Smartphones Apps may soon be used to transfer vehicle data (Photo: Apple)
Students at Heilbronn University in Germany have developed an App that can capture vehicle data and use a smartphone to relay them to a repair shop.
“A cheap smartphone will do the trick” said Ansgar Meroth, professor at Heilbronn’s Automotive Systems Engineering department.
The app that Meroth and his students developed will let a smartphone access all vehicle data that a car manufacturer makes available. The data are transferred to the smartphone through a small wireless device in the car.
Meroth sees a big role for smartphones in tomorrow’s driver assistance systems. With a smartphone, drivers can, in a way, take part of the car home with them, Meroth said. That opens up possibilities to plan routes, make playlists, schedule service appointments or turn on a car’s heating.
The Heilbronn professor said it is unlikely that there will soon be a large number of cheap Apps to manage cars’ functions. “They cannot be fully realized without making changes inside the car and the necessary security also plays a major role,” Meroth said in a press release.
