Earlier this week, at Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2016, Samsung announced Connect Auto. This is a small dongle that connects into your car’s OBD-II port and provides data on eco driving, safety, and maintenance. This port was first Introduced in modern cars with engine management units from 1996 onwards, in order for mechanics to diagnose problems, so the chance is that you car has one.
The unit can also act as a Wi-Fi hotspot, providing 4G LTE connectivity for up to 10 devices. IoT does not only have to be about your smart home, but can also be about your car.
You can use an Android app to connect you to the dongle and provide you the location of your car and even set an alarm to alert you if it moves unexpectedly or is its outside a predefined geofence area, a feature that will be useful for companies with delivery vehicles. We can also calculate how much fuel is consumed for a given journey. A driving score can be calculated from your driving history of acceleration, speed, braking, and cornering that Insurance companies can use to analyse if you’re a safe driver and therefore offer you reduced Insurance premiums.
Car health is also an Increasing important subject and you can be alerted when the car is having potential problems and also in the future the app will let you know the location of suitable garages that can assist you. The US release is scheduled before this summer on AT&T at Samsung claims it will be offered at a reasonable price, whatever that is.
Unfortunately we were unable to attend this year’s MWC event so couldn’t get our readers further Information. Whilst we wait for our own unit to turn up (Samsung you have our address), below is a hand-on video that shows some of the features demonstrated on the Galaxy S7 Android device.
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