scangauge getting recognition
 

there is a segment they do on the channel 8 news called "deal or dud" where they try out all the gadgety products. most of the time you see the ones on the infomertials that everyone pretty much knows is crap already. they recently did the scangauge as a gassaving tool.

first of all they called it a deal. they did state that the device itself doesn't actually save you gas but makes you more aware of your consumption.

pretty much stuff we already know but I thought it was cool that it got some recognition.

on a side note, they also sell it at jcwhitney now and I saw it some other place like autozone or something like that.

www.thinkgeek.com has been selling them for quite some time now. I saw them on sale there about a year and a half ago... They market it as the ultimate geek thing to get for your car, aside from the LED emoticon for the rear window, and the "There's no place like 127.0.0.1" bumper stickers.

-Jay

I actually got mine from thinkgeek. they used to advertise it here before the

40% better gas mileage
works on 99.9% of all vehicles
click here for details

showed up. I kind of miss that advertisement (the thinkgeek one). that one actually saved me some money in gas.

the good thing about getting one from somewhere other than linear logic is that you can usually get it in just a few days. linear logic has been backloged for a while. took me over a week just to get a spare cable

I know about their delays... I emailed them 3 days ago for tech support because my SG isn't reporting cutoff properly. I still haven't gotten a response.

-Jay

I think with all the gas price changes, they are doing more business than they ever thought they would. their tech support is probably just one or two guys.

they do have a stellar product. a buddy of mine suggested that they make a scangauge "light" one that would just do gas mileage to make it even cheaper. I think you have to have the other features to in order to calculate the MPG.

I was actually thinking the other way. one that would display 6 or 8 items at a time so you could monitor more stuff at the same time. and I would pay more for that one

The "Light" version wouldn't save any money. The expensive parts are the OBDII interface (which is required even for the light version), the computer (which maybe could be lightened slightly but R&D/software development cost would use up the savings unless they could sell millions in a short time), and maybe the user interface (LCD and buttons).

I got mine right from Linear Logic and it works great. I got it in a couple of days in the mail.

It does a lot of things and will also read codes and clear them. (of course you should fix the problem first). The best thing about it is you can plug it in to any vehicle OBD II port.......so it is not confined to just one vehicle.

the idea of the light is to make it cheaper (maybe $100 or so) and make it even more compact. cut the screen in half and use less buttons.

the r+d isn't an issue as they already did that with the original scangauge so it is all profit from here.

all that being said, I would prefer the one with 6 or 8 segments so that I can monitor even more. I could just about replace my gauge cluster (just about)

No way...a monochrome dot matrix LCD and a couple buttons costs nothing. The R&D would be about the differences, and more D than R. I'm no design/manufacturing expert but I just can't see a light version costing significantly less to deliver -- though, if their R&D is paid off and they can still sell the full function unit at its current price (making a huge margin), then they could make a "light" version to sell cheaper on less margin without competing too much for the full version. I believe that's a common marketing practice.

I've heard that you can daisy chain them, maybe you could get a second one to give you the 8 gauges you want?

The only way I could see it being cost effective for them is to make a "light" version, the only difference being the firmware in the device itself. Much like modems were sold in the "old" days. A friend of mine bought a 33.6 modem that said "Upgradeable to 56k" on the box. When we got it back to his house the details were revealed inside the box. For an extra $50 you could go to the MFR's website and download 56k drivers.

They could do the same with SG, offer a "lite" version, and if you wanted to upgrade send it in and pay the extra cash, and they will flash it with the proper firmware.

-Jay