Fuel Book – Turn your car into a smart car(myfuelbook.com)
myfuelbook.com
Fuel Book – Turn your car into a smart car
http://myfuelbook.com
12 comments
They are based in India, so the spelling/grammar aren't surprising to me.
Looks like they are cheaper, but do less than Automatic. So if monitoring your car is all you want I guess this fits the bill.
Looks like they are cheaper, but do less than Automatic. So if monitoring your car is all you want I guess this fits the bill.
They do have a nifty feature for opening doors with a knock on your phone or Smart Watch.
edit : and the Fuel Book accessory
I believe they are looking more as a platform for connected cars and not just a one shot solution, have you checked their Fuel Book accessory HUD it's on their campaign page.
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It's listed on Indiegogo, and it's listed as flexible funding (which means they take the money even if they get less than they admit it will take to reach the goal).
If there are any other gigantic red flags anyone has come across I'd love to hear them, but flexible funding in particular screams "scam" about as loudly as possible.
If there are any other gigantic red flags anyone has come across I'd love to hear them, but flexible funding in particular screams "scam" about as loudly as possible.
Never judge a book by its cover ;)
Check out their radio coverage https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zilBkjpdVGA
I don't know what press coverage has to do with the fact that they're trying to scam people out of a few grand.
They’re saying it’s going to cost $50,000 to do this. They currently have less than $1,600 committed. They get that money no matter what. So what are they going to do when they get a $1,600 deposit? Have a nice dinner? Make their car payments for a few months?
There is NO reason for a legitimate entrepreneur to use flexible funding. You should ask for what you realistically think the bare minimum is and have stretch goals beyond that. Anything else is one breath away from theft by deception.
They’re saying it’s going to cost $50,000 to do this. They currently have less than $1,600 committed. They get that money no matter what. So what are they going to do when they get a $1,600 deposit? Have a nice dinner? Make their car payments for a few months?
There is NO reason for a legitimate entrepreneur to use flexible funding. You should ask for what you realistically think the bare minimum is and have stretch goals beyond that. Anything else is one breath away from theft by deception.
(I can't believe I'm writing this phrase seriously...) Needs more synergy.
The page shows a large list of things I really don't care about, explaining how it'll make it easier to do things I don't find interesting at all. And its presented as a closed isolated silo. More than that, a collection of silos.
I have a gut feeling there must be some kind of synergy, some connectivity, some compatibility thing that would make a connected car useful, somehow. If someone messages you about your ETA or location it messages its best guess back, perhaps. Or it links to your google calendar to remind you about service appointments or google docs to store and graph long term trends in fuel economy or engine performance. Or predicts on your google calendar based on past use patterns and current tank level when you'll next need to fuel up (so reserve an extra 5 mins on the way to work the day after tomorrow, etc). Or has some kind of car brand oriented community / upload feature where citizens and mechanics who know a lot about toyotas can see my engine upload and, I donno, social web 2.0's me right in the inbox. Or integrates with social location services so I can become mayor of my local gas station automatically (does anyone still use that stuff?). Or integrates traffic/route stuff with live weather radar. Automatic facebook like any place you stop at? Integrate into google now for the benefit of the 5 people who still use google now? And G+ while you're at it? I'm sure putting some actual effort into it could unsilo the app and connectivity and synergy it all up into something more than the sum of its parts.
I don't need another "Its Torque, but our ODB-II scanner costs 3 times as much" or "We're a copy of waze with a new name, which you won't use because of cognitive load while driving so you won't like us (waze makes me uncomfortable while I'm driving)". Especially if the only distinction is something like "Our only difference is we're on kick starter instead of the competitors that have been on the app store forever, and we're from India, and our web design is super cool web 3.0".
The page shows a large list of things I really don't care about, explaining how it'll make it easier to do things I don't find interesting at all. And its presented as a closed isolated silo. More than that, a collection of silos.
