Watching out for your car

Chaperone is a wireless telemetric system designed to keep an eye on your car's health.

The idea started as a personal project. I own a magnificent 1973 Triumph TR6. As the car is 44 years old, I was constantly worried whether everything was fine. But when you start doubting the health of your car, why should you be able to trust gauges of equal age?

As I am an engineer, I took apart several gauges and came to the conclusion that those could not have been trusted when new and they certainly can give you only a rough estimate now.

I bought the car for the looks and for the imperfections so I actually wanted to have the inaccurate gauges. My oil pressure gauge for example only comes alive after the first hard bump on a warm engine. That's my car, that's it's character.
Of course, I don't want to risk the engine on this so I was dreaming of an app that would buzz in my pocket should the oil pressure drop low. I couldn't find anything fitting so I wrote my own app and built the first prototype.

I spoke about the system at our little enthusiast's meetings and it turns out I wasn't the only one looking for something like this. So I started to think a little bigger. So let's see where this goes.

How exciting!

KD