Unboxing: Automatic Link = "The Car Fitbit".Best gift for car techies:

Yesterday i got myself an early Xmas gift. I got an Automatic Link at the Apple store.

Automatic Bills itself as "The Smart Driving Assistant" . And nails it ! :)  Click to see their site.

Why use it/ Whats it do ?:

• Ever get a pesky "Check Engine Light" in your car apparently for no reason ? 
• Want to see your MPG ? How long you drive ? How far ? Measured in a beautiful timeline.
• Want a coach to condition your bad driving habits away ?

Automatic does all of this in an amazing product package. Automatic is a physical dongle that connects into your car's OBD II port. OBD stands for On Board Diagnostics, all cars in the USA since 1996 have these ports.

Once you plug the Automatic in, you pair it with an iPhone app over Bluetooth 4.0 (power efficient sipping type). This lets the app know when :

• Your car's ignition is started/ turned off
• Decode Check engine status codes into nice sentences that make sense 
• Clear a Check engine light (to see if it comes back)
• How fast you were driving
• How long you drove for (start and end timestamps)
• Tally's your bad (not gas efficient) driving habits:
•   How many rapid accelerations
•   How many times you went over 70
•   How many times you braked hard

Linking the cars on board sensors and on board computer to an iPhone app over Youtube is brilliant.

Coupled with a beautiful and intuitive Timeline UI the app is immediately engaging, gamified, and genuinely helpful.

I liked their product execution and attention to detail so much i screenshotted a bunch of views of their iPhone app and broke it up into the major flows before. I think this is an outstanding execution of a modern late 2013/ 2014 iOS 7 friendly UI/ UX for an app. Check out screenshots of their packaging/ unboxing, welcome experience, syncing /setting up the Automatic link with your car/ iPhone app, user training, Timeline UI, Gamification. 

If you know a car enthusiast that is also a techie, or just loves iPhone apps this would be an ideal XMAS gift. You can pick one up at Apple Stores for $99.95 .

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FIRST RUN EXPERIENCE/ WELCOME FLOW:
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UNBOXING THE LINK/ PACKAGING
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BLUETOOT SYNCING AUTOMATIC TO iPHONE APP
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EXPLAINING TIMELINE UI TO NEW USERS:
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1st TIME USING IT : TEST DRIVE FLOW
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2nd TIER VIEWS / DRAWERS :
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CHECK ENGINE ALERT / INFO & CLEARING IT:
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iTUNES APP STORE MARKETING SCREENSHOTS:
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