us, I could spot him/her from
distance and I gave more space. If I didn’t he would have deffo crashed into
us. Granted half an hour later he/she did get into a crash.

Another time, car in front suddenly brakes, system immediately alerted and
started braking. Even If I was manually driving, I couldn’t have had the same
reaction time. Car ahead crashed, ours didn’t.

Some humans are very dangerous highway drivers since they don’t maintain
distance with car infront.

This is testament to both commaai and Toyota. I can set I want 2 seconds-ish
reaction time with car infront and it always mantains that safe distance.
Really neat.

Also commaai driver mobitoring has gotten quite good. Move your eyes off the
road for a bit and it yells with an alert to touch the steering wheel and get
eyes back on the road. That alone makes you more attentive.

All I can say is give it a shot, it’s quite an ingenous solution to make other
brands of cars, highway self lane following.

I’m not gonna say self driving, because essentially it’s a driver monitoring +
alert system + lane following system. Very narrow but does a good job at it.

------
steakin
"comma two is designed for permanent installation in your car."

Okay, what's it do?

"We’ve added an infrared camera to provide 24/7 driver monitoring, an
integrated panda, a custom cooling solution, and an OBD-C port with power
supplied directly from the car."

Great, so it monitors cars... For what? Quick movements? What's a panda? I'd
be interested if I knew what it was.

"comes with three free months of comma prime"

So the 1000$ onboard computer that does _something_ comes with a free*
subscription.

They need a total marketing rework, can't imagine the sales they've already
lost.

~~~
chris11
Their marketing won't change until they are willing to deal with the NHTSA.
[https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-
comma...](https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/28/comma-ai-cancels-the-comma-one-
following-nhtsa-letter/)

------
bransonf
Can anyone here comment on actually using a Comma product?

I don’t even drive a car, but I don’t see why anyone would buy something like
this yet. My point being that it’s not full self driving, and frankly its
safety is entirely questionable.

Self driving is supposed to make driving less stressful, but does having a
system like this actually do that? Or does it make you more stressed because
you have to be conscious of the computer?

Don’t get me wrong, I like what George Hotz is trying here, but what incentive
is there to be an early adopter?

~~~
enragedcacti
I find driving much less fatiguing when using my Eon (the previous iteration
of this product). Taking yourself out of the feedback loop of constantly
adjusting steering (and gas if in traffic) makes the experience much more
relaxing even though you still have to pay full attention. In my experience,
OpenPilot is really rock solid in normal highway driving scenarios and there
isn't anything stressful about using it.

As far as safety goes, their safety policy is outlined here:
[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/devel/SAFETY.md](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/devel/SAFETY.md)

the short of it is:

"""

The driver must always be capable to immediately retake manual control of the
vehicle, by stepping on either pedal or by pressing the cancel button.

The vehicle must not alter its trajectory too quickly for the driver to safely
react. This means that while the system is engaged, the actuators are
constrained to operate within reasonable limits.

"""

Those checks are separately coded into both OpenPilot, the self-driving
software, and Panda, the microcontroller responsible for communicating between
OpenPilot and the vehicle.

~~~
bransonf
Thanks for the perspective.

Do you happen to know what the hardware safety is like? Just curious.

~~~
enragedcacti
Sure! so there are three stages of safety:

OpenPilot generates all of the control messages to send to the vehicle based
off of feedback from the cars sensors and it's own camera. it has rate limits
for all control messages it generates so that it can't jerk the steering wheel
or slam on the brakes (as of now it leaves Collision Avoidance up to the stock
system)

Steering limits:
[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/selfdrive/controls/lib/latcontrol_indi.py#L99)

Accel/Decel limits:
[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/selfdrive/controls/lib/longcontrol.py#L76)

These control messages are then passed to the Panda over USB. Panda is a
microcontroller that converts the control messages into CAN messages that the
vehicle can understand. The Panda has the same rate limits checks hardcoded
into the firmware and it will reject any control messages that are outside the
limits

Panda Safety code:
[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/panda/board/safety.h#L156)

Finally, because Panda is sending the same CAN messages as the stock ADAS
system, whatever safety mechanisms the OEM implemented apply to OpenPilot as
well. Most cars have some form of torque caps and some form of rate limiting
baked into the EPS firmware.

