14 ms·

Comma.ai launches an $88 universal car interface called Panda

139 points by jonas21 9y ago

petraeus 9y ago
Does this kid want to be rich, famous or ubiquitous? Because he will never achieve any of that without playing politics.
thebiglebrewski 9y ago
This....doesn't appear to be that useful?
- agumonkey 9y ago
  Or even new. It's an OBDII bridge.. except maybe with a software mindset instead of an automobile one, thus some wifi chip (looks like an ESP32 on the picture) and a cute form factor. I ... don't get it. I thought hotz finally found his spot and excepted some small nuc like board + a set of cam and sensors ..
aresant 9y ago
Why a dongle? The chffr app (video / nav data) + panda dongle (sensor data) is a simple way to let anybody participate in data collection, and for comma.ai to build enterprise value by accruing and organizing a gigantic data set that's critical to them or any third party executing the ML at core of self driving. Now pair this with a tweet they posted in June: "Just realized something. You are really going to be happy you have comma points. Get in early... http://getchffr.com/ http://getchffr.com/ #ICO"(1) I think that's an incredibly compelling / fascinating ACTUAL use case for an ICO vs the current litany of pyramiding and outright scams we're seeing. Take their chffr app + panda dongle and give people a financial INCENTIVE to accrue "points" by running the two data harvesting mechanisms and suddenly I am seeing comma's strategy in a new light. (1) https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/873014550164938752 https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/873014550164938752
- roymurdock 9y ago
  The real winner in the race to mandate OBD-II monitoring is the auto insurance industry. Sure, you could install Hotz's dongle, give Hotz your data, earn "comma points", feel like you are helping to train self driving cars, and trade these comma points for - what exactly? a comma plushie? - while Hotz turns around and sells your data to insurance companies. Or you could get a free OBD dongle directly from your current insurance company [1] and watch your rates go up/down depending on how safe of a driver you are. Ultimately, Comma.ai needs to find an automotive partner. It will be nearly impossible for the company to beat Google, Uber, and (presumably) Apple, who all have strong partnerships with auto OEMs, in quality or quantity of driving data without direct integration and extensive testing on vehicles designed for autonomous driving. Not to mention Tesla, which is an OEM itself, and can design in data collection/processing for self driving vehicles from the ground up. [1] https://jalopnik.com/progressive-insurances-driver-tracking-tool-is-ridicul-1680720690 https://jalopnik.com/progressive-insurances-driver-tracking-...
  - ethanwillis 9y ago
    Not a comma plushie. He mentioned ICO, so cryptocurrency. Which with something of value like this behind it the comma "points" (tokens?) could be worth quite a lot if you're an early adopter.
    - aresant 9y ago
      EXACTLY. Sorry if I was unclear. ICO as a way to convert "Internet Points" into something of material value and reward users directly for contributions is incredibly fascinating to me.
      - roymurdock 9y ago
        It's not "internet points", it's simply a way to more easily measure how much data you've contributed to comma's database. Fundamentally, that data is only valuable to insurance companies, which are already willing to pay you ~$160 (in lower insurance rates) for a year's worth of driving data. In theory Hotz could (and should) just pay you directly in $USD for your driving data, arbitraging a bit off the top before selling it to insurance companies. But the genius of him "paying" you in cryptocurrency is that it will get you to give it away for free "points"! And to pay him for the hardware to do so! Because you think that a market might develop around these "points" where they will get bought up by a bigger fool, pumping up their value way beyond their fundamental value to the end consumers of this data - insurance companies. These "points" have no other value or use, as they would not otherwise function as currency (store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account) unless Hotz decoupled point generation from car data generation and just started minting an arbitrary virtual currency.
deleted 9y ago
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brad0 9y ago
TL;DR: it's a device that gathers metrics from the car sensors. The product is aimed at hackers and car enthusiasts. You want to know your top speed, 0 - 60 etc? This might be the device for you. Afaik there's already products out there that do the same thing. This could be at a lower price point though.
- Meegul 9y ago
  You can find similar products that work over bluetooth for under $10 on Amazon. I use an old smartphone on a mount to show all of the same information using a third-party app - no need for an $88 proprietary dongle. There doesn't seem to be anything new about this product other than marketing and a high price tag. I'd love for that to not be the case, however. Maybe I'm missing some features of it.
  - rjeli 9y ago
    From the README[0]: It supports 3x CAN, 2x LIN, and 1x GMLAN. It also charges a phone. On the computer side, it has both USB and Wi-Fi. It uses an STM32F413 for low level stuff and an ESP8266 for Wi-Fi. They are connected over high speed SPI, so the panda is actually capable of dumping the full contents of the busses over Wi-Fi, unlike every other dongle on amazon. ELM327 is weak, panda is strong. https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/master/README.md
    - Meegul 9y ago
      Interesting. Seems to be more of an enthusiast data-focused product rather than something aimed towards traditional car-folk then. Might be interesting to play around with even if you don't want to contribute the data back to comma.ai
  - deleted 9y ago
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  - tim333 9y ago
    From the article comments: >George Hotz: None of the < $100 ones can dump all the data, they don't have the bandwidth. Or be reliable enough to send a packet at 100hz for hours without dropping any. Trust me, I wouldn't be building hardware if I didn't have to.
kchhina 9y ago
Excited about this. I've been looking for something like this for a while. Tried a couple of different types of OBD-II adapters from Ebay, but trying to get data from them over bluetooth or wifi was just a pain. Panda with a direct interface to my laptop will enable me to get all the information I've been trying to get from the OBD-II port of my car, specifically steering angles, acceleration and braking. Using them together with feeds from a couple of cameras, and some interesting applications can be hacked together.
- cr0sh 9y ago
  Look into PLX Devices Kiwi 3 - probably one of the best out there, if not the best. I tried the el-cheapo interfaces, and it was hit or miss with my vehicles. So I said "f-it" and dropped the coin for the original wired Kiwi, and that worked perfectly. When they announced the Kiwi 3 kickstarter, I jumped on that with funding, and it works great - but with Bluetooth; it's a quality device. You get what you pay for.
- ljf 9y ago
  Odd - I got the cheapest odb2 I could find on ebay and never had any issues with it over Bluetooth using the Torque app for android.
  - kchhina 9y ago
    I was able to use the "apps" to get obd2 data's. What I wanted to do is get acceleration, steering and breaking data and along with feeds from two cameras try to train deep learning models. Getting that working over Bluetooth or wifi was a pain due to poor documentation.
    - ljf 9y ago
      Cool - but since Torque can present that data for a whole range of ODB2 dongles, it must be achievable? Maybe reach out to those guys or reverse engineer their app?
josephpmay 9y ago
