According to The Autopian, a connected car is estimated to produce ~25 GB of data every hour. That’s the equivalent of nearly 30 hours of HD video playback or a month’s worth of 24-hour music streaming.
More tech in our cars = exponentially more data.
But here’s the big problem: this data is mostly kept away from users. Automakers fill their data lakes with this data and dole out the incremental connected vehicle feature every so often. The top-down approach means that a trickle of this data is turned into useful experiences.
At DIMO, we’re changing that. We’ve built a platform that helps developers all over the world build new connected car experiences. Rather than relying on one app to bring you all the features you want in a connected car, you can use several (and soon hundreds of apps). It’s like DIMO is providing a “sign in with Google” button but for your car and all its data. You choose where you want to go in the DIMOverse.
Here’s a look at a few categories of apps that will change how we experience connected cars:
1. Vehicle Experience AIs
One of the great promises of AI is that it will enhance the personalization of almost any product we use. For any AI agent to be maximally effective, it needs to have access to contextual data from the user or in the case of the auto industry, the car.
Apps like Carvis, Nimblr, and Flete are part of a wave of startups transforming conventional auto industry workflows into AI-augmented experiences. None of these work without giving a user the ability to share data specific to their vehicle.
2. Exploration Games
Almost a decade ago (yes it’s been that long) PokemonGo changed the world’s view on AR games. But cyber-physical experiences are still nascent. Truworld is building a new experience around exploration, and at DIMO we put together an open standard for DIMO badges that allows anyone in the world to create a badge claimable by DIMO users.
Gamification can take many forms, but cars are and always have been linked with freedom, which is why I’m such a believer in the future of exploration as a feature in connected car apps.
3. Decentralized Vehicle Marketplaces
Cox Automotive estimates that over 36M vehicles will change hands in 2024 alone. The ways in which peer to peer transactions might reshape the industry are vast, and the building blocks are coming together. Between DIMO vehicle data to verify condition, e-titling from companies like Cario, and the experimentation of developers like those behind Velooxa from the ETHGlobal Online hackathon, we could see P2P transactions change the shape of the auto industry.
The bottom line is: DIMO will make connected cars cool by enabling users to have a freer experience with their connected cars.
No more automaker silos, no more giving up your data for free. With DIMO, everything is opt-in—only share the data you want to share. It’s how car data should be.
We’re transforming these “data centers on wheels” from closed systems into open-source platforms where you decide how to use your device. We’re building a better way forward.
