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Cars Technica / All things automotive
Bringing today’s tech—GPS, efficiency tracking, and more—to 15-year-old clunkers
Device-and-app solutions like Automatic and Mojio mean more cars can get to the cloud.

Today, almost any car built after 1996 can join the connected car revolution thanks to aftermarket solutions. We've spent the past year or so trying out a couple of such devices, one from Automatic and another from Mojio. Using a 2005 Saab 9-2x Aero as our test vehicle, we set out to discover if it was truly possible to have all the connected luxury of today without shelling out for an entirely new vehicle.

This provides parity with new vehicles, whereas Connected Signals' EnLighten iPhone and Android apps predict traffic lights:

Real-time traffic signal information and predictive signal models:

• Increase safety at intersections
• Improve fuel economy
• Reduce stress of driving
• Enhance convenience

We use existing infrastructure to communicate with traffic controllers and vehicles—no expensive municipal or in-vehicle equipment.

EnLighten cities:

• Live in Christchurch, New Zealand; Portland and Eugene, OR; Salt Lake City, Provo, and Ogden, UT; Greater Las Vegas, NV; and Arcadia and Walnut Creek, CA.
• In beta in Melbourne, Australia and Garland, TX.
• Coming this summer to Palo Alto, CA
• Data collection under way in other cities in California and elsewhere.
• Many more locations to follow...

It works in new BMWs too.