Your feedback for a smartphone app

[alexbwang]

Hi folks

As a fellow MX-5 owner, I've had a lot of fun modifying and fixing up Mako since she came into our family a couple years ago. Most of the work has been on mechanical upgrades in the engine bay and recently I turned my attention to tuning. So I have her hooked up to an OBD2 communicator which is a bluetooth dongle, which allows me to keep an eye on vitals through my smartphone. It's great to be able to see vitals in real time, such as coolant temps, intake temps, instantaneous fuel consumption, etc - it's proven to be quite useful in terms of improving my driving technique and helping to diagnose issues.

The OBD2 protocol reports the readings from the sensors (via the ECU), so you get an accurate reading rather than having to take a wild guess at the analogue gauges which are frankly pretty useless! I appreciate this situation is even more painful for our friends whose vehicles are not equipped with OBD2 (pre-'99?).

I woke up this morning with an idea: I posit that many MX-5 drivers would value the capability to see certain vitals about their vehicle on their smartphones. We could report vitals from both OBD2 and smart sensors. The smart sensors I'm investigating can report temps and g-force (acceleration) - you can set up multiple smart sensors virtually anywhere on the vehicle.

At this stage, we believe that a product incorporating smart sensors (and maybe OBD2) would appeal to several users:
1) Enviro-conscious drivers: those wanting to develop a smoother drive to save money at the pump and reduce overall wear and tear on their vehicle (reduce ownership cost and improve resale).
2) Enthusiast drivers: those wanting to keep an eye on vitals and perform preventative maintenance, also because it's dang cool!
3) Racers: those wanting to keep an eye on vitals, require fast and accurate reporting, and require data logging and download capabilities.

I am looking to offer this solution as a retro-fitting option for all early makes of MX-5s, as well as owners of newer makes who want the accelerometer capability. The customer would simply download the smartphone app to their phone, install the smart sensors (which I will supply and warrant), pair up the device, mount the phone to the windscreen, then drive off into the sunset (as it were, more likely down to Winton for a good time haha).

At this point, I'd like to make a shameless plug and to alleviate any concerns about how we'll be making this happen... I head up an app development agency based in Melbourne - http://MonoApps.com.au - and yes, currently taking on clients :-) Before we make the decision to invest in this product, I'd love to gather your feedback and suggestions about the following:

1) Think about the "Minimum Viable Product" (MVP) - what features would the app need to have on day one to win your support? What stats would you like to see?
Answer:

2) What features or capabilities would you like to see introduced into the product over time (assuming it's viable and receives your ongoing support)?
Answer:

3) What smartphone operating system do you prefer? (e.g Apple iOS or Android)
Answer:

4) What car do you drive, and which state are you located?
Answer:

5) If you are likely to support the MVP (first release), when would you be looking to make the purchase?
Answer:

Feel free to post your answers below or send them via PM. Also, let me know if you want to get involved with product development?

I recognise that a product like this could be fitted to virtually every passenger car on the market, at this stage I am exclusively dealing with the MX-5 community as my way of giving back and keeping the roadster flame alive... so in that spirit, please do share. No point keeping this the world's best kept secret ey! :-)

Look forward to hearing from y'all.

Cheers
Alex

[hks_kansei]

The problem you have is that early cars dont have the ODB2 plug. from memory the MX5 (in Aust) didnt get it until 2003 or something.

The idea is good, but you might need to look further into the capability of the factory sensors, and what the ECU actually outputs.

I know that the oil pressure sensor on an NB is simply a pressure switch, it only outputs two signals "Lower than 7psi, higher than 7psi"
I think the coolant sensor is similar, just showing hot/cold. (might be wrong here)


It's a great idea, but i'm just not sure if an early MX5 will provide any useful info without having to add extra sensors etc (which add to the cost, and most people on the forum are tight)

[alexbwang]

It's a great idea, but i'm just not sure if an early MX5 will provide any useful info without having to add extra sensors etc (which add to the cost, and most people on the forum are tight)

Hey hks_kansei

Thanks for your comments.

Yep, we won't support ECUs that don't support OBD2 from the factory. However, for owners of older makes we do have smart sensors which you can attach to any part of the vehicle. Smart sensors provide g-force (acceleration) and temperature readings - basically, a ATTACH-'N-PLAY solution :-D

I can think of a few applications for these smart sensors, such as:

1. Measure g-force pulls across your timed track day runs
2. Automatically determine your 0-100 / drag times without taking your eyes off the road
3. Run an app on your phone tells you ambient temperature and how smoothly you're driving

Regarding pricing, I'm hoping to keep this minimal and the price will come down after we enter mass production. A smart sensor plus the mobile app shipped would retail between $99-149 AUD.

