GoFar

[simran]

Got my GoFar earlier this week, and just had time to plug it in and have a play. It's not often some product comes along that just works flawlessly - but GoFar was an absolute delight. 

I'm used to dodgy kickstarter campaigns, i had supported the "ring" ( https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1761670738/ring-shortcut-everything ) and more than half a dozen other projects. Most never come, and the very few that do (like the ring) come in dirty, half thought out, ill manufactured boxes with very average quality products inside - nothing like their videos! 

GoFar however, was just a delight from the time i saw the box... it was clean, crisp, and so well packed. Right from the design of the box, to the design of the device seemed immaculate. The packing inside was really good as well, and Danny, Ian and the team seem to have thought of everything (including a wipe to clean your dash before you stick the velcro part in).

After plugging in the device, it took about 15 minutes (almost to the dot, as the app advised me) to update the firmware (the OBD port was hard to find, but i found it eventually). The setup was easy and the calibration thereafter was really responsive (and even gave tips on how to speed up calibration). The app is beautifully designed and works flawlessly. 

The GoFar device itself is a thing of beauty. The lights are clear and their brightness is adjustable. 

Overall, it's one of the best "product experiences" i've ever had. 

The "could be better" part:

* Really wish they had an android app as well (i know it's coming soon, but while it's not here, it's sorely missed for those of us with android phones as our primary phones)

* The OBD connector and the "Ray" device could have been wireless connected (saves cables, but i appreciate that would mean the Ray would have to include a place for a battery). 

* Some of the images (illustrations) are based on a left-hand-drive car. Felt a little bit bad that an  Aussie company defaulted to illustrations that are more designed for other countries (which i do understand, as they are much bigger markets), really wish that the illustrations shown were based on the driving conditions (country) we are in. 

Other than the android grips, if "the illustration could have been a mirror image" is the best i got, then it certainly ain't too bad even by my own standards :) 

I'm a linux guy through and through, but have accepted that apple do make good boxes and unboxing experiences :) If unboxing an apple phone is a 8/10, the unboxing and setup of the GoFar is a 9.9/10 :)

:)

 

[blindman2k]

My two units are sitting pretty on my desk waiting for my backlog of work to subside. I track a lot of Kickstarter projects (www.kickstarterland.com) and this has been one of the cleanest projects from start to finish.

A.

[Sujit Shah]

Just a couple of thoughts:

1) My Car already displays (Live)  Fuel Consumption in Liters/ 100 KM. 

- Would this device Help?

2) It is not always easy to drive in the "sweet spot". There is always traffic.

- Or does this device have a dynamic sweet spot?

3) My OBD is on the left (typical in some European Cars)

- Will the cable be long enough to reach the other side?

On Mon, May 2, 2016 at 12:07 AM, blindman2k <aron...@bcde.com.au> wrote:

My two units are sitting pretty on my desk waiting for my backlog of work to subside. I track a lot of Kickstarter projects (www.kickstarterland.com) and this has been one of the cleanest projects from start to finish.

    A.

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[simran]

Hi Sujit, 

Not official answers as i'm not a GoFar team member, but in my experience:

1) My Car already displays (Live)  Fuel Consumption in Liters/ 100 KM. 

- Would this device Help?

1) The device is still very useful as the simplicity of the lights on the device  help "change behaviour" (personally, i won't even be looking at the L/100km, just looking at the lights in real-time (much like looking at the speedometer to keep a check on speed), will i suspect promote better driving behaviour. 

2) It is not always easy to drive in the "sweet spot". There is always traffic.

- Or does this device have a dynamic sweet spot?

2) Not sure if it's dynamic already, but there is a "calibration process" that happens... so i suspect it calibrates it according to at least one person that drives the car? If it's not dynamic already, i'm sure it's on the roadmap for them. So far, i've found it far too easy to stay in the sweet spot (and i don't think it's because i'm the best driver in the world :) - the lights do change on occassion, but i'm hoping that the device will constantly learn and recalibrate itself... 

3) My OBD is on the left (typical in some European Cars)

- Will the cable be long enough to reach the other side?

3) The cable provided will be long enough :) 

 

cheers, 

simran.

[Alan Jones]

I was also delighted by the unboxing and the small, elegant, bright GoFar dash unit. Looks like a little tiny War Of The Worlds craft, minus the tentacles ;-) Seems to work quite well.

My car has a live fuel consumption reading on the dash already but GoFar's changing blue LED is easier to keep in peripheral vision than reading digits off a screen. And my car doesn't connect to an iOS app like GoFar does so aside from the current consumption right now and my average consumption over time, there's no further granularity. GoFar has made it easy for me to see how much less economic my car is in Sport vs Normal mode (good news: not as much as I feared!).

Is it perfect? No. I'd love the app to add the data I need to record to track my business mileage. There are other apps to do that but because they don't have a hardware dongle, they don't track automagically like GoFar does. All GoFar would need to do would be to tag a journey as 'business' and add a quick note (or ideally use Siri) to record the purpose of the journey. And then I'd need to be able to export all my data from the app as .XLS or .CSV — currently no export available.

If you think this is a good idea, chime in with your vote at https://gofar.freshdesk.com/support/discussions/topics/13000005074