------
chrispauley
The Comma One source code was put online (I think by the author?) and deemed
to be incredibly dangerous. If I recall there was very little error handling.
Does anyone know what has really changed since then?

~~~
bugsy924
Yeah plenty has changed since then, there are limits that are checked twice to
ensure the driver is always able to take control. If violated, the car or
openpilot throws an error openpilot.comma.ai

~~~
fabiensanglard
Source (i assume you read the source code and know where these checks are)?

~~~
enragedcacti
[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/panda/board/safety.h#L156)

~~~
enragedcacti
This was harder to find but this is where caps for steering are set in
OpenPilot:

[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/selfdrive/controls/lib/latcontrol_indi.py#L99)

~~~
enragedcacti
Last but not least, here is brake and gas limiting:

[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/selfdrive/controls/lib/longcontrol.py#L76)

------
kgraves
The Comma Two looks like a step in the right direction for making existing
cars self driving with open source being a bonus with openpilot.

One can say it is like Tesla Autopilot for any car.

Comma’s products explicitly state you still need to pay attention when driving
with their system which is almost hard to ignore.

On a more meta note: I find the comments here ironic given this project fits
within the spirit of HN and hacker culture but commenters find this project
displeasing.

I agree their marketing is kind of vague and needs improvement, but I
encourage HN to view videos of the system in action before jumping to
conclusions.

------
rvz
If there is anything about Comma.ai that I have seen beyond the hype of self-
driving cars, I see this as substance, unlike the rest of them AI self-driving
cars (Except Tesla). The idea to turn your existing car into self-driving
rather than spending $$$ on a new one makes sense for those saving money.

Comma.ai is for cars what Linux is for PCs, meaning that you use open-source
software and a hardware kit to make your existing car self-driving. Very
clever!

~~~
macspoofing
>The idea to turn your existing car into self-driving rather than spending $$$
on a new one makes sense for those saving money.

You sure this is where you want to save money on a self-driving system?

God forbid there's an accident, what then? There's no big company you can
point at for recourse and I guarantee that Comma.ai isn't going to stand by
and accepted responsibility - their website makes it clear that the dev kit
does not ship with any self-driving software.

>Very clever!

Very dangerous!!

~~~
bugsy924
It's only a level 2 system and with this hardware, won't ever be level 3

If there's an accident, the driver has to be pretty stupid. it's predictable,
you know where its strong and weak points are. It has weak points when the
roads get tricky. Previously it would panic through an intersection, this has
since been improved upon.

Its eyes don't leave the road, people on their phones do. I wonder which cause
more bumper to bumper collisions!

They probably won't accept responsibility, that's on the driver since
openpilot is a driver assist system, not a higher level (L3+) self-driving
system

------
StavrosK
What is this? The entire site already assumes you know what it does.

~~~
onlyrealcuzzo
So, it appears to be a plug-in system to do automated cruise control and lane
assist and driving in stop & go traffic.

Out of curiosity, I checked for my car. It says it's not supported. BUT, Comma
is open source, so I could add it myself.

Does this imply they're encouraging anyone to write buggy code and drive their
cars with it?!?

~~~
big_chungus
> Does this imply they're encouraging anyone to write buggy code and drive
> their cars with it?!?

The fact that the comma guys aren't locking it down out of a misguided
paternalistic belief that they no better is a good thing. Don't blame them for
providing the hardware, blame people if they write buggy code. This is
analogous to blaming a firearms manufacturer for a murderer's crime.

~~~
Polylactic_acid
No it would be like blaming a firearms manufacturer for a fault that causes
the thing to blow up.

