Golo3, "future telematics"

Today, I made some testing for Golo3, an after-telematics product. This production is made by a Shenzhen based company, now it is listed in HK stocking market. (http://www.cnlaunch.com/cn/) Golo is a small OBD reader which can read output from OBD interface and send out those data thru 3G to cloud and then someone could analysis those data for you. (http://launch.jd.com/)

But after today's test I found a lot of problems:

1. for vehicle, the vehicle must support those parameters, if not this function would not be enabled at all! If yes, the car itself can support this function itself the customer does not golo again for this help. (must be some app can support this).
2. 3G internet, this is very useful, but it only cost 180 rmb for 3G package, not 300;
3. Driving record, it is workable, but it is hard to say it is OK for customer, even the car parks in parking lot, sometime, golo would still record that parking spot in driving history?! At least, I do not get it how Golo determine what kind of driving behavior is driving which is not! And the time I got the notification from Golo, it is really random, sometime I got a notification when I am still driving the car, sometimes I got the message like 30 min later I parked the car!!
4. For technician and hot-line support, I never succeed to reach them!
5. For Car Inspection, like point 1, it really depends on whether OEM open those diagnosis data to Golo or OBD or not, if not, Golo really can do nothing, like today, I took a 2008 Buick, really less useful data from OBD, so only vehicle tracking function is properly worked, and diagnosis info, really helpless, I got some output, but those are only readable by professional engineer, not a normal car driver. (refer to vehicle health report)And for this, it is always reachable from cell phone, maybe because our test vehicle is too old or maybe golo is not well crafted, just not as my expected or as golo advertised.

vehicle health report

Even, I found a lot of problems today, I should say Golo is still a very good idea for after-telematics market, and I think after several around improvement, this product is still very competitive in the market. But right now, I should say, Golo is still far away from a reliable product, at least not worth 300 RMB. It adds more problems than it solved. But as a good idea, I think golo has a very bright future, if he can growth well and health. And for OEMs, I think it is time to sit down together and format some standard now ASAP, in the future, vehicle business will be more like PC business, car itself will become less and less important, it only matters which kind of value added service can you provide to customers or how can you make different with other OEM in terms of service but not engine itself.

Here are some pix I took today,

outlook

working status

Golo

Golo App