This is a great start to what I hope will be an awesome product. One of the other commenters mentioned fleet/enterprise customers -- let me raise my hand (as one of those customers) and say how SORELY needed this sort of approach to tech is in the fleet space.
I actually predict (hope?) this will take off more on the business side than the consumer side. Here's the problem:
Fleet managers (that is, people who are responsible for keeping track of/maintaining large numbers of vehicles used by a company) need a simple way of doing three things:
1. Locating their vehicles.
2. Getting data about their vehicles
3. Changing settings on their vehicles (i.e. lock/unlock, etc.)
That's really basically it. And you would be surprised how totally awful the existing solutions are for doing even two of them (most focus on #1). 3 is a bit more difficult as not everything can be done through the OBD port, but many things can.
There are, literally, a hundred different companies that sell products that do the first - usually in the form of a hidden box that has a GPS antenna and a (really crappy and expensive) cellular modem that pings a really expensive service via GPRS or some similar out-of-date tech and costs $30/month/device for service + $500 / device. It's absurd.
What every fleet manager actually wants: The Automatic device w/ mobile data transmission ability (i.e. not tethered to an iPhone). Let me a) see where my car(s) are, b) get telemetry from the OBD port, and c) interact with the car in whatever fashion is possible via the OBD port.
I know that's a 2nd gen product that I'm proposing - and I think these guys are smart to start with something that tethers to a consumer phone for data. But produce this product for a reasonable price and there are literally hundreds of thousands (millions?) of fleet vehicles on the road that will scoop 'em up.
And I think the use case is stronger for an enterprise product. I hear fleet managers (and myself) asking for this product every day. I don't hear consumers saying "damn, I wish I knew how efficient my braking was."
This stuff should just be standard issue in this day and age.
Well, it isn't, and what fleet wants to buy a whole new fleet of cars when they could just plug in a device? Additionally, a plug-in device will help demonstrate both to manufacturers and to customers that customers want those features.
No, in some (most?) cars you can buy tuners to adjust settings and overwrite existing data for tweaking different things like timing, air/fuel ratio, default RPM's, red line, etc.
Writing stuff over OBD is actually mandated by law, including writing new keys - making it possible to "hot-wire" a modern car even though it has immobilizer. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4217171
It might be standard issue, but it sure as hell isn't standardised. For instance: some (all? It's been a while) BMWs have the engine's CAN bus available on a couple of pins in the OBD-II socket. If you knew what you were doing, you could have an awful lot of fun with that, but the chances of it being compatible with any other manufacturer out of the box? Slim.
I spoke with a company recently that does mobile apps for truckers. Unfortunately the large trucks don't use the same protocols. But I can definitely see something similar being used for Taxis, Vans, city busses, shuttle busses, etc. Plenty of benefits.
There might be a few challenges in evolving this product to an iPhone|Smartphone-free future. 3G modems are notorious for their energy inefficiency, and if one were to include them in this device, the drain on the car's battery will be significantly higher.
Unlikely. Cellular modems might be notorious when it comes to mobile devices, but the power use is tiny compared to car electrics (headlights, spark plugs, various fans).
A cell phone might have a 5 Wh battery (5.45 Wh in iPhone 5); car batteries are closer to anywhere from 500 to beyond 1000 Wh. If your phone can idle for two days with only occasional modem use (no screen and minimal CPU use), a car battery can do most of a year with the same load.
And of course your fancy monitor hardware would be able to detect that you're not moving for an extended period of time and decrease polling frequency to further lower the usage.
I may have gotten a little ahead of myself with the spark plugs. They're necessarily very high voltage (north of 10k volts), so they come to mind easily, but I'm sure the current and spark duration are quite low.
Still, just the lights will easily outweigh a consumer-grade cellular modem.
I actually predict (hope?) this will take off more on the business side than the consumer side. Here's the problem:
Fleet managers (that is, people who are responsible for keeping track of/maintaining large numbers of vehicles used by a company) need a simple way of doing three things:
1. Locating their vehicles.
2. Getting data about their vehicles
3. Changing settings on their vehicles (i.e. lock/unlock, etc.)
That's really basically it. And you would be surprised how totally awful the existing solutions are for doing even two of them (most focus on #1). 3 is a bit more difficult as not everything can be done through the OBD port, but many things can.
There are, literally, a hundred different companies that sell products that do the first - usually in the form of a hidden box that has a GPS antenna and a (really crappy and expensive) cellular modem that pings a really expensive service via GPRS or some similar out-of-date tech and costs $30/month/device for service + $500 / device. It's absurd.
What every fleet manager actually wants: The Automatic device w/ mobile data transmission ability (i.e. not tethered to an iPhone). Let me a) see where my car(s) are, b) get telemetry from the OBD port, and c) interact with the car in whatever fashion is possible via the OBD port.
I know that's a 2nd gen product that I'm proposing - and I think these guys are smart to start with something that tethers to a consumer phone for data. But produce this product for a reasonable price and there are literally hundreds of thousands (millions?) of fleet vehicles on the road that will scoop 'em up.
And I think the use case is stronger for an enterprise product. I hear fleet managers (and myself) asking for this product every day. I don't hear consumers saying "damn, I wish I knew how efficient my braking was."
Anyway, the tl;dr is: Awesome. Eager. Good Luck!