------
aetherspawn
Well, hey, for $1000 I’d almost buy this for the “Tesla experience” but alas
it doesn’t support my car (2014 Lexus).

Well done for finding the right price point. You have a solid business case
here.

Not commenting on safety like everyone else because it seems from the ISO
26262 (not easy to comply) and architecture that you’ve put some thought into
this. Will be good to see it improve further. I understand that you need to
sell units to do so, so I do not hold that against you.

------
fabiensanglard
Let's say I order this stuff and flash the firmware of my car.

If there was a bug in comma ai program (like jerking the driving wheel and
slam my car in the guard rail without giving me time to react) I guess I am
liable?

That sounds like a bad idea.

~~~
enragedcacti
OpenPilot doesn't require you to flash anything to your car, everything is
done using the same CAN messages that the stock ADAS system sends. Further,
the microcontroller that communicates between OpenPilot and the vehicle is
hardcoded to block any CAN messages OpenPilot sends that are deemed to be too
fast to react to:

[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/a2ae18d1dbd1e59c38ce22fa25ddffbd1d3084e3/panda/board/safety.h#L156)

~~~
fabiensanglard
I am not impressed with this source code. Maybe you can tell my why i am
wrong.

The safety.h you pointed to is using "int" for variable declaration instead of
using stdints to control size. Is there are reason for that?

From safety.h, I tried to follow addr_allowed function parameters. I get here
([https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/c025b96e8a15640ee4...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/c025b96e8a15640ee4d6e4d513fada6ed101afe5/panda/board/safety/safety_cadillac.h#L56))
and see this:

int addr = GET_ADDR(to_send); int bus = GET_BUS(to_send);

Where are GET_ADDR and GET_BUS macros declared? There are no header
declaration to follow dependencies.

~~~
socks
GitHub > commaai/panda > Search > 'GET_BUS' >

panda/board/drivers/llcan.h

------
pyb
Funny how people are usually piling on Hotz/Comma and lionizing Musk/Tesla...
while their software development practices are probably not too dissimilar :
[https://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1032939617404645376](https://twitter.com/atomicthumbs/status/1032939617404645376)

------
nojvek
I use commaai kit for lane following everyday. Just commuted to Portland. 3
hours totally hands free driving. It was Magical.

Would never go back to manual highway driving.

------
Izmaki
The related articles from this website suggest this is a product for automated
driving. It's still unclear to me what exactly this product does.

------
whistlerbrk
This website is so self-obsessed it can't just tell you what the hell the
product is.

------
misiti3780
Serious question: is 80K-130K for a data science position competitive in the
San Diego area? Feels a bit low to me but I live in NYC.

[https://comma.ai/jobs](https://comma.ai/jobs)

~~~
throwawaymath
Considering the people they're explicitly looking for, according to that page:

 _> People who have done well at math competitions (USAMO, IMO, PUTNAM),
competition programming (ACM, USACO, codejam, topcoder), science fairs (ISEF,
STS), or capture the flag (DEFCON, secuinside, GITS). Those competitions don't
just select for ability, they also select for quickness. We are in a very
competitive space._

...it's absurdly low. Companies like Google hand out close to $200k total,
liquid compensation to new grads who haven't placed in any of those
competitions. The people who have ranked in any of those (especially the math
ones, and doubly so the Putnam) can easily write their ticket to a job paying
double $130k right out of college.

Anyone with that kind of competitive math/programming experience _and_ real
world machine learning engineering experience could earn triple that range if
they wanted to. That's a ridiculously small and competitive set of candidates
to be targeting. It's also not necessary, because strong performance on the
e.g. IMO doesn't _a priori_ map to outperformance, on a per dollar basis,
writing autonomous driving logic.

Basically: no it's not competitive for San Diego, Comma is asking for wildly
overqualified people to sacrifice significant amounts of money to work there,
and it's not clear they should be using those kinds of qualifications as a
filtering criteria in the first place.

