The fitness app that keeps tabs on your CAR: Fixd sensor monitors your vehicle and tells you when it needs repairs

Home »The fitness app that keeps tabs on your CAR: Fixd sensor monitors your vehicle and tells you when it needs repairs

The fitness app that keeps tabs on your CAR: Fixd sensor monitors your vehicle and tells you when it needs repairs

Posted by sciencetech-blog on Wednesday, August 27, 2014 Label:

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For many people keeping their car fit and healthy is something that generally gets forgotten until it's time for a service.

But an app could keep your vehicle ship shape by using a sensor to detect any problems with the car.

Called Fixd, it will also let you know how much the repairs will cost you and what will happen if they are not addressed, such as the car's fuel efficiency decreasing.

Georgia-based Fixd is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter. Their app and sensor combo can be used to determine when a car is 'sick'. The sensor attaches to an OBD-II port available on most modern cars (shown). This then connects to an app via Bluetooth that keeps the user updated on how their car is doing

The Georgia-based company's system consists of a vehicle sensor and an app.

THE SMARTPHONE-CONTROLLED GREENHOUSE

For many people living in towns and cities, growing flowers, fruits or vegetables is out of the question.

But a team of inventors from San Francisco has unveiled a device that makes it possible, via an indoor greenhouse called Niwa that can be controlled by a smartphone.

By connecting their phone to the greenhouse, people will be able to grow fruit and vegetables in their homes without needing access to a garden.

The indoor gadget uses a built-in miniature computer that detects when plants need water and the ideal temperature for their growth.

The glass-sided device uses special sensors to pick up these readings, which then automatically activate different parts of the machine.

And the device warms up, cools down, turns on a light or waters the plants autonomously without input from the user.

The sensor, which will cost £30 ($50), plugs into the On-Board Diagnosticics-II (OBD-II) port, which almost all modern cars have.

Hardware within the sensor monitors the car and checks for any problems, and it then connects to the app on a smartphone via Bluetooth.

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The company is currently seeking funding on Kickstarter.

Through the app users will see when they need an oil change, when the air filter needs replacing and so on.

When attached the sensor is powered by the car, meaning it doesn't need a battery.

Multiple sensors can also be placed on different cars, with the app using a multi-vehicle feature to check up on all of them.

If repairs are needed the app will show how much the cost to fix the car will be, perhaps using crowdsourcing in future to find cheaper deals.

And it will also estimate how issues could affect the car.

Fixd: An app that lets you know whats wrong with your car

'We want to give you confidence when dealing with repair shops,' the company writes on Kickstarter.

'We want to give you peace of mind over all the cars that you own. We want you to turn to FIXD when you are having car troubles.'

The app will be available from October this year for Android, with an iPhone version due to be released in April 2015.

And over the next year various features of the app, such as repair estimates and multi-vehicle control, will be rolled out.

The app includes features such as telling you the status of your airbags (left) and whether the car needs an oil change. A multi-vehicle feature (right) also lets a user keep track of multiple cars at once

The £30 ($50) sensor will be available later this year, while the app will be available for Android in October and for iPhone in May 2015, with various features to be rolled out over the next year