Gameifying Driving with a New App

"apr10427 - Greedo never fired" (michaelblackwood)
04/17/2014 at 22:24 • Filed to: Apps, Hyper Miling

Driving Curve is a new application for iOS, an Android version is coming soon, that gamifies driving with the goal of eliminating inefficient driving habits.

Disclaimer: I used my iPhone 5 to test this app. If use use an iPhone 5S the accelerometer is used to gauge your driving in addition to GPS data. Accordingly, your results may vary. I also apologize for the portrait orientation, Driving Curve does not yet support landscape.

The goal is to earn points through driving smoothly. The more points you earn, the higher your ranking. Your rank can be compared to the entire user pool or you can view your ranking nationally.

So how are you scored? When you start your drive, you have a perfect score of 1000 pts. While you drive you will lose points for any period of abrupt acceleration or deceleration and, as far as I can tell, gain points for maintaining constant speed, which the app calls cruise control. At the end of your drive, your score is totaled and any achievements you have earned are awarded.

Now you can dive into the driving log. On the first screen you can see a graph of your speed during your drive.

As well as some data about your speed.

On the second screen a map of your drive can be seen with two overlay options for data. The first option shows the smoothness of your drive in color. Green segments for smooth driving and red segments for abrupt behavior.

The second option shows your speed. This option seems less useful to me and is difficult to read as your speed is shown in shades of blue with darker colors being slower speeds and lighter colors being faster.

On the home screen you can view metrics about all of your drives and your friends and achievements. I haven't used the friend feature yet so I can't speak to its implementation, but judging by the rest of the app, it should work okay. Overall rankings are slow to load, I suspect due to the server, but you get there in the end. Achievements are about what you would expect. Drive 5 times, idle <10% of a drive, drive without any abrupt braking are a sample of what you will find. As of yet, achievements have no influence over ranking, but that may change in the future.

So that's the app. On the whole, my couple test drives went smoothly and I plan to continue using Driving Curve. Looking over to see the app is a good reminder to take it easy. There are a few, if not problems then, annoyances. First, an overall lack of sensitivity. On my two drives, the highest speed recorded by the app was 60.2 mph while my speedometer showed at least 62 mph on one occasion. Second, it's not really clear whether the GPs track of your drive is stored locally only or stored in the cloud as well. Third, rankings are based on total score only. The average of my two drives was 913 pts. Which, I suspect, is higher than many of the users ranked ahead of me. I would suggest a points scale ending at 10,000 or even 100,000 with drivers being ranked on average score after a minimum sample size is recorded.

In short, cool app that gamifies hyper milling, ranks you globally, gives you metrics about your driving, only on iOS for now

Check out Driving Curve at !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!!

DISCUSSION (18)

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/17/2014 at 22:33

So, I would get like negative points for enjoying my drive?

apr10427 - Greedo never fired > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire
04/17/2014 at 22:38

Not necessarily, how you are scored is not totally transparent and you may get points deducted for time spent over 70 mph, but in theory as long as you were to accelerate and brake smoothly you would still score well. No harm in trying it out though. I drive a 97 civic though, so this is how I enjoy driving.

Squid > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/17/2014 at 22:41

But I enjoy mashing the throttle too much. My loud pedal makes me happy. This is a useless app for me as my driving is mainly in town now and I get shit MPG no matter what I do. Yay 35 MPH speed limits!

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/17/2014 at 22:41

Well, I drive over 70 for most of my commute, the speed limits on the highway are 65-70

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/17/2014 at 22:41

I'd get so many points taken off for my accelerating. I like to get up to speed as fast as possible, which means some pretty hard take-offs.

apr10427 - Greedo never fired > Logansteno: Bought a VW?
04/17/2014 at 22:44

It also may be a problem for short on/off ramps. My route only had one short ramp, but I got nailed on it by the app. Ultimately though it's a tool for longer drives or commutes. If I was out for a spirited drive I wouldn't record, because it would bring down my average.

Logansteno: Bought a VW? > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/17/2014 at 22:45

My goal would be to score as low as possible.

apr10427 - Greedo never fired > Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire
04/17/2014 at 22:45

Maybe where you live. My commute here in Maryland doesn't touch a road with a limit over 55

Arch Duke Maxyenko, Shit Talk Extraordinaire > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/17/2014 at 22:46

Damn,

Bakkster, touring car driver > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/17/2014 at 23:28

You live dang close to me.

Looks fun, but no Android version.

apr10427 - Greedo never fired > Bakkster, touring car driver
04/18/2014 at 12:10

That is actually the destination of my drive. I live in Ellicott City, but chopped of that end so I wouldn't be giving out my address. The site claims an Android version is coming soon and the developers' twitter account has photos of them testing on various phones so it's probably no too far away.

DocWalt > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/23/2014 at 13:32

I think my goal would be to see how long I can make it think I'm cruise control without actually using cruise control...

IMissTheOldInternet > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/23/2014 at 13:39

Can anyone suggest an app that records similar information without the, uh, questionable scoring element?

Just Joshin > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/23/2014 at 15:41

How would it respond to a clutch, since while accelerating you aren't nearly as smooth as an auto would be?

apr10427 - Greedo never fired > Just Joshin
04/23/2014 at 16:15

I drive a manual and I am as smooth as the average automatic.

Maxaxle > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/23/2014 at 19:56

Kinja'd!!!

dat profile picture/avatar/etc. thing

Just Joshin > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
04/23/2014 at 22:02

It's just that driving a manual in a civil way it takes a lot longer to go from one gear to the next. I'm just not sure if the app would recognise that longer gap and decrease the score as a result.

DYC > apr10427 - Greedo never fired
05/20/2014 at 03:16

Thanks for testing, android version is online now.
hope you enjoy driving with the app.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/det…

Drive safe and have fun!

Kinja'd!!!