I drive a 2003 Jeep Wrangler. Red. Soft top. Five speed.
It lacks features like being able to see what sort of gas mileage I’m getting (or power locks for that matter). But a little device called Automatic is trying to fix that (not the power locks part).
The $100 Automatic plugs into your car’s onboard computer and sends info via Bluetooth to an app on your phone. It uses you phone’s GPS capabilities to track your location.
The Automatic website says it can save you up to hundreds of dollars a year in gas. How? It tracks three things that it says hurt your gas mileage:
- Hard accelerations
- Hard brakes
- Going over 70 MPH.
You’re given a score each week based on how often you do these three things. By reducing those actions, you get a higher score and should get better gas mileage.
You’ll even hear a beep when you do one of these three things as a little reminder that you just cost yourself money (and lowered your score for the week).
You can see from these screen shots below that it did lead me to becoming a better driver. I recognized when I was doing hard starts and hard stops, and I pretty much was able to eliminate them.
My gas mileage has since stayed right around that 16.2 range, but my own math the last time I filled up actually put it at 13.1 MPG and 14.3 MPG. So that 16.2 appears to be a bit inflated.
Want Automatic? Get $20 off your order.
What else can Automatic do?
- It tracks where you car is located, so you’ll never forget where you parked.
- If you check engine light comes on, it will show you (via the app) what is wrong.
- A crash alert feature can notify authorities of your location if it senses an accident.
- In some cars (not mine), it will show you how many miles you have left before your tank is empty.
It’s also pretty cool that it shows you the cost of each trip you make. So I now know that a round trip from home to work costs me about $5. Seems like a good excuse to call in sick more often.
Overall, I’m a huge fan. I’ve greatly reduced my hard starts and stops, and I’m (hopefully) getting better gas mileage because of this little change.
And if you’re an IFTTT user, Automatic can do things like turn your house lights on when you get home, or Tweet on its own.