I have a gut feeling there must be some kind of synergy, some connectivity, some compatibility thing that would make a connected car useful, somehow. If someone messages you about your ETA or location it messages its best guess back, perhaps. Or it links to your google calendar to remind you about service appointments or google docs to store and graph long term trends in fuel economy or engine performance. Or predicts on your google calendar based on past use patterns and current tank level when you'll next need to fuel up (so reserve an extra 5 mins on the way to work the day after tomorrow, etc). Or has some kind of car brand oriented community / upload feature where citizens and mechanics who know a lot about toyotas can see my engine upload and, I donno, social web 2.0's me right in the inbox. Or integrates with social location services so I can become mayor of my local gas station automatically (does anyone still use that stuff?). Or integrates traffic/route stuff with live weather radar. Automatic facebook like any place you stop at? Integrate into google now for the benefit of the 5 people who still use google now? And G+ while you're at it? I'm sure putting some actual effort into it could unsilo the app and connectivity and synergy it all up into something more than the sum of its parts.
I don't need another "Its Torque, but our ODB-II scanner costs 3 times as much" or "We're a copy of waze with a new name, which you won't use because of cognitive load while driving so you won't like us (waze makes me uncomfortable while I'm driving)". Especially if the only distinction is something like "Our only difference is we're on kick starter instead of the competitors that have been on the app store forever, and we're from India, and our web design is super cool web 3.0".
I have an automatic, and it's neat, but I'm not sure I like it. For $70-100, it's not the cost in dollars. It's more about how much tracking data the thing uploads. I'm a bit uncomfortable with it. It feels like the business model is collect enough information that a company will buy you for the information.
But here the device uses the data to like ping the user if there's a chance for an accident with another Fuel Book user or to detect pot holes ahead, I wouldn't mind the device pinging those details.
Does it have it's own sim card inside the OBD2 or a smart phone must be in close proximity?
If latter than I do not see much value in what can be achieved by buying a $15 OBD2 bluetooth adapter from Amazon and a $5 app from Google Play/iTunes. Then you own the data too.
Metromile did it right by embedding a sim inside their unit. Thus allowing you to take advantage of it's remote monitoring capabilities and alerts when you say park your car in a variable parking zone.
If latter than I do not see much value in what can be achieved by buying a $15 OBD2 bluetooth adapter from Amazon and a $5 app from Google Play/iTunes. Then you own the data too.
Metromile did it right by embedding a sim inside their unit. Thus allowing you to take advantage of it's remote monitoring capabilities and alerts when you say park your car in a variable parking zone.
The Fleet version has the inbuilt GPS and Sim version the consumer edition doesn't have it. Have you checked out the Fuel Book accessory HUD which works side by side with the device
Fuel Book featured in Product Hunt http://www.producthunt.com/posts/fuelbook
Fuel Books on Product Hunt http://www.producthunt.com/posts/fuelbook
BAFX Products - Bluetooth OBD2 scan tool - For check engine light & diagnostics - Android this is $25 on Amazon for a while.
so what's new here?
so what's new here?
"Send the TAG link to another Fuel Book user and get to know their position, be it a a race or travelling as a group, stay updated."
Forget grammar and spelling. Did they really just suggest this can help with street racing? That's not going to go over well especially when this happens:
"Stuck in an Accident ! Need an Alibi ! With Fuel Book you can reveal your driving speed and survive the predicament."
Forget grammar and spelling. Did they really just suggest this can help with street racing? That's not going to go over well especially when this happens:
"Stuck in an Accident ! Need an Alibi ! With Fuel Book you can reveal your driving speed and survive the predicament."
I fail to see how they encourage illegal street racing. Some people use their cars in legal and sanctioned race events. This functionality is useful for people like me who cannot afford a telemetry system during races or high performance driving events (so called "track days").
I know very few people who a) have functional OBDII setups in their race cars and b) if they do, they've got more important things plugged into the port than a consumer targeted device. Further, it's pretty common when statements are made such as that to include a disclaimer along the lines of "(* keep racing to the track, not the street)."
Awesome !
so how does stxxf like this gets on here to begin with? paid ads?
It was posted, and then upvoted 18 times. Flag it if you don't like it.
EDIT: actually you may not have the karma to flag it; I guess just ignore it?
EDIT: actually you may not have the karma to flag it; I guess just ignore it?
Also, this website needs editing for spelling and grammar.
Edit: It's apparently a car diagnostic port dongle that connects to an app, but I don't really see the point of this over Automatic, which already does all the "car stuff" and integrates with a bunch of services, and Waze, which handles the "social navigation" aspect and has a huge user base.