At this stage I'm open to see what members in the community have to say and whether there are clusters of owners wanting to get together for a common cause?

Cheers, A

[Okibi]

How is this different to the other ODB2 interface apps out there?

[Cus]

I really don't want to rain on your parade, but... I'm going to. I like to play the Devil's Advocate, and I'm somewhat good at it.

It's a good idea on the face of it, but it's already been done and has a very selective end user pool, especially in the roadster community.

1) eco-drivers; they're all in hybirds now, or don't care enough to actually change their car, hence the phrase "smiles per gallon"; but being ODB-II you could make a lot of money from prius owners.
2) enthusiast drivers are a legitimate use-case, almost
3) MX-5 People serious about performance (ie: racers) have turfed the OEM ecu long ago (some other OEM ECUs are reflashable, but we don't get that luxury) and they run a "logging dash" hardware solution. People without that kind of budget are likely running a Megasquirt and the Android App, which does the same thing, but a little bit cheaper. People with huge budgets are using CanBUS devices and log everything.

You're talking about a product that relies on ODB-II, which relies on the stock ECU for newer MX-5s, and isn't going to be compatible with the older ones. Between me having a pre-ODB-II car, and working on a non-ODB-II aftermarket ECU, I'll never have a use for your product.

Selling a sensor for accelleration is pointless, android phones have had built in g-sensors for ages. (no idea about iThings) once you account for the hostility of being in a car, the android sensors are going to be more than accurate enough. Street dríven cars really don't need accellerometers, all it takes is one customer crashing their car and saying "I was going for a high-g corner" and you're going to need a very good PR team - especially if Tracey Grimshaw hears about it! (And there's already apps that do all of this, some really well with 10Hz GPS for laptimes and such)

Temp sensors are a somewhat good idea, except you can already buy them off the shelf from $30 and they're actual automotive quality sensors that plug right into existing logging devices. If you're a racer you've probably already got temp logging setup where you need it. I'm not sure the average joe should be trusted to retro-fit something like an intake tempreature sensor without introducing a vacuum leak or something.

As for driving smoothly - this is an art that you aquire, you don't measure it by looking at a display, the secret is not to use any more input than you need. Older drivers already know the art, so that's everyone over say 30ish out of the customer pool. So your intended market would be "20-somethings that want to be racecar drivers, but can't afford it, or don't actually want to go to a track" ... it's actually a pretty big market: P-Platers.

Finally, As far as preventative maintenance goes - all cars get sold with a book that details what you need to keep an eye on as the kilometers click over - They've called it a "service manual"

If you're prepared to spend some serious marketing coin, you can probably make it work. Otherwise it'll just be in there with the other "also-ran" products of the category, of which there are a lot.

[Dan]

For cars with OBDII, Automatic (http://www.automatic.com) is already a slick product that covers most of the use cases you are proposing to cover.

I think the unique thing you are proposing is integrating extra sensors and supporting cars without OBDII but I'm not sure how big the market is for people who need those features and obviously new cars will already have OBDII which provides most of the temperature information people want out of the box without the need to add anything.

Here is how Automatic covers the key use cases you mentioned:
1) Enviro-conscious drivers: those wanting to develop a smoother drive to save money at the pump and reduce overall wear and tear on their vehicle (reduce ownership cost and improve resale).
That's the a primary use case for the app - http://www.automatic.com/home/
2) Enthusiast drivers: those wanting to keep an eye on vitals and perform preventative maintenance, also because it's dang cool!
It does gauges through the OBD Fusion app - http://www.automatic.com/apps/obd-fusion/
3) Racers: those wanting to keep an eye on vitals, require fast and accurate reporting, and require data logging and download capabilities.
Harry's Laptimer has an app for Automatic which can show you engine data as well as lap data and allow downloading - http://www.automatic.com/apps/harrys-laptimer/

A successful company in this sort of space is EvoScan which is popular in the Evo community (I've been using it for a bit over 5 years). I own one of their EvoScan navigators and the core reason I went for the EvoScan navigator is because it integrates wideband and does fast logging once the ECU has been modified with the 'Rax Fast Logging' patch so I guess that proves for some people adding sensors might be a viable use case. Hamish who owns Evoscan has made his own OBDII plug to support this functionality and has spent years building the software so it's probably not easy to replicate (I think it's a passion project for him).

[tbro]

So something like this,
http://www.14point7.com/products/idash

[alexbwang]

Thanks for all your feedback and suggestions folks. The project is currently on ice, however, if you feel there is an opportunity to develop a mobile app (particularly for the MX-5 community) please let me know. Cheers!