#moar data

Today I learned about a Fitbit for your car. It's called the Automatic Smart Driving Assistant (which is a MUCH less catchy name – they should work on that). There's a dongle which plugs into a port on your car, which then beams info right to your smartphone. From the profile by Cool Tools on Boing Boing:

The Automatic dongle samples your vehicle's speed, fuel efficiency (MPG) and uses an accelerometer to measure your acceleration and braking. If your car has a mechanical problem known to the car's computer, the Automatic dongle can read the OBD-II code, as well. The dongle then beams that data to your smartphone, using bluetooth, and an associated app then uses your smartphone to analyze and synthesize the dongle data; track your driving route and parking location; and guess at your overall fuel cost (based again on location).

The Automatic Smartphone app is simple but polished. The app presents the MPG, distance and driving habit data per trip; as well as total miles driven, hours spent, estimated fuel cost and average MPG for each week. Featured prominently is your score: a measure from 1-100, which penalizes hard brakes (measured by the accelerometer), hard "accels" (ditto) and minutes over 70 miles per hour. Your scores are calculated daily (Last day = 100!) and weekly (Last week = 98; four hard brakes in city driving screwed me!).

While it's easy to pick at small flaws with Automatic - isn't 70 mph arbitrary? why is the route imprecise? what if my hard brakes were the fault of other drivers? - my experience has been: it's working. I'm now obsessed with avoiding hard brakes and hard accelerations. I scrutinize MPG numbers after each trip, wondering how I can improve it the next time. I brag about my high score to my wife. And, though I still cringe at the potential cost, I'm looking forward to reading the code on my first "check engine" light without taking my car into a mechanic.

Seems like a pretty neat little gadget, and it'll only get better and better as its API gets extended and more and more apps are designed around it. It retails for around $100.