Hotz is quoted as saying in the article, "there are only three real competitors: Waymo, Tesla and us." That's total bullshit. There are so many companies seriously working on autonomous vehicles, such as GM Cruise, Auroa Innovation, Drive.ai, Zoox, Nuro.ai, nuTonomy, Varden Labs, AImotive, Ford, and Nvidia Edit, because George is on here: George, I want to like you, because I think your tech is really good (the street image segmentation from RGB images is seriously impressive- https://commacoloring.herokuapp.com/ https://commacoloring.herokuapp.com/) and I think your business model of offering cheap devices and free services to crowd-source data, along with the comma points to incentivize users could give you a big competitive advantage. But the hyperbole makes it difficult to take you seriously.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  The dude is surfing on ignorants wow effect and past iphone jailbreak. Whatever he says, journalists believe. #fakeoldz
  - CCing 9y ago
    He can be arrogant in some interviews (I don't personally know him), but I doubt that we can discuss he isn't smart as fuck.
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      He seems to be quite above average, the issue is the ratio hubris / math skillz still seems improperly balanced. If my sunday psychology profile is correct, he seems to be passionated and fast to hack around and displeased by big corporations business model + slowness + suboptimality. Thus trying to dig diagonally on his own without the enterprise cruft. So far so good, the issue is that it seems he's lying about his abilities. He managed to do 20% and spins it as 70% claiming he'll be at 100% before everybody else. Without independant testing and legislation of course.
      - CCing 9y ago
        Disagree. I've a friend that has a comma neo with openpilot and it works enough well. Is not perfect, but they are on something. The best projects that we know today were made by hackers with 0 enterprise skills.
simonsarris 9y ago
2016: Comma.ai will compete with Tesla, Google, Mobileye[1] 2017: Comma.ai will compete with ScanGauge hm. (http://www.businessinsider.com/george-hotz-techcrunch-disrupt-trashes-tesla-google-mobileye-zoox-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/george-hotz-techcrunch-disrup...)
- agumonkey 9y ago
  he's answering in the comments, he says typical OBD interfaces are slow and fragile, which I surely believe. Is it me or is his ego made of titanium ? the reporter quotes "we're 3, waymo, tesla and us" .. yet he's building a cuter, faster obdII bridge I don't get it.
  - commaai 9y ago
    Those are the three players with actual networks of deployed self driving cars today. Granted, we are in third with 73 cars (and 1000's on chffr), but well ahead of every other startup. Waymo has around 200, we expect to pass them by the end of the year. In addition to this interface, we also give away source code to a driving agent: https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot Looks like this when running (video from a user): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN1YcC83nA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN1YcC83nA
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      Man this is still a cute OBD2 bridge isn't it ? Is your plan to release pieces of a self driving kit gradually and crowdsource through early adopter kind of customers(or collaborator in a way) ? I'm sorry but the hardest parts are still missing and reading you're competing with actual companies with serious power (brain and money) it's more than curious to stay polite. ps: also waymon fleet might be 200, but if they inherited Google past years of data they have tons of terrain and sensors data. I mean wat.
    - iiiggglll 9y ago
      > Waymo has around 200, we expect to pass them by the end of the year. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? Waymo is a serious engineering effort with a lot of talented people working to do it right. There's a lot more to it than just how much data you throw at your NN.[0] Not to mention other companies comply with the law and report all their accidents.[1] Last year, you canceled your product[2] rather than answer a very short and simple safety questionnaire[3]. (Seriously, I've seen SaaS security compliance questionnaires with five times as many questions on them; that letter from the NHTSA was nothing!) If you're still driving your vehicles around the streets of the SF Bay Area without any permits you are putting a lot of people in danger, including me. Pardon me if I think you're not only full of it, but irresponsible as well. [0] http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1838:_Machine_Learning http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1838:_Machine_Lear... [1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testing https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13453344/comma-ai-self-driving-car-comma-one-kit-canceled https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13453344/comma-ai-self-d... [3] https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special-Order-Directed-to-Comma-ai https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special...
dogecoinbase 9y ago
Given the absurd insecurity of the OBD II CAN interface on all modern vehicles, it seems insane to install anything there with a wireless interface on it.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  aren't they read only sensors anyway ? no outside agent can fiddle with your car through OBD2 .. I hope so
  - csours 9y ago
    You have to unlock most modules, or input a code along with updates, otherwise you brick the the module. Current generation vehicle electrical architectures are not network safe and rely on physical security. There is a big trade-off here for the next generation; the electrical architecture will be COMPLETELY locked down, and end users will be locked out of making any updates to modules - something that tinkerers and home-brewers are at odds with. Read only access will still be allowed.
  - babo 9y ago
    This device works on the CAN bus, where you can actually issue commands, not just listen. So this is a bad idea in that sense.
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      I'd never have guess there were actual effecting commands.. hmm
jawns 9y ago
I experimented with OBD-II devices for a while, paired with a phone app like Torque, and I found that the lower-level information (e.g. data about any particular air sensor) just wasn't interesting or useful to me. And other useful info (e.g. speed) I can get from my dash or other sources. Where these devices come in extremely handy, however, is by allowing you to look up the opaque fault codes that your car's computer produces when something goes wrong. For $10-$20 off eBay or similar online stores, you can get a device that will tell you, for instance, when you have a cylinder misfire without having to go to a mechanic. (You may have to go to a mechanic to get it fixed, but at least you'll have a rough idea what needs fixing.)
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Some mechanics charge you $120 literally just to plug in their OBD2 adapter and read the code, so yeah, even if it saves you one diagnostic fee, it's a bargain. Note that Hotz is claiming his readers will do a lot more than the conventional ones you've seen before. Whether or not that's true remains to be seen.
  - blackguardx 9y ago
    Most auto parts stores will read the codes for you for free. Some will even loan you tools to fix your car. They are in the business of selling parts and are happy to sell you whatever part you need to fix the problem.
    - icantdrive55 9y ago
