Automatic (Car Adapter) Shutting Down

I could surely get a different BT ODB reader but I already have this one.

Honestly, that kinda seems like something that makes sense to do server-side, especially if they were forced to implement some of those integrations in very kludgy and fragile ways (like screen scraping/form filling). Even if the calls were made directly from the customer's device, there's probably a background hum of development work needed just to keep the integrations working.

In theory, it could be done on a cellphone, but a ton of extra data is needed inc volumetric models of an engine (to calculate fuel usage accurately). Doing it server side makes it possible to build this in an agile method vs going to every single make/model and getting this right the first time.

Other than the fact that this is difficult to keep up-to-date and working, it increases the hardware cost significantly. Instead of having a very cheap microcontroller handling everything, you might need something more capable and more expensive.

Development cost goes up too, since instead of writing your integrations in Python, Go, JS, or whatever, you need to write your integrations on your embedded system.

Great feedback. A limited "no-cloud" mode is something we could possibly do, I'll think about it.

I think you are correct that it would really only be a small number of people who would be able to use our docs and write their own firmware for our device. But we want to make it relatively easy to switch between public firmware variants.

So even if you're not an engineer, you can choose to try a different flavor for your device. And if we have to completely shut down our services, you could do that as well.

Also consider:

1. The choices we make on mitigating the possibility of the product being waste can actually improve our product. For example, because the product can be reprogrammed easily, we can enter verticals that wouldn't be possible otherwise. Or because our hardware is well-architected and documented, it's easier for us to iterate on it.

2. If we fail because we couldn't figure out a way to make the product responsibly, that's a good thing. I'd rather we fail early than put out waste.

For devices that are air-gapped the idea may be workable, but not in the form you’ve outlined for internet-connected devices. What happens when a major vulnerability is discovered? Who is liable when a vulnerable device gets exploited in a well-orchestrated breach?

Such a company would eventually be confronted with the reality of lawsuits.