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The connected car meets the connected home at CES 2015

The Automatic smart driving monitor is teaming up with the Nest smart thermostat so your home is just the right temperature when you pull into your driveway.

Antuan Goodwin Reviews Editor / Cars
Antuan Goodwin gained his automotive knowledge the old fashioned way, by turning wrenches in a driveway and picking up speeding tickets. From drivetrain tech and electrification to car audio installs and cabin tech, if it's on wheels, Antuan is knowledgeable.
Expertise Reviewing cars and car technology since 2008 focusing on electrification, driver assistance and infotainment Credentials
  • North American Car, Truck and SUV of the Year (NACTOY) Awards Juror
Antuan Goodwin
2 min read
Antuan Goodwin/CNET

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The Automatic smart driving monitor and Nest smart home thermostat team up at CES 2015. Antuan Goodwin/CNET

LAS VEGAS -- The connected car meets the connected home with today's announcement that the Automatic smart driving monitor is teaming up with the Nest smart thermostat.

First, you have to connect the two services with a simple login. When you leave your house in your Automatic-equipped vehicle, the driving monitor can contact the Nest thermostat, putting the home into "away" mode to save energy on heating and cooling. When the car returns home, the Nest also returns to its default state and your preferred temperature.

We showed you how to achieve a similar level of functionality months ago using Automatic's IFTTT channel. Today's announcement, however, is a first-party partnership between the two services and includes a few tweaks that couldn't be pulled off via IFTTT . For example, the Automatic hardware and app can estimate how long your commute home will be and trigger the Nest at the right time, so your home reaches your preferred temperature just as you're pulling into the driveway.

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The Automatic, shown here in its new reusable packaging, communicates with Nest via an app on your smartphone. Antuan Goodwin/CNET

In addition to the Nest partnership, Automatic also demonstrated how almost any developer could tap into its API to build smarter car apps. For example, drivers can log into the Parking Angels app with Automatic to automatically mark their parking spot, and then get notifications when it's time to move their parked car for street cleaning and such.

Automatic's representatives point to its integration with Nest, IFTTT and smaller developers like Parking Angels as indicators of how the little white dongle has grown from a fuel-efficiency monitor into a platform for connecting the car to a variety of services.

Scenes from CES 2015 -- Press Day

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