      Those are just basic data readers. It's hit, or miss whether they will go into the Power train computer, ABS, or even the entertainment system. It this guys dongle can get into pripriority systems, and read all power train, ABS sensors; I'll buy it. You can get pretty good OB2 readers from China. They supposedly get into proprietary systems(don't know how they do it), but are better than paying for a dealership tool, or a Snap-on subscription.
    - cr0sh 9y ago
zitterbewegung 9y ago
If you want some of the features of the Panda interface (not the cloud connected dashcam) it seems like Automatic [1] seems to do the job. Any happy users of Automatic? [1] https://www.automatic.com https://www.automatic.com
- palmerit 9y ago
  I used automatic for a while. It was pretty limited, and pricey. I've been using a panda for several weeks now, and FAR more capable. It probably boils down to: do you want a pretty UI dumbing the info down for you, or do you want the raw data so you can do things with it?
ramshanker 9y ago
OK, so now there is a "fitbit for car". Yesterday it was "Uber for Garbage". Service X (where X is an existing hit) for Area Y is getting popular.
- Skunkleton 9y ago
  I am starting the Herbalife for Groceries. Would you like to signup as an independent distributor in my downline?
grandalf 9y ago
This is very exciting. I've used an Automatic adapter after seeing the HN discount and the data is very interesting.
jonathankoren 9y ago
So it's an ODB II dongle that made from what looks like parts from Sparkfun and 3d printed case (Although, that's bit of wild speculation on my part), sold at apparently 8x the price of competitors. Sure the ODB exports out some common info, but isn't most of it encrypted and vendor specific? Also, calling this and a camera "a self driving car kit" is an overstatement even for Silly-Con Valley.
flyingcoder 9y ago
I remember George Hotz stating in an interview a year ago that he was going to be a billionaire by the end of 2016. He has quite the ego, there's tons of OBD-II adapters that have been around for a while and many successful Kickstarter campaigns launching better OBD-II adapters.
ex3ndr 9y ago
Isn't ODB-II just doesn't have anything useful for self-driving? What's is "fragile" part of ODB-II? How does this yet another dongle solve "fragile" part? Isn't it just arduino-like board and ODB-II shield?
- fenwick67 9y ago
  OBD2 is the connector and the protocols used on that connector. The vehicle CAN bus is on the OBD2 port, and the "K-line", which is diagnostic only, is also there.
  - ex3ndr 9y ago
    Not the full CAN bus, only very small subset of it, isn't it?
    - fenwick67 9y ago
      The connector has at least 1 CAN bus on it, some pins are "manufacturer discretion" meaning the manufacturer may put CAN or other signals on the connector. Nowadays most vehicles have several CAN and LIN buses and it's unlikely that all traffic gets routed to the OBD2 connector, but some stuff is. Again, it depends on the manufacturer. There are lots of standardized signals defined that a OBD device can request: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs
- tyingq 9y ago
  Depending on the car, it has many things relevant to self driving. Vehicle speed, RPM, steering wheel angle, etc. For some cars, you can jump to the CAN bus via that port and get more. It is though, far short of everything needed. He's pitching it as perhaps part 1 of a bunch of other stuff you would need. That's aside from the idea that DIY self driving sounds, er, unwise.
jaclaz 9y ago
I am not much into this, but I believe that to be really useful the OBD-II PIDs (generic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs should be integrated with the ones by the given manufacturer on the specific model, and AFAIK all the money is in the software that can read those non-standard PID's. And this is border-line (or downright just over the border) with hacking and/or reverse engineering the manufacturer's own software.
babo 9y ago
While this plugs into the OBD-II port but the main use is to dump the CAN bus. Comparing it with OBD-II dongles where the functionality is restricted to the OBD part is misleading. It's far from universal, as not all cars expose all the CAN bus at the OBD-II socket, but a good start for sure. I ordered mine.
amits1995 9y ago
There's an israeli start-up doing much more with that car data. telling you about problems and more. and it costs as much as 20-30$ https://engieapp.com/ https://engieapp.com/
deleted 9y ago
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ma2rten 9y ago
This article seemed really incoherent to me. I didn't understand what comma is trying to do and how selling 1000 "FitBits for your car" to "car enthusiasts and hackers" for $88 helps to compete with Waymo.
anindha 9y ago
Combining vehicle data with a phone's GPS could improve navigation accuracy in urban canyons [1]. Back in 2007 we read CAN data from a Toyota RAV4 to get wheel encoder, steering angle, acceleration, speed, and braking data [2]. I am surprised Uber/Lyft aren't using something like this. I often see the car location jumping around in SF FiDi. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_canyon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_canyon [2] http://www.acfr.usyd.edu.au/research/projects/others/darpa.shtml http://www.acfr.usyd.edu.au/research/projects/others/darpa.s...
- commaai 9y ago
  Improved localization / nav is one of the goals of chffr. Through panda, we can use the car sensors for dead reckoning. Combined with the phone camera, we can get and keep a really precise location fix.
  - anindha 9y ago
    Have you thought about releasing this as its own product which I could use in an existing navigation app?
    - commaai 9y ago
      We don't plan on writing a nav app, the plan is just to improve the location fix at the system level and work with all nav apps.
blt 9y ago
Comma.ai's autonomous driving software implements the main control loop in Python. It's full of memory allocations. The project is far from serious engineering.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  Sometimes naively I believe that with enough hardware capabilities, lazy software can provide its function...
Animats 9y ago
This looks like the dongle Automatic [1] sells. That's just a data logger; it doesn't do anything except record. [1] https://www.automatic.com/ https://www.automatic.com/
ex3ndr 9y ago
I got it actually, they reimplemented ODB-II in a more stable manner to provide better stability and performance, ELM327 is the only player on the field and provide less CAN busses (they are just not connected at all)
kevinhiggins 9y ago
Looks like they're just trying to get additional sensor data to train their neural nets (crowd source the data). I'm not sure if a single camera from a dash mounted mobile device plus vehicle control data is enough for training a neural net for fully autonomous driving, but it's certainly valuable for driver assist features.
syntaxing 9y ago
Slightly off topic, but can someone here explain what in OpenPilot that makes it so technically superior? Or is the (partial?) open source part of it the most seductive part? I only quickly looked over the source code so I am not sure if I missed something. But looking at the top level code, it seems like something anyone can accomplish after taking the Udacity SDC class (minus the CAN interfacing, but that shouldn't be all that hard?)?
- elmar 9y ago
  you have a closed source, big binary that is the predictive model, it is the result of crunching all the data they have.
Animats 9y ago
