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Modern cars have all sorts of computers integrated into their systems, and a sophisticated on-board diagnostic system too. Take it into the mechanic and the first thing they do is hook up to your onboard diagnostic port (OBDI) to see what's going on! With the tiny Automatic Pro, however, you can get your own diagnostics for your car, ensure it's running well, and always know where it is, even if it's driven without your phone in the vehicle.
Dave Taylor of http://www.AskDaveTaylor.com/ checks out this second generation car electronics gadget and finds it's a great addition to any vehicle for a lot of reasons.
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0:06
hey Dave Taylor here again and this time
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I'm in my garage cuz I'm looking at
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something in my car this is the
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automatic Pro the second generation of
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onboard diagnostic interface or
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obdi devices this one is actually the
0:21
aut 350c let me go ahead and pull it out
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okay so I grabbed it off the car it's
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this guy it's not very big you can see
0:30
the pro is the one that has the gold
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finish the earlier generation has a
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silver finish this one is the second
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generation just has more power more
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sophistication and what does it do so
0:41
it's really pretty cool the primary
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purpose of it is that it lets you
0:46
understand your cars diagnostic systems
0:49
so modern cars and this is an ' 08 this
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is not super modern but modern cars have
0:54
a lot of computers and the computers do
0:56
constant running Diagnostics and when
0:59
you take it into a servicec facility
1:02
they plug in their computer they get a
1:03
read out of all the data about your car
1:06
and they can diagnose it well with this
1:09
you can diagnose it yourself because
1:11
they have a really nice app for your
1:14
smartphone now that's all really cool
1:17
and I like that but what makes this
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really really interesting is that it
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also has some other features including
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realtime vehicle location so not only
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does it do this whole sort of trip tick
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of where you are where you've been how
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you've driven and you know fast
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accelerations hard brakes all this you
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can see here's a screen capture but it
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also always knows where your car is even
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if your phone's not in the car once
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you've paired it it has its own 3G
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system and connectivity somehow I don't
1:47
fully understand how it works it's just
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sort of magic but what this means is I
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like to think that if someone stole my
1:54
car I could just bring up the app and
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say oh that's where you're parked let's
1:58
go and grab my car back
2:00
so depending on where that was I might
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actually probably wisely have a cop
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involved but it helps you figure things
2:06
out and of course if you have kids you
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don't bother to mention anything but
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this not only tracks where they are it
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tracks where they go and it tracks how
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they drove when they got there so are
2:18
they accelerating crazy fast are they
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actually sneaking out at 2 in the
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morning all of that you'd get right off
2:24
of your phone right off of your um smart
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device once you have it paired up the
2:29
first time now the other thing that
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automatic has added with the pro is they
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have what they call crash detection and
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this is something you configure in the
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app and then if you get into a crash the
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system itself will recognize that you've
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gone from 55 M an hour to 0 miles an
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hour in 3 seconds or something like that
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and it will trigger the crash event and
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that lets your system automatically
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notify people you can get to 911 you
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know it's really kind of like what they
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talk about with a lot of the like
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navstar and everything those fancy
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navigation systems that could help you
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in an accident and this one does it all
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magically so I'm a big fan of automatic
3:09
and I like that I never ever lose my car
3:11
in parking lots um I can actually be at
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the airport or somewhere far far away
3:17
and say yep it's still at the airport
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parking lot I'm glad so I haven't had it
3:21
walk away or drive away um and they also
3:24
have added some slick connectivity with
3:27
things like the Amazon Echo and with the
3:30
nest so it works with Nest why my car
3:33
and thermostat would be talking to each
3:35
other I guess you can do it with Geo
3:36
fencing so as I'm getting close to the
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house maybe my Nest goes to home mode
3:41
haven't really done much with that but
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the power is there it also works with
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iftt which is if then then that or sorry
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if this then that whatever the acronym
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is but pretty powerful and again the
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thing I most like about it is I plug
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this into under my dashboard into the
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obdi port and it's magic it's invisible
4:01
I never think about it again and my
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phone keeps track of things and I can
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see how am I doing driving how much did
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I spend last week on gasoline how long
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was that trip and how much gas did I
4:13
actually use how many times did I have
4:14
to hard break really interesting
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diagnostic stuff so this is the
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automatic Pro you can learn more about
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it at automatic online or you can just
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go to Amazon where you can pick one of
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these up for $19 bucks and like I said
4:32
great for your car 10 times greater for
4:35
your teenager's car just don't bother to
4:37
mention or you tell them and you just
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tell them this is what it is and I'm
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going to have this running and that's
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how it works super useful this is Dave
4:44
Taylor I need to put this back because
4:46
I'm not going to drive without it and
4:48
I'll catch you in my next
4:58
video
5:11
he
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