Reprinted from TidBITS by permission; reuse governed by Creative Commons license BY-NC-ND 3.0. TidBITS has offered years of thoughtful commentary on Apple and Internet topics. For free email subscriptions and access to the entire TidBITS archive, visit http://www.tidbits.com/ Automatic for the People Josh Centers If you've ever had a job that required a lot of driving, you start to become painfully aware of the true cost of car ownership. There's the obvious price of gas, but every mile you travel also puts wear on the engine, tires, and transmission. Even stopping the car costs you money, as it wears down the brake pads and rotors. Beyond all of that, there are other annoyances with driving, such as losing your car in crowded parking lots, check engine lights, teen drivers, and most unfortunately, automobile accidents. Fortunately, there is a gadget that can alleviate all of these woes. [1]Automatic (a TidBITS sponsor), is a Bluetooth dongle (called the [2]Link) that plugs into your car, linking it to a corresponding app on your iPhone. In turn, the app helps track your driving habits, alerting you of potential pitfalls, and provides a host of other neat features. The Link usually costs $99.95, but for a limited time, TidBITS readers can pick it up for just $79.96. Setting Up Automatic -- The first thing that struck me about Automatic was the packaging. It arrived in a plastic hexagonal tube, with the Automatic Link itself at the top. To retrieve it, I had to strip the plastic wrapper, pull the silicone cap from the bottom, pull out the accompanying documentation, then reach into the tube, push a plastic tab to release the adapter, and then finally pull a loop to release the adapter. It was a bit of a pain to get out, and it might have been impossible to do so if I had arthritis or another motor challenge. [3][tn_Automatic-package.jpg] [4][tn_Automatic-pull-tab.jpg] However, there's a point to this crazy package: it doubles as a lidded travel cup! The thick plastic is BPA-free and is perfect for taking cold drinks on the road. Not even Apple's packaging is quite that clever. And unlike my Apple Watch, my Automatic adapter came with a sticker. With the adapter freed from its plastic prison, you next need to install and launch the Automatic iPhone app. It will guide you through the setup process, including setting up an account at [5]automatic.com. [6][tn_Automatic-setup.jpg] To install the Automatic Link, you need to plug it into a gasoline-powered car with an OBD-II port, which is common to cars from model year 1996 and later. You can usually find this port between the steering wheel and pedals. When prompted by the app, plug the Link firmly into this port ' it's reminiscent of inserting a cartridge into an old video game console. Once installed, the Link is hard to notice, so no worries about attracting opportunistic thieves. [7][tn_Automatic-Link.jpg] Unfortunately, Automatic isn't guaranteed to work with every car with an ODB-II port. I first tried it with my 1996 Ford Ranger, but the app displayed an error message saying there was a problem with the adapter. However, it worked like a charm with my 2008 Toyota Corolla, though I had to wait a few minutes for a firmware update. [8][tn_Automatic-setup-problems.jpg] At the end of the setup process, you're asked if you'd like to enable License+, which is a training program for teen drivers. Read on to find out what it can do. Taming the Teen Driver -- License+ is an Automatic feature that offers guidance to new drivers. It acts as a graduated bridge between merely being licensed to drive and being an independent driver. The License+ program lasts for 100 hours of driving time, though it can be disabled at any time. To sign up, you have to select a driving coach, who you can invite from your contacts. The coach will be able to track your progress and your trips. You can also check in with your coach when you reach your destination, and the Automatic app can be configured to prompt you to do this when you stop in Settings > License+. [9][tn_License-plus.jpg] License+ takes a gamified approach to driving. As the coached driver, you earn badges for certain achievements, such as avoiding hard brakes, driving on the highway, and driving at night. As you progress, more badges are unlocked. [10][tn_License-progress.jpg] A number of automakers, [11]such as Volkswagen, are launching programs to track teen drivers, but what I like about License+ is that it's a transitional program with well-defined goals. It's a smart balance between having a free-range child and helicopter parenting. Using Automatic -- Once Automatic is set up, using it is'¦ automatic. The Link activates when you start your car, and there's no need to launch the app while you're driving. The only interaction you have with Automatic while driving is a series of beeps from the Link. The Link beeps when it's turned on, and it beeps at you when you do something wrong, like performing a hard brake, stomping the gas, or going over 70 miles per hour. As a Star Wars fan, I like to think of it being akin to having R2-D2 as my copilot. The beeps help make you aware of costly maneuvers. Hard accelerations and speeding over 70 mph burn gas unnecessarily. Likewise, hard, sudden braking wears down your pads and rotors, and it could potentially cause a rear-end collision if the driver behind you can't respond in time. You can adjust or disable the beeps in the app under Settings > Audio Feedback. Another useful feature of Automatic, if your car supports it, is that it will alert you if you're getting too low on gas. Unfortunately, my Corolla doesn't support this option. When you do launch the app, the home screen is packed with useful information. Unless you have License+ enabled, the top of the screen displays the number of miles you've driven in the current week, the total time you've been driving, how much you've spent on fuel, and how many miles to the gallon you're getting. It also displays your weekly driving score, on a scale from 0 to 100, that's based on your avoidance of hard accelerations, hard braking, and speeding. You can also scroll back through your weekly history to see your stats for any given week. This is especially handy if you're trying work out what your gas budget should be. Unfortunately, if License+ is enabled, you don't see all of this information. Instead, you only see the remaining time left, your driver score, and how many badges you've earned. [12][tn_Automatic-home-screen-comparison.jpg] On the home screen, below your stats, is a mini-map showing your car's last-known location. One of the things that annoys me the most about