I saw a new player in self-driving yesterday - a blue Peterbilt truck equipped with many cameras and some of the puck-sized Velodyne laser scanners. Nevada license AU 0030. They were driving on US 101 southbound from Menlo Park to Mountain View, where they exited the freeway and got back on, northbound. They were bobtailing; no trailer. In that location, I'd first though it was one of Google's vehicles But why the Nevada plate? Turns out this is Embark.[1] They even show their AU 0030 license plate in the video. Embark has been testing in Nevada, where the regulations are looser and there's less traffic. Their demo video is on a a deserted, straight two-lane road, closed for the occasion. Good place to debug. Embark isn't on the list of CA DMV autonomous vehicle test companies. Also, CA won't allow autonomous vehicle testing of vehicles over 10,000 pounds, figuring that if something goes wrong, it's better to have car accidents than heavy truck accidents. When Otto did that "autonomous delivery" of Budweiser with a semi, their vehicle was surrounded by chase cars. It was a much more controlled environment than the video indicates. There's too much "fake it until you make it" in this business. Waymo and Volvo are building systems that can handle unexpected trouble. Some of the others, not so much. [1] http://embarktrucks.com/ http://embarktrucks.com/
- gamblor956 9y ago
  Please report this incident to the CA DMV if you haven't already.
  - nso 9y ago
    He didn't say it was driving on its own at the time
- lemiant 9y ago
  Hi John, I'm Alex Rodrigues, CEO at Embark. Thanks for your interest. Our testing is legal and we are in close communication with the DMV to ensure we stay that way. In California we restrict our system to Level 2 (like Tesla autopilot), in order to comply with regulations.
- petra 9y ago
  >> Waymo and Volvo are building systems that can handle unexpected trouble. How ? What's different in the tech they are building ?
morogop 9y ago
That's nonsense. if his claims were true, he could've sold the lot for nine or ten figures to somebody who was willing to deal with NHTSA. It is exceedingly foolish to believe George Hotz's extremely obvious lies. George Hotz is a smart guy who made some big mistakes, and isn't man enough to admit that he was lying.
- commaai 9y ago
  Lying about what? We've done numerous livestreams showing off the technology, and it's available for free on our github. Follow us on twitter to see: https://twitter.com/comma_ai https://twitter.com/comma_ai
- dang 9y ago
  We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720083 and marked it off-topic.
morogop 9y ago
If you mean what you say: buy this thing, install it on your car, and use it daily. I dare you. Oh right, you'd never do that, because some tiny part of you knows that George Hotz was lying his ass off about his tech, and that you'd have to be a crazy person to trust such a flagrant liar with your life.
- tinco 9y ago
  Yeah you're right. I want to buy it though, and then wait a couple of months before plugging it into my own car. I'm just saying you can't just dismiss the guy's ability because he comes across arrogant. He's proven he's a hacker, and now he's trying to prove he's a maker as well. Maybe this Panda thing is engineered really well, and the money and reputation will get him to a point where he can run a nice company. Maybe not and this things get some people killed and he will be thrown in jail for building a recklessly unsafe product, I don't know. I don't own a car right now so all I can do is talk big.
  - morogop 9y ago
    His arrogance is orthogonal to the issue. The issue is that he was obviously lying. He claimed he was weeks away from autonomous cars. If this was true, he would've sold the tech for a staggering pile of cash. Instead, all the evidence looks like he thought he could solve the problem on his own, in record time. Then he made a pretty basic POC (able to handle a small number of very simple conditions). Then he realized he couldn't do it. And so he pretended that he'd solved a problem nobody else had, but wasn't going to share or sell the answer with anybody else because the government is bad. Unfortunately, some people hate the government enough that they want to believe this. But it's a dumb story and an obvious lie. George Hotz does not have autonomous driving technology. He never did, and he never fucking will. He's a snake oil salesman.
    - commaai 9y ago
      Autonomous vehicle technology, and it's free --> https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot Working, video by a user --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN1YcC83nA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN1YcC83nA Where's the snake oil?
goeric 9y ago
He also said he will "ship" his product and badmouthed his competitors for not shipping. Then he cancelled his product after one cease and desist. George is a brilliant mind, but I hope he figures out how to become a better entrepreneur. He has so much potential.
gehwartzen 9y ago
As others have pointed out there are a TON of OBDII loggers on the market with price points down to <$10. So maybe they make it slightly more universal by interpreting more codes (?) but that seems to be mostly on the software side, this is really still a device manufactured for probably $5. It seems the real value for comma.ai is just collecting a huge amount of driver data and then selling it to Autonomous car makers or generating algorithms based or the data themselves. Either way, if that's the case why sell it for $88??? sell it at cost ($5) or even give it away for free and just quickly build a huge user base. Am I way off here?
- roymurdock 9y ago
  As I understand it users don't necessarily opt in to contributing data to comma's database. So there will be a large subset of hobbyists that just use it to monitor their own driving data privately - these are the users that comma needs to charge up front. Plus, psychologically it feels like an investment with ROI in "comma points" for those who do contribute their data, with some vague promise of a reward later when someone (who?) decides to purchase comma points. So the upfront cost is justified.
philippnagel 9y ago
Related, is anyone aware of an affordable OBD hardware simulator? The ones I found are either pretty expensive (e.g. https://freematics.com/pages/products/freematics-obd-emulator-mk2/ https://freematics.com/pages/products/freematics-obd-emulato...) or seem sketchy (e.g. https://de.aliexpress.com/item/OBD-simulator-OBD-development-and-testing-tools-ECU-simulator-MINI-version-301/32794172958.html https://de.aliexpress.com/item/OBD-simulator-OBD-development...). I am also aware of https://github.com/carloop/simulator https://github.com/carloop/simulator. However I would prefer a one piece solution. Any tips?
brian-armstrong 9y ago
So it turns out geohotz is great at breaking other peoples' stuff and finds making products is harder. Who knew? Soon a 16-year-old will find a massive security vuln in this ODB bridge and the cycle will be complete
ilurkedhere 9y ago
OK so it's a $4 ESP8266 and maybe something else that plugs into the OBDII port. Why do I need this?
zeep 9y ago
Can't you see most of Panda's information with a $6 bluetooth OBDII adapter? (something like http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Mini-OBD2-OBDII-V2-1-Android-Bluetooth-Car-Scanner-Adapter-Torque-US-/112159207901 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Mini-OBD2-OBDII-V2-1-Android-B...)
- boardwaalk 9y ago
  I have one of those; as far as I could tell they're crappy non-compliant Chinese knockoffs of real ELM327 chips. I wasn't able to get much of anything good or interesting out of it and had to get a Beaglebone with CAN bus cape to get any farther (other problems with that but that's separate). Hotz confirms if you read the comments on the article.
  - zeep 9y ago
    I don't see any comments on the article... I even tried a plain browser without addons.
id_rsa 9y ago
I've been following Comma.ai since I read the Bloomberg article about George hacking a self-driving car in his garage. While I have read the criticism on HN and think it is reasonable, I must admit I'm rooting for George and his team. I'm happy to see they launched this product and are continuing to make progress after the NHTSA incident. I'm looking forward to testing their tech myself.

