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by msprague 4840 days ago
Hey Mojoe!

It's great that someone is finally doing this! Which company are you founding? Is it Fleetio or Automatic or something else? I've been trying to make a prototype of something similar to this using a raspberry pi and an OBD-II interface. Regardless, I've been kicking this idea around for some time so I'll toss a couple ideas at you that I've come up with.

-Environmental footprint/impact. OBDII offers emissions information (I think) and you could do some really cool "green" stuff with it if you wanted to go that direction.

-Could you make an easy-to-use API for the device and sell it to developers? This could be profitable, but might create competition for you...

-Online car problem troubleshooting? Upload the error code and specific car information to your site, and you can diagnose the car without having to pay for an expensive mechanic to look at it right away. (Kind of like bargl's idea)

-Assuming it could interface with a mobile device, you could mount a tablet in your car and display realtime information

-Reminders such as oil change or similar maintenance

1 comments

Hi msprague, thanks for the enthusiasm! We're actually discussing possible approaches to a public API for developers. We're still in early development and don't have a name yet, but if you send me a note at the email address in my profile we'll keep you up to date on our progress.
I don't think that there's an option to make your HN email public (yours isn't listed), so if you reply to this comment with it I can email you.
Oops, noob mistake. stech.joe+hn at gmail dotcom