Dash and the two ton connected device [interview]

I sat down with Brian Langel recently. Brian’s worked for some diverse companies over his career, including HBO, McGraw-Hill, and Union Pacific Railroad. He has the distinction of being the only startup founder I know to work for a railroad.

Brian is the co-founder of Dash. Dash’s software turns your car into a connected device. Your jalopy won’t turn into a 2-ton iPhone, but it’s closer than you think. Read ahead to find out exactly how.

What is Dash?

Dash is a connected car platform. We build software to connect your phone to your car. You purchase an OBD dongle, plug it into your car, and it pairs via Bluetooth to your smart phone.

While you drive, it gathers statistics from car sensors and provides feedback about any car issues as well as your driving habits and behavior. This is all to improve fuel efficiency and safety.

What inspired you and your co-founder Jamyn Edis to start Dash in the first place?

A while back, we started working on a boxing project for HBO together. We taped a device under the boxer’s glove to measure punch speed and force.

One day, we drove to the Mohegan Sun for a boxing match to test it. During the drive, we kept talking about vehicles and vehicle safety. There are so many computers and sensors inside of a car that nobody was leveraging. All the data was ephemeral. No one was applying big data processes that could measure driving habits and behaviors. We asked “Is there any way for us to improve driving via data?”

We started looking, found out about the OBD port, and saw it was universal. That became our entry point into car sensors and allowed us to build Dash.

So there are a couple competitors in this space, i.e. Automatic. What differentiates Dash from your other competitors?

We’re a software company. There are already a bunch of OBD reader hardware manufacturers building high quality devices. We leverage existing hardware. We don’t mandate that you purchase an OBD dongle that we created.

Automatic is a hardware company. Their software is only compatible to their hardware. We think we can expose Dash and the sensors of your vehicle to more people by leveraging existing off-the-shelf hardware.

Can you talk a little bit about the OBD port? 

Dash/iOS compliant OBD dongle

The OBD port was mandated by the US government for emissions testing. Through it, the government verifies in an over-the-top way that car manufacturers are meeting the standards Congress sets. It’s also a way for mechanics to identify issues and repair vehicles.

OBD has a long history with many phases. It was really solidified in the early 90’s. OBD-II is in all cars manufactured from 1996 and on. It standardizes how you get data from your car and how to connect a physical device. That’s how Dash is compatible with any car in the US from 1996 and after.

What are the most popular use cases for Dash? I’ve heard you talk about parents using it to monitor their child’s driving. I love that. What else besides?

People use it for fuel efficiency. Since Dash gives you real time information via auditory alert on your driving, you can tweak your driving and save money every day.

And you’re right, parents may be wary of giving keys to their 16 year old. But many of them feel better if those keys come with Dash. They can be alerted if their child is speeding or driving recklessly. That sparks a conversation which makes the road safer for everyone.

Then often times, something goes wrong with your vehicle. A lot of people have no idea about what happens under the hood of their vehicle. The check engine light normally only has an on or off switch. So, do you as a driver need to pull over right away? Is the car going to break down? Dash will give you that information in real time without going to a mechanic immediately. We can tell you if your current issue impacts gas mileage or actually, it’s critical. Get it fixed right away.

Then there are a lot of users that really like seeing information from their vehicle. We can give you information to say your battery is draining. Perhaps we’ve plotted over time that your voltage is decreasing. Check it out, it can be indicative of another problem. Or your coolant is low. It lets you be proactive. Instead of you pulling oil levels, engine temperature, or battery levels, we can push it to you.

People are busy and they don’t have time to always check up on their car. So having Dash helps them identify and solve problems before they become real issues.

How different is the data analysis between electric cars versus traditional gasoline powered vehicles?

The OBD-II reader is only mandated for vehicles that produce emissions. Fully electric vehicles like the Tesla aren’t required to have it. But besides Tesla, all other vehicles, like the Nissan Leaf, do have the OBD-II port. They’re made by companies who have existing architecture.

We still haven’t figured out fully electrical vehicles. The energy consumption, it’s not just fuel, comes from a number of different factors. That’s something we still have to focus on, but it’s an engaging and interesting conversation we have internally.

Right now, we give the state of their battery level, but we still have to dive deeper for electric vehicles.

Can you relay the story about how you collected the car code meanings and then relevant repair costs? It’s a great hack.

When we set out for Dash, we knew that there were engine light issues. When a mechanic reads it, they see an esoteric code, something like P0100. The mechanic knows what that means, how to fix the issue, and what rates to charge.

We wanted to go a step further. We didn’t want to just say, “Hey, here’s P0100, and it means X” because X is often mechanic-speak. We wanted to translate it to something meaningful for users.

We know one mechanic who teaches at the Henry Ford Institute in Detroit. He teaches what these codes means to future mechanics. He agreed to use a website we built as a teaching tool. For homework, these future mechanics would log into the website and fill out what each code means and costs. We basically crowdsourced the whole thing.

I read the dongle can allow you to remotely control some aspects of your car. How far can you take the car as a connected device?

Depending upon your vehicle and the dongle that you purchased, you can control many aspects of your car. For instance, all Dash users can clear their check engine light so long as it’s not for a severe issue. Through the dongle, we physically control the car and turn off the light. That’s all we currently allow for all vehicles.

In the future, we want to expand that. Some of that will require purchasing proprietary information from the car manufacturers. For instance, the ability to turn off the headlights of your vehicle can be accessed through this OBD-II port. So with your phone, you can say “Hey, make sure my headlights are off” or “Make sure my car is locked.” We’re working on some of these advanced features now and you’ll see them more frequently in the next 5-10 years.

So you were part of 2013 Techstars class, can you tell me about that experience?

It gave us exposure to tons of mentors, investors, and journalists that we wouldn’t have otherwise had access to. They really helped hone our pitch and our business strategy. They also gave us some resources to develop the product further.

Being a Techstars alum continues to be valuable today, especially in networking. We still meet with other CEO’s and CTO’s of Techstars companies and bounce ideas off them. When we’re looking to move into another country or hire for a certain role, we draw on their experience.

I saw on Github that you built a command line interface tool for Trello. Can you talk to me about it?

Though Dash has a hardware component and I’ve done other hardware things in my career, I’m really a software guy. Trello is a great tool, but as a developer I’m often in the command line. I’m always building and compiling code. I don’t like to interrupt my flow by switching to the browser and getting out the mouse. Developers are most productive in the command line.

There was no command line interface for Trello so I went out and wrote it. It was a great project and it was fun to do. I hope others can benefit from it.

Let’s talk jobs! What positions are you hiring for at Dash right now?

We’re looking for senior level Android and iOS developers, a junior level data scientist, and a backend engineer. We hired after a seed round of funding and built out the team. But now we’re looking to expand. I think within the next couple of months, we’ll really push and hire those roles.

Last question. What’s your favorite connected device besides your car?

A little while back, it was my Nest. I really enjoyed that. I have the Nest and their smoke detector. Those gave me piece of mind. We see Dash in a similar light. We bring new technology and analytics to something old that may have been a black box before.

Now I have this wearable watch and I’m really enjoying it. This is the LG. I got it at Google IO. I’m getting the Moto soon. I can get my emails and reply to them. It has voice recognition and lets me text away. I find it very useful.