139 points by jonas21 9y ago

Does this kid want to be rich, famous or ubiquitous? Because he will never achieve any of that without playing politics.

thebiglebrewski 9y ago

This....doesn't appear to be that useful?

agumonkey 9y ago
Or even new. It's an OBDII bridge.. except maybe with a software mindset instead of an automobile one, thus some wifi chip (looks like an ESP32 on the picture) and a cute form factor. I ... don't get it. I thought hotz finally found his spot and excepted some small nuc like board + a set of cam and sensors ..

aresant 9y ago

Why a dongle? The chffr app (video / nav data) + panda dongle (sensor data) is a simple way to let anybody participate in data collection, and for comma.ai to build enterprise value by accruing and organizing a gigantic data set that's critical to them or any third party executing the ML at core of self driving. Now pair this with a tweet they posted in June: "Just realized something. You are really going to be happy you have comma points. Get in early... http://getchffr.com/ http://getchffr.com/ #ICO"(1) I think that's an incredibly compelling / fascinating ACTUAL use case for an ICO vs the current litany of pyramiding and outright scams we're seeing. Take their chffr app + panda dongle and give people a financial INCENTIVE to accrue "points" by running the two data harvesting mechanisms and suddenly I am seeing comma's strategy in a new light. (1) https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/873014550164938752 https://twitter.com/comma_ai/status/873014550164938752

roymurdock 9y ago
The real winner in the race to mandate OBD-II monitoring is the auto insurance industry. Sure, you could install Hotz's dongle, give Hotz your data, earn "comma points", feel like you are helping to train self driving cars, and trade these comma points for - what exactly? a comma plushie? - while Hotz turns around and sells your data to insurance companies. Or you could get a free OBD dongle directly from your current insurance company [1] and watch your rates go up/down depending on how safe of a driver you are. Ultimately, Comma.ai needs to find an automotive partner. It will be nearly impossible for the company to beat Google, Uber, and (presumably) Apple, who all have strong partnerships with auto OEMs, in quality or quantity of driving data without direct integration and extensive testing on vehicles designed for autonomous driving. Not to mention Tesla, which is an OEM itself, and can design in data collection/processing for self driving vehicles from the ground up. [1] https://jalopnik.com/progressive-insurances-driver-tracking-tool-is-ridicul-1680720690 https://jalopnik.com/progressive-insurances-driver-tracking-...
- ethanwillis 9y ago
  Not a comma plushie. He mentioned ICO, so cryptocurrency. Which with something of value like this behind it the comma "points" (tokens?) could be worth quite a lot if you're an early adopter.
  - aresant 9y ago
    EXACTLY. Sorry if I was unclear. ICO as a way to convert "Internet Points" into something of material value and reward users directly for contributions is incredibly fascinating to me.
    - roymurdock 9y ago
      It's not "internet points", it's simply a way to more easily measure how much data you've contributed to comma's database. Fundamentally, that data is only valuable to insurance companies, which are already willing to pay you ~$160 (in lower insurance rates) for a year's worth of driving data. In theory Hotz could (and should) just pay you directly in $USD for your driving data, arbitraging a bit off the top before selling it to insurance companies. But the genius of him "paying" you in cryptocurrency is that it will get you to give it away for free "points"! And to pay him for the hardware to do so! Because you think that a market might develop around these "points" where they will get bought up by a bigger fool, pumping up their value way beyond their fundamental value to the end consumers of this data - insurance companies. These "points" have no other value or use, as they would not otherwise function as currency (store of value, medium of exchange, unit of account) unless Hotz decoupled point generation from car data generation and just started minting an arbitrary virtual currency.

deleted 9y ago

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brad0 9y ago

TL;DR: it's a device that gathers metrics from the car sensors. The product is aimed at hackers and car enthusiasts. You want to know your top speed, 0 - 60 etc? This might be the device for you. Afaik there's already products out there that do the same thing. This could be at a lower price point though.

Meegul 9y ago
You can find similar products that work over bluetooth for under $10 on Amazon. I use an old smartphone on a mount to show all of the same information using a third-party app - no need for an $88 proprietary dongle. There doesn't seem to be anything new about this product other than marketing and a high price tag. I'd love for that to not be the case, however. Maybe I'm missing some features of it.
- rjeli 9y ago
  From the README[0]: It supports 3x CAN, 2x LIN, and 1x GMLAN. It also charges a phone. On the computer side, it has both USB and Wi-Fi. It uses an STM32F413 for low level stuff and an ESP8266 for Wi-Fi. They are connected over high speed SPI, so the panda is actually capable of dumping the full contents of the busses over Wi-Fi, unlike every other dongle on amazon. ELM327 is weak, panda is strong. https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/master/README.md https://github.com/commaai/panda/blob/master/README.md
  - Meegul 9y ago
    Interesting. Seems to be more of an enthusiast data-focused product rather than something aimed towards traditional car-folk then. Might be interesting to play around with even if you don't want to contribute the data back to comma.ai
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- tim333 9y ago
  From the article comments: >George Hotz: None of the < $100 ones can dump all the data, they don't have the bandwidth. Or be reliable enough to send a packet at 100hz for hours without dropping any. Trust me, I wouldn't be building hardware if I didn't have to.

kchhina 9y ago

Excited about this. I've been looking for something like this for a while. Tried a couple of different types of OBD-II adapters from Ebay, but trying to get data from them over bluetooth or wifi was just a pain. Panda with a direct interface to my laptop will enable me to get all the information I've been trying to get from the OBD-II port of my car, specifically steering angles, acceleration and braking. Using them together with feeds from a couple of cameras, and some interesting applications can be hacked together.

cr0sh 9y ago
Look into PLX Devices Kiwi 3 - probably one of the best out there, if not the best. I tried the el-cheapo interfaces, and it was hit or miss with my vehicles. So I said "f-it" and dropped the coin for the original wired Kiwi, and that worked perfectly. When they announced the Kiwi 3 kickstarter, I jumped on that with funding, and it works great - but with Bluetooth; it's a quality device. You get what you pay for.
ljf 9y ago
Odd - I got the cheapest odb2 I could find on ebay and never had any issues with it over Bluetooth using the Torque app for android.
- kchhina 9y ago
  I was able to use the "apps" to get obd2 data's. What I wanted to do is get acceleration, steering and breaking data and along with feeds from two cameras try to train deep learning models. Getting that working over Bluetooth or wifi was a pain due to poor documentation.
  - ljf 9y ago
    Cool - but since Torque can present that data for a whole range of ODB2 dongles, it must be achievable? Maybe reach out to those guys or reverse engineer their app?