This kind of cargo culting does not inspire confidence in their recruiting.

------
mshockwave
I think Comma is generally pretty good. The only two downsides are:

1\. Some car manufacturers will limit the torque applied to the steering
wheel. So Comma can only perform small "drifts" rather than full turns

2\. The cooling fan is pretty loud

------
rocker311
Well, I think Comma gives a tough competition to Tesla given the features
which it offers when compared to AutoPilot of Tesla. There are lot of masses
who still cannot afford a Tesla( and their $7K package for full self driving
cars). Imagine all of (atleast 20 %) Comma AI and Openpilot supported cars
actually using this hardware and software in the next 6 months which is way
more than the number of Teslas in the market. Also, it avoids the necessity of
owning a Tesla. Coming to safety, I believe Openpiot with Comma makes a driver
a better and safe driver with driver being attentive. I wouldn't drive a Tesla
without being attentive even it offers Level 4 autonomy (because we always
need to have an eye on the road and pitch-in when needed as this involves
people's lives and there is no single system in the market which is 100%
perfect).

------
bschwindHN
Who would willingly buy this and install it in their car? Someone who wants to
die?

------
remir
Found a video onn YouTube that demonstrate the system a little bit:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=361&v=GODp6q4Sac...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=361&v=GODp6q4Sac0)

Pretty cool stuff.

------
apta
They should move away from using Python in a system like this. There's a non
trivial amount of Python code (e.g. [0]) in the repo. The lack of type-safety
is just the start of the issues with using it in a project like this.

[0]
[https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/tree/aa365e0d48ba29fd44...](https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/tree/aa365e0d48ba29fd44ec110d4570fa1fe1210e54/selfdrive/controls/lib)

~~~
jpamata
Geo addressed that at the lex fridman podcast 5 months ago, briefly mentioning
type checking as one of the reasons. I think he said they're moving to Go or C

------
dudus
I never heard about them. And with the limited information their site provides
my initial impression is that this looks incredibly dangerous.

~~~
bugsy924
Jump on youtube, plenty of timelapses showing its reliability. The
predictability of the system partly removes the danger factor and with the
driver monitoring system in place, it becomes very difficult to not pay
attention. I'd rather have this driving a car on highways than most people I
know

------
mynegation
> On stage, I asked Hotz about safety issues and concerns, but he expressed
> confidence that Comma One wasn’t doing anything existing technology on the
> market doesn’t already offer.

This is a nonsensical reply. Begs the question what is it that Comma does not
do that every proper self-driving or driver assistant solution does.

------
lpmay
What is "OBD-C"? Did the appropriate the USB-C connector for an OBD connection
for some reason?

------
wonderwonder
Is this still a Geohot project?

~~~
qu4ku
Yes.

~~~
agumonkey
too bad

~~~
MattRix
? Why

~~~
agumonkey
I always disliked geohot ambition.

------
tartoran
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgAbfr42oI8](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgAbfr42oI8)

------
syntaxing
Any more info on the hardware used? I'm kinda curious what the new phone and
the infrared camera mentioned is.

------
pd0wm
[https://comma.ai/faq](https://comma.ai/faq)

------
andrewstuart
Not a word of explanation on the front page explaining what it is.

------
trynewideas
If the obtuseness is to deter regulators, it's a good thing nobody at any
regulatory body reads Hacker News. Right? Because otherwise frontpaging HN
would defeat the entire purpose of trying to fly under regulatory radar.

------
PStamatiou
I clicked around for a while and it took me forever to figure out what this
was. For the longest time I thought it was a dash cam. What's an integrated
panda? Why do I care about a custom cooling solution?

------
Dirlewanger
>"Make driving chill"

Yeah, nah. Driving isn't meant to be "chill". Driving "chill" is how
collisions occur. Fuck this product and fuck the SV cocksucks making it.

------
benlc
There is so many reasons this shouldn't make it to the top of the front page.
But here we are...