driving is trying to remember where the devil I parked my car, especially at large stores and shopping malls. There are lots of apps that can mark your parking spot, but Automatic does it'¦ automatically, because how often do you think that you'll forget where your car is? Tap the mini-map to see a full map, get walking directions with Apple Maps or Google Maps, or even share you car's location with a friend. If you have an Apple Watch, you can install the Automatic app there, too, which displays your car's location. Below the map is a list of recent trips, detailing individual stops, how much each trip cost in gas, and whether you performed any verboten actions. Tap a trip to see a map of the route, to share your route, or to tag the trip as a business trip. If you're a business traveler, tagging business trips probably sounds exciting, but unfortunately, the feature [13]isn't quite ready yet, as there is no way to export just trips marked as business. Of course, the ODB-II port us originally intended for auto diagnostics, and Automatic does that, too. From the home screen, tap the car icon in the upper left to see and clear error codes. That might justify the cost of Automatic itself, by saving you an unnecessary trip to a mechanic or auto parts store. Another major feature of Automatic is Crash Alert. When Automatic detects a collision, it can automatically contact Automatic's call center and send a help message to people you've designated as emergency contacts. You can designate up to three in Settings > Crash Alert. Thankfully, I haven't had a chance to test this feature. While the iPhone app offers plenty of information, the Web site's dashboard offers even more. You can view a map of every trip you've ever taken with Automatic, see your total average gas mileage, see a daily graph of gas mileage, export trips to CSV, and more. Finally, if you're an automation fanatic, [14]Automatic can tie into IFTTT to perform actions based on your car's location (Jeff Porten explained IFTTT in '[15]IFTTT Automates the Internet Now, but What Comes Next?,' 20 December 2013). For example, IFTTT can message your spouse to say that you're leaving work, or, if you have a [16]SmartThings-compatible lock, you can automatically unlock your front door when you get home. Automatic can also [17]tie into the Ford Sync system in select Ford vehicles, activating predesignated IFTTT actions, hands-free. (I was unable to test this, as the most advanced technology in my Ford Ranger is a CD player I installed myself.) Automatic Privacy -- To be honest, seeing my exported Automatic data was a bit unnerving. It features a log of which car I was driving, my starting address, what time I left, where I drove to, and even my origin and destination GPS coordinates. Thankfully, Automatic has one of the better [18]privacy policies I've read. All traffic, from the Link to their servers, is encrypted with 128-bit AES. Information specific to you is not shared, though Automatic does aggregate anonymized data for research purposes. But, of course, Automatic is required to hand that information over to law enforcement if it's requested. And all of the assurances in the world couldn't prevent some sort of data theft, as we've seen with countless cloud-based services. Ultimately, you will have to decide whether the privacy risks are worth the many benefits that Automatic offers. However, you should also consider the potential upside of having a perpetual log of your location. 'No officer, I didn't do it, it was the one-armed man! See, here's my Automatic log from the day of the murder!' However, it would be nice if Automatic offered an option to keep the data only on my iPhone and off the Internet. Is Automatic for You? -- No matter how you look at it, Automatic is a great value, especially with the 20 percent TidBITS discount. Decent OBD-II scanners run about $50 on their own, and those only check for and clear error codes; Automatic does much more. Unlike many similar services, such as OnStar from General Motors, there is no recurring monthly fee. (And frankly, Automatic works better than any piece of software a automaker will likely ever crank out on its own.) If you spend lots of time behind the wheel ever day, whether for commuting or business travel, Automatic is a must-have that can help you save money on gas, manage your gas budget, and call for help in case of an accident. Although the business tagging feature isn't quite baked yet, being able to export the data is super handy for expensing, even if you need to pick the relevant data out by hand. Automatic is also a must if you have a teen driver. The License+ feature helps guide your teen to better driving, while offering piece of mind. If you're like me and don't drive very often, Automatic's value proposition is a bit dicier. However, I do think Automatic has helped me become more aware of bad driving habits. While my score has never dropped below the high 90s, my weekly average has still steadily ticked up since I installed the Link, so I'm inclined to think that its gentle alerts are effective. But if you're anxious about your personal privacy, Automatic might hit a sore spot. It is, after all, a tracking device. But as I explained above, it's your choice as to whether the benefits outweigh the potential risks, and I think for many people, they do. Regardless of whether Automatic is right for you, it's a sleek, well-designed product from the packaging to the software. While there are still rough edges to be sanded down, it's more polished than any competing solution I've seen, including those from automakers. References 1. http://automatic.com/tb 2. http://blog.automatic.com/why-we-built-the-link/ 3. http://tidbits.com/resources/2015-05/Automatic-package.jpg 4. http://tidbits.com/resources/2015-05/Automatic-pull-tab.jpg 5. https://www.automatic.com/ 6. http://tidbits.com/resources/2015-05/Automatic-setup.png 7. http://tidbits.com/resources/2015-05/Automatic-Link.jpg 8. http://tidbits.com/resources/2015-05/Automatic-setup-problems.png 9. http://tidbits.com/resources/2015-05/License-plus.png 10. http://tidbits.com/resources/2015-05/License+-progress.png 11. http://techcrunch.com/2015/05/05/volkswagens-apple-watch-app-will-notify-you-when-your-teen-driver-speeds/ 12. http://tidbits.com/resources/2015-05/Automatic-home-screen-comparison.png 13. https://community.automatic.com/automatic/topics/export-business-trips 14. https://www.automatic.com/ifttt/ 15. http://tidbits.com/article/14392 16. http://www.smartthings.com/product/works-with-smartthings/ 17. https://www.automatic.com/ford/ 18. https://www.automatic.com/legal/#privacy .