josephpmay 9y ago

Hotz is quoted as saying in the article, "there are only three real competitors: Waymo, Tesla and us." That's total bullshit. There are so many companies seriously working on autonomous vehicles, such as GM Cruise, Auroa Innovation, Drive.ai, Zoox, Nuro.ai, nuTonomy, Varden Labs, AImotive, Ford, and Nvidia Edit, because George is on here: George, I want to like you, because I think your tech is really good (the street image segmentation from RGB images is seriously impressive- https://commacoloring.herokuapp.com/ https://commacoloring.herokuapp.com/) and I think your business model of offering cheap devices and free services to crowd-source data, along with the comma points to incentivize users could give you a big competitive advantage. But the hyperbole makes it difficult to take you seriously.

agumonkey 9y ago
The dude is surfing on ignorants wow effect and past iphone jailbreak. Whatever he says, journalists believe. #fakeoldz
- CCing 9y ago
  He can be arrogant in some interviews (I don't personally know him), but I doubt that we can discuss he isn't smart as fuck.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    He seems to be quite above average, the issue is the ratio hubris / math skillz still seems improperly balanced. If my sunday psychology profile is correct, he seems to be passionated and fast to hack around and displeased by big corporations business model + slowness + suboptimality. Thus trying to dig diagonally on his own without the enterprise cruft. So far so good, the issue is that it seems he's lying about his abilities. He managed to do 20% and spins it as 70% claiming he'll be at 100% before everybody else. Without independant testing and legislation of course.
    - CCing 9y ago
      Disagree. I've a friend that has a comma neo with openpilot and it works enough well. Is not perfect, but they are on something. The best projects that we know today were made by hackers with 0 enterprise skills.

simonsarris 9y ago

2016: Comma.ai will compete with Tesla, Google, Mobileye[1] 2017: Comma.ai will compete with ScanGauge hm. (http://www.businessinsider.com/george-hotz-techcrunch-disrupt-trashes-tesla-google-mobileye-zoox-2016-9 http://www.businessinsider.com/george-hotz-techcrunch-disrup...)

agumonkey 9y ago
he's answering in the comments, he says typical OBD interfaces are slow and fragile, which I surely believe. Is it me or is his ego made of titanium ? the reporter quotes "we're 3, waymo, tesla and us" .. yet he's building a cuter, faster obdII bridge I don't get it.
- commaai 9y ago
  Those are the three players with actual networks of deployed self driving cars today. Granted, we are in third with 73 cars (and 1000's on chffr), but well ahead of every other startup. Waymo has around 200, we expect to pass them by the end of the year. In addition to this interface, we also give away source code to a driving agent: https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot Looks like this when running (video from a user): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN1YcC83nA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN1YcC83nA
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    Man this is still a cute OBD2 bridge isn't it ? Is your plan to release pieces of a self driving kit gradually and crowdsource through early adopter kind of customers(or collaborator in a way) ? I'm sorry but the hardest parts are still missing and reading you're competing with actual companies with serious power (brain and money) it's more than curious to stay polite. ps: also waymon fleet might be 200, but if they inherited Google past years of data they have tons of terrain and sensors data. I mean wat.
  - iiiggglll 9y ago
    > Waymo has around 200, we expect to pass them by the end of the year. Do you have any idea how ridiculous you sound? Waymo is a serious engineering effort with a lot of talented people working to do it right. There's a lot more to it than just how much data you throw at your NN.[0] Not to mention other companies comply with the law and report all their accidents.[1] Last year, you canceled your product[2] rather than answer a very short and simple safety questionnaire[3]. (Seriously, I've seen SaaS security compliance questionnaires with five times as many questions on them; that letter from the NHTSA was nothing!) If you're still driving your vehicles around the streets of the SF Bay Area without any permits you are putting a lot of people in danger, including me. Pardon me if I think you're not only full of it, but irresponsible as well. [0] http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1838:_Machine_Learning http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/1838:_Machine_Lear... [1] https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testing https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/vr/autonomous/testi... [2] https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13453344/comma-ai-self-driving-car-comma-one-kit-canceled https://www.theverge.com/2016/10/28/13453344/comma-ai-self-d... [3] https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special-Order-Directed-to-Comma-ai https://www.scribd.com/document/329218929/2016-10-27-Special...

dogecoinbase 9y ago

Given the absurd insecurity of the OBD II CAN interface on all modern vehicles, it seems insane to install anything there with a wireless interface on it.

agumonkey 9y ago
aren't they read only sensors anyway ? no outside agent can fiddle with your car through OBD2 .. I hope so
- csours 9y ago
  You have to unlock most modules, or input a code along with updates, otherwise you brick the the module. Current generation vehicle electrical architectures are not network safe and rely on physical security. There is a big trade-off here for the next generation; the electrical architecture will be COMPLETELY locked down, and end users will be locked out of making any updates to modules - something that tinkerers and home-brewers are at odds with. Read only access will still be allowed.
- babo 9y ago
  This device works on the CAN bus, where you can actually issue commands, not just listen. So this is a bad idea in that sense.
  - agumonkey 9y ago
    I'd never have guess there were actual effecting commands.. hmm

jawns 9y ago

I experimented with OBD-II devices for a while, paired with a phone app like Torque, and I found that the lower-level information (e.g. data about any particular air sensor) just wasn't interesting or useful to me. And other useful info (e.g. speed) I can get from my dash or other sources. Where these devices come in extremely handy, however, is by allowing you to look up the opaque fault codes that your car's computer produces when something goes wrong. For $10-$20 off eBay or similar online stores, you can get a device that will tell you, for instance, when you have a cylinder misfire without having to go to a mechanic. (You may have to go to a mechanic to get it fixed, but at least you'll have a rough idea what needs fixing.)

ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Some mechanics charge you $120 literally just to plug in their OBD2 adapter and read the code, so yeah, even if it saves you one diagnostic fee, it's a bargain. Note that Hotz is claiming his readers will do a lot more than the conventional ones you've seen before. Whether or not that's true remains to be seen.
- blackguardx 9y ago
  Most auto parts stores will read the codes for you for free. Some will even loan you tools to fix your car. They are in the business of selling parts and are happy to sell you whatever part you need to fix the problem.
  - icantdrive55 9y ago
    Those are just basic data readers. It's hit, or miss whether they will go into the Power train computer, ABS, or even the entertainment system. It this guys dongle can get into pripriority systems, and read all power train, ABS sensors; I'll buy it. You can get pretty good OB2 readers from China. They supposedly get into proprietary systems(don't know how they do it), but are better than paying for a dealership tool, or a Snap-on subscription.
  - cr0sh 9y ago

zitterbewegung 9y ago

If you want some of the features of the Panda interface (not the cloud connected dashcam) it seems like Automatic [1] seems to do the job. Any happy users of Automatic? [1] https://www.automatic.com https://www.automatic.com

palmerit 9y ago
I used automatic for a while. It was pretty limited, and pricey. I've been using a panda for several weeks now, and FAR more capable. It probably boils down to: do you want a pretty UI dumbing the info down for you, or do you want the raw data so you can do things with it?

ramshanker 9y ago

OK, so now there is a "fitbit for car". Yesterday it was "Uber for Garbage". Service X (where X is an existing hit) for Area Y is getting popular.

