My AutoPi Cloud
Studies show that on a hot summer day the temperature inside your vehicle will rise dramatically within just 10 minutes after you parked.
HeatKill.org reports that with an outside temperature of 27 C (80 F), the inside temperature could rise to as high as 37 C (99 F) after just 10 minutes.
The inside of your car becomes an oven roasting your interior. The sun will permanently damage the color and look of everything it touches, thereby degrading the value of your car.
Did you know?
StateFarm recommends using windscreen sun protectors and seat covers to protect your vehicle.
A number of common advices for protecting your car is:
- Park in the shade
- Use windscreen sun protectors
- Use seat covers
- Open a window slightly
But what if you could build your own system to help keeping temperatures lower inside your car? This is now possible with the AutoPi IoT platform.
What is AutoPi?
AutoPi is a small Telematics Unit that plugs into the OBD-II port of your car.
It comes with an online cloud dashboard, that you can login to from any device. From here you can setup your system and do real-time tracking of your vehicle telematics.
Creating a Car Overheating Protection system
By creating a system that automatically lowers the windows in your car slightly, when the temperature gets too high, you can vent out the cabin and make sure the temperature inside is not significantly higher than the outside temperature.
This system could automatically ensure that the windows is not opened before a certain temperature is measured, and thereby not letting cold air out of a just parked car.
Since the AutoPi dongle has the possibility to connect external equipment or sensors, it is possible to connect an USB temperature sensor to it.
Any sensor will do, but an example is this USB temperature sensors from Yocto. It is very tiny and its location can easily be moved to the best location inside your vehicle.
The temperature sensor is the only external equipment you will need to create your own Cabin Overheating protection system.
Once the temperature sensor is connected to the AutoPi, it is easy to install your own software through the module configuration in the AutoPi Dashboard. It is even possible to find existing software modules through the AutoPi Dashboard.
The flow of the system would be:
- Temperature is measured using the attached sensor. This is picked up by the AutoPi dongle.
- Temperature is checked against rules predefined by the user.
- If the temperature is too high, the window is lowered slightly to allow colder air to get into the car.
- A messages is sent to the user of the car, informing about the preventive measures done by the AutoPi system.
- When the temperature drops inside the car, the window is closed again.
