Bluetooth

First Impression: Automatic Smart Driving Assistant

I had been keeping an eye on Automatic Labs’ Automatic Smart Driving Assistant for some time, after seeing their announcement of IFTTT support and a $20 discount on Best Buy’s eBay store, I decided to take the plunge. Despite their Android app still being in beta, it is quite functional, and other than their web site omitting my car from the list of supported vehicles (which proved inaccurate), the process from discovery to installation and setup was a fairly smooth one.

The first “trip”, however, did not seem to “do anything” – there were no audio alerts, and the app didn’t seem to indicate that anything was “happening”. [Update: Automatic Support got back to me in < 24 hours and explained this was due to a firmware update in progress] Toward the end of my second trip, however, I did finally notice a “hard brake” alert, and upon arriving, found that both trips were logged to my phone after all. The trip summary with MPG, cost, “driving feedback” and a little route map was exciting to see. Though that is really all it does for the most part, other than summarizing the same data each week, as well as diagnosing “check engine” lights should they happen to arise.

Read More…

 Scroll to top