Skunkleton 9y ago
I am starting the Herbalife for Groceries. Would you like to signup as an independent distributor in my downline?

grandalf 9y ago

This is very exciting. I've used an Automatic adapter after seeing the HN discount and the data is very interesting.

jonathankoren 9y ago

So it's an ODB II dongle that made from what looks like parts from Sparkfun and 3d printed case (Although, that's bit of wild speculation on my part), sold at apparently 8x the price of competitors. Sure the ODB exports out some common info, but isn't most of it encrypted and vendor specific? Also, calling this and a camera "a self driving car kit" is an overstatement even for Silly-Con Valley.

flyingcoder 9y ago

I remember George Hotz stating in an interview a year ago that he was going to be a billionaire by the end of 2016. He has quite the ego, there's tons of OBD-II adapters that have been around for a while and many successful Kickstarter campaigns launching better OBD-II adapters.

ex3ndr 9y ago

Isn't ODB-II just doesn't have anything useful for self-driving? What's is "fragile" part of ODB-II? How does this yet another dongle solve "fragile" part? Isn't it just arduino-like board and ODB-II shield?

fenwick67 9y ago
OBD2 is the connector and the protocols used on that connector. The vehicle CAN bus is on the OBD2 port, and the "K-line", which is diagnostic only, is also there.
- ex3ndr 9y ago
  Not the full CAN bus, only very small subset of it, isn't it?
  - fenwick67 9y ago
    The connector has at least 1 CAN bus on it, some pins are "manufacturer discretion" meaning the manufacturer may put CAN or other signals on the connector. Nowadays most vehicles have several CAN and LIN buses and it's unlikely that all traffic gets routed to the OBD2 connector, but some stuff is. Again, it depends on the manufacturer. There are lots of standardized signals defined that a OBD device can request: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs
tyingq 9y ago
Depending on the car, it has many things relevant to self driving. Vehicle speed, RPM, steering wheel angle, etc. For some cars, you can jump to the CAN bus via that port and get more. It is though, far short of everything needed. He's pitching it as perhaps part 1 of a bunch of other stuff you would need. That's aside from the idea that DIY self driving sounds, er, unwise.

jaclaz 9y ago

I am not much into this, but I believe that to be really useful the OBD-II PIDs (generic): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OBD-II_PIDs should be integrated with the ones by the given manufacturer on the specific model, and AFAIK all the money is in the software that can read those non-standard PID's. And this is border-line (or downright just over the border) with hacking and/or reverse engineering the manufacturer's own software.

babo 9y ago

While this plugs into the OBD-II port but the main use is to dump the CAN bus. Comparing it with OBD-II dongles where the functionality is restricted to the OBD part is misleading. It's far from universal, as not all cars expose all the CAN bus at the OBD-II socket, but a good start for sure. I ordered mine.

amits1995 9y ago

There's an israeli start-up doing much more with that car data. telling you about problems and more. and it costs as much as 20-30$ https://engieapp.com/ https://engieapp.com/

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

ma2rten 9y ago

This article seemed really incoherent to me. I didn't understand what comma is trying to do and how selling 1000 "FitBits for your car" to "car enthusiasts and hackers" for $88 helps to compete with Waymo.

anindha 9y ago

Combining vehicle data with a phone's GPS could improve navigation accuracy in urban canyons [1]. Back in 2007 we read CAN data from a Toyota RAV4 to get wheel encoder, steering angle, acceleration, speed, and braking data [2]. I am surprised Uber/Lyft aren't using something like this. I often see the car location jumping around in SF FiDi. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_canyon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Street_canyon [2] http://www.acfr.usyd.edu.au/research/projects/others/darpa.shtml http://www.acfr.usyd.edu.au/research/projects/others/darpa.s...

commaai 9y ago
Improved localization / nav is one of the goals of chffr. Through panda, we can use the car sensors for dead reckoning. Combined with the phone camera, we can get and keep a really precise location fix.
- anindha 9y ago
  Have you thought about releasing this as its own product which I could use in an existing navigation app?
  - commaai 9y ago
    We don't plan on writing a nav app, the plan is just to improve the location fix at the system level and work with all nav apps.

blt 9y ago

Comma.ai's autonomous driving software implements the main control loop in Python. It's full of memory allocations. The project is far from serious engineering.

agumonkey 9y ago
Sometimes naively I believe that with enough hardware capabilities, lazy software can provide its function...

Animats 9y ago

This looks like the dongle Automatic [1] sells. That's just a data logger; it doesn't do anything except record. [1] https://www.automatic.com/ https://www.automatic.com/

ex3ndr 9y ago

I got it actually, they reimplemented ODB-II in a more stable manner to provide better stability and performance, ELM327 is the only player on the field and provide less CAN busses (they are just not connected at all)

kevinhiggins 9y ago

Looks like they're just trying to get additional sensor data to train their neural nets (crowd source the data). I'm not sure if a single camera from a dash mounted mobile device plus vehicle control data is enough for training a neural net for fully autonomous driving, but it's certainly valuable for driver assist features.

syntaxing 9y ago

Slightly off topic, but can someone here explain what in OpenPilot that makes it so technically superior? Or is the (partial?) open source part of it the most seductive part? I only quickly looked over the source code so I am not sure if I missed something. But looking at the top level code, it seems like something anyone can accomplish after taking the Udacity SDC class (minus the CAN interfacing, but that shouldn't be all that hard?)?

elmar 9y ago
you have a closed source, big binary that is the predictive model, it is the result of crunching all the data they have.

