CAN YOU FIX YOUR CAR WITH APPS?

USE YOUR CAR’S DATA PORT TO EXPLAIN A CHECK ENGINE LIGHT. OR CHIDE YOU WHEN YOU AREN’T DELICATE ON THE ACCELERATOR.

That outlet below and to the right of your steering column is called an OBD-II (onboard diagnostic) port, standard on any car made after 1996. Plug in one of these and you can mine your car's brain for useful information. OBD dongles are a recent invention made possible by smartphone proliferation, but I've always doubted their usefulness. They can tell you tons of specifics, not all of it helpful. I've never been broken down by the side of the road with an out-of-spec oxygen sensor. But new models have more abilities, such as coaching you to use less fuel, displaying performance stats on your phone, and, of course, giving you a prognosis when that Check Engine light besmirches your instrument cluster. I tried three OBD dongles on a 2017 Ford Fusion Energi plug-in hybrid to find out whether the car – or my driving – warranted intervention.

AUTOMATIC

Automatic’s most potentially useful application: crash alert. If the device’s accelerometers detect a collision, you’ll get a call. If you don’t answer, Automatic dispatches emergency services and calls your family. A more quotidian function (let’s hope) computes a driving score based primarily on fuel consumption. Accelerate too hard and it’ll chirp out a peevish alarm. The scold threshold is comically low, docking me for six “hard accels” in 48 kilometres of driving. It’s like having your nervous Nana riding shotgun, screaming every time you exceed 50. Even the Energi’s feeble electric-only acceleration can incur a tsk-tsk. Although 47 of my 48 kilometres were in electric mode, the app somehow concluded that the Fusion got 5,6 litres/100 km and used about R60 in fuel. Clearly bogus, Automatic. Try again.

$100, no subscription $100 per year

This affordable piece of plastic (R500, thegadgetshop.co.za) might be the simplest safety device you can buy. Unlike visibility-obscuring windshield mounts, the Kenu Airframe+ clips to your car’s HVAC vents, gripping your phone with its spring-loaded arm. The next time you’re using Waze or glancing at an incoming call, your phone is up near your line of sight, not sliding around on the passenger seat or riding on the centre console. The reality is, you’re going to look at your phone while you’re driving. You may as well put it where you can see it. PM

You watched your fragile, complicated, expensive flying camera bounce between tree branches like a pachinko machine, then thud against the ground. Or maybe you hit the throttle, then let off on the throttle, only to have the drone refuse to listen and shoot out of sight into the sky. It happens to everyone. Everyone we know, at least. But what no one seemed to know was what do you do about it? We kamikazeed a drone and found out.