By now everyone has heard of the Nest thermostat and the Fitbit. But have you heard about Automatic.com? I have been using mine for a couple of months and I love it – it tells me when I accelerate too fast, break too hard, or drive over 70 MPH. And like the Nest it gives me comparative statistics on how I compare with other drivers (last week it told me I am in the top 11%).
When I look at technology vectors and telemetry data opportunities in data science, it’s clear that everything we do is being instrumented to capture data in real time, and in the next couple of years, we will all expect this. That’s on the viewable horizon.
What’s not on the viewable horizon is the next step of that – being predictive of when my tires are going to need changing. If Automatic knows that I am braking too hard an accelerating too fast, that would shorten the timeline for when I will need to get new tires, and probably even set a date, or more likely a window of time, out in the future that could be adjusted for when I should expect to need new tires. Cool.
Beyond that, wearables like the Fitbit should be able to predict when we will lose a certain amount of weight, and if more data like cholesterol and heart rate are tracked, it call show us trajectories for high blood pressure, diabetes, and other conditions – and do the same sorts of comparisons that we already get from Nike Fuel, Nest, Automatic, and others.
What this should do is create a series of metrics that are analogous to credit scores that can create risk profiles for insurance companies (I can’t believe that’s not already in place, frankly), but also when it comes to selling my VW Passat. If I have the actual usage data for a car, that’s very complimentary to the Carfax.com data that exists and is much more detailed – that can tell my buyer how the car has been driven, not just whether or not it was in an accident.
Self-diagnosis will change many industries and there are lots of new business opportunities out there for people who can figure out the right trajectories.
-Ric
P.S. Per my last post about customer service, I was delighted to learn that someone recorded that Comcast call – they are so overdue for that it’s shocking.
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