Animats 9y ago

I saw a new player in self-driving yesterday - a blue Peterbilt truck equipped with many cameras and some of the puck-sized Velodyne laser scanners. Nevada license AU 0030. They were driving on US 101 southbound from Menlo Park to Mountain View, where they exited the freeway and got back on, northbound. They were bobtailing; no trailer. In that location, I'd first though it was one of Google's vehicles But why the Nevada plate? Turns out this is Embark.[1] They even show their AU 0030 license plate in the video. Embark has been testing in Nevada, where the regulations are looser and there's less traffic. Their demo video is on a a deserted, straight two-lane road, closed for the occasion. Good place to debug. Embark isn't on the list of CA DMV autonomous vehicle test companies. Also, CA won't allow autonomous vehicle testing of vehicles over 10,000 pounds, figuring that if something goes wrong, it's better to have car accidents than heavy truck accidents. When Otto did that "autonomous delivery" of Budweiser with a semi, their vehicle was surrounded by chase cars. It was a much more controlled environment than the video indicates. There's too much "fake it until you make it" in this business. Waymo and Volvo are building systems that can handle unexpected trouble. Some of the others, not so much. [1] http://embarktrucks.com/ http://embarktrucks.com/

gamblor956 9y ago
Please report this incident to the CA DMV if you haven't already.
- nso 9y ago
  He didn't say it was driving on its own at the time
lemiant 9y ago
Hi John, I'm Alex Rodrigues, CEO at Embark. Thanks for your interest. Our testing is legal and we are in close communication with the DMV to ensure we stay that way. In California we restrict our system to Level 2 (like Tesla autopilot), in order to comply with regulations.
petra 9y ago
>> Waymo and Volvo are building systems that can handle unexpected trouble. How ? What's different in the tech they are building ?

morogop 9y ago

That's nonsense. if his claims were true, he could've sold the lot for nine or ten figures to somebody who was willing to deal with NHTSA. It is exceedingly foolish to believe George Hotz's extremely obvious lies. George Hotz is a smart guy who made some big mistakes, and isn't man enough to admit that he was lying.

commaai 9y ago
Lying about what? We've done numerous livestreams showing off the technology, and it's available for free on our github. Follow us on twitter to see: https://twitter.com/comma_ai https://twitter.com/comma_ai
dang 9y ago
We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720083 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14720083 and marked it off-topic.

morogop 9y ago

If you mean what you say: buy this thing, install it on your car, and use it daily. I dare you. Oh right, you'd never do that, because some tiny part of you knows that George Hotz was lying his ass off about his tech, and that you'd have to be a crazy person to trust such a flagrant liar with your life.

tinco 9y ago
Yeah you're right. I want to buy it though, and then wait a couple of months before plugging it into my own car. I'm just saying you can't just dismiss the guy's ability because he comes across arrogant. He's proven he's a hacker, and now he's trying to prove he's a maker as well. Maybe this Panda thing is engineered really well, and the money and reputation will get him to a point where he can run a nice company. Maybe not and this things get some people killed and he will be thrown in jail for building a recklessly unsafe product, I don't know. I don't own a car right now so all I can do is talk big.
- morogop 9y ago
  His arrogance is orthogonal to the issue. The issue is that he was obviously lying. He claimed he was weeks away from autonomous cars. If this was true, he would've sold the tech for a staggering pile of cash. Instead, all the evidence looks like he thought he could solve the problem on his own, in record time. Then he made a pretty basic POC (able to handle a small number of very simple conditions). Then he realized he couldn't do it. And so he pretended that he'd solved a problem nobody else had, but wasn't going to share or sell the answer with anybody else because the government is bad. Unfortunately, some people hate the government enough that they want to believe this. But it's a dumb story and an obvious lie. George Hotz does not have autonomous driving technology. He never did, and he never fucking will. He's a snake oil salesman.
  - commaai 9y ago
    Autonomous vehicle technology, and it's free --> https://github.com/commaai/openpilot https://github.com/commaai/openpilot Working, video by a user --> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN1YcC83nA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VN1YcC83nA Where's the snake oil?

goeric 9y ago

He also said he will "ship" his product and badmouthed his competitors for not shipping. Then he cancelled his product after one cease and desist. George is a brilliant mind, but I hope he figures out how to become a better entrepreneur. He has so much potential.

gehwartzen 9y ago

As others have pointed out there are a TON of OBDII loggers on the market with price points down to <$10. So maybe they make it slightly more universal by interpreting more codes (?) but that seems to be mostly on the software side, this is really still a device manufactured for probably $5. It seems the real value for comma.ai is just collecting a huge amount of driver data and then selling it to Autonomous car makers or generating algorithms based or the data themselves. Either way, if that's the case why sell it for $88??? sell it at cost ($5) or even give it away for free and just quickly build a huge user base. Am I way off here?

roymurdock 9y ago
As I understand it users don't necessarily opt in to contributing data to comma's database. So there will be a large subset of hobbyists that just use it to monitor their own driving data privately - these are the users that comma needs to charge up front. Plus, psychologically it feels like an investment with ROI in "comma points" for those who do contribute their data, with some vague promise of a reward later when someone (who?) decides to purchase comma points. So the upfront cost is justified.

philippnagel 9y ago

Related, is anyone aware of an affordable OBD hardware simulator? The ones I found are either pretty expensive (e.g. https://freematics.com/pages/products/freematics-obd-emulator-mk2/ https://freematics.com/pages/products/freematics-obd-emulato...) or seem sketchy (e.g. https://de.aliexpress.com/item/OBD-simulator-OBD-development-and-testing-tools-ECU-simulator-MINI-version-301/32794172958.html https://de.aliexpress.com/item/OBD-simulator-OBD-development...). I am also aware of https://github.com/carloop/simulator https://github.com/carloop/simulator. However I would prefer a one piece solution. Any tips?

brian-armstrong 9y ago

So it turns out geohotz is great at breaking other peoples' stuff and finds making products is harder. Who knew? Soon a 16-year-old will find a massive security vuln in this ODB bridge and the cycle will be complete

ilurkedhere 9y ago

OK so it's a $4 ESP8266 and maybe something else that plugs into the OBDII port. Why do I need this?

zeep 9y ago

Can't you see most of Panda's information with a $6 bluetooth OBDII adapter? (something like http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Mini-OBD2-OBDII-V2-1-Android-Bluetooth-Car-Scanner-Adapter-Torque-US-/112159207901 http://www.ebay.com/itm/Super-Mini-OBD2-OBDII-V2-1-Android-B...)

boardwaalk 9y ago
I have one of those; as far as I could tell they're crappy non-compliant Chinese knockoffs of real ELM327 chips. I wasn't able to get much of anything good or interesting out of it and had to get a Beaglebone with CAN bus cape to get any farther (other problems with that but that's separate). Hotz confirms if you read the comments on the article.
- zeep 9y ago
  I don't see any comments on the article... I even tried a plain browser without addons.

id_rsa 9y ago

I've been following Comma.ai since I read the Bloomberg article about George hacking a self-driving car in his garage. While I have read the criticism on HN and think it is reasonable, I must admit I'm rooting for George and his team. I'm happy to see they launched this product and are continuing to make progress after the NHTSA incident. I'm looking forward to testing their tech myself.