Gadgetory

what's up guys antuan goodwin with cnet.com and today we're taking a look at this little stocking stuffer it to the automatic smart driving assistant and for one of our top picks for car tech gift I give this year now this little white dongle will actually help you maximize your vehicle's fuel economy now the automatic from art driving system is actually a two-part system this is the automatic link it's a small obd2 dongle that plugs into your vehicles diagnostics port now most vehicles built after the mid nineties should have one now what it's doing while it's in there is communicating with your bluetooth-enabled iphone over bluetooth for data low energy and it's sending information about what your vehicle is doing back to the phone now the reason for that is so that it can give you an accurate idea of what your vehicle's fuel economy is even if your car doesn't have one of those dashboard fuel economy monitors now the setup process is actually pretty simple the first thing you'll do is pick this guy up and then download the app to your phone and then after that there's a six digit pin on the back of the automatic that you'll need to punch into the app so that the phone and the device can actually start to communicate with each other now once you've got the pin punched into the app you'll just plug this guy into your vehicle's diagnostic port usually it's up underneath the dashboard somewhere and then wait for the phone and the device to start handshaking and communicating with each other then it's just a matter of turning on your car and waiting for the app to automatically download all the information about your vehicle sensor the VIN number and then comparing that to an online database so they get the most accurate information about your fuel economy and the expected fuel economy that's advertised by the EPA finally you'll just drive your car around like normal with this guy plugged into your Diagnostics port as you're doing that it's going to be collecting all sorts of information about your driving habits about how much fuel you're using and then at the end of the trip that will actually compare your fuel economy with the epa fuel economy and then taking current fuel prices show you how much your trip cost you it'll also using your phone sensors give you a sort of a gps map of where your route was and show you any places that you're driving could have been a little bit more efficient and at the end of the week the app will actually generate a driving score for you on a scale of 1 to 100 with 0 or 1 being a really low fuel efficiency with lots of room for improvement and closer to 100 meeting that you met or exceeded the epa fuel efficiency for your vehicle and you're doing a really good job so if you're looking for something to tuck under the tree or in the stocking of the car tech lover in your life take a look at the automatic smart driving assistant but make sure they're an iphone user because for right now it's only compatible with iOS devices Android compatibility is coming to have a niche one google with cnet com and this is the automatic smart driving assistant