Ford’s SmartLink dongle adds an LTE hotspot and smart features to older cars
Cars have become feature-packed pieces of technology, but they’re not exactly the kind of thing you can (or want to) buy over and over again to keep up with the times. One aftermarket solution that makes older cars a little bit smarter is a dongle that plugs into the car’s onboard diagnostics, or OBD, port. These have been made and sold by everyone from Samsung to Verizon to a number of startups, but now, Ford’s making one available for its own cars.
The FordPass SmartLink, as its called, does a lot of the same things as those other available dongles. When plugged into OBD ports on model year 2010 to 2017 Ford cars that lack a modem, it adds an LTE hotspot, gives the driver access to information about the vehicle’s health, allows the car to be tracked, and makes it possible to do things like unlock or lock the car via a smartphone app.
All that information doesn’t exactly come cheap. The FordPass SmartLink will be sold at Ford dealerships starting in “mid-2018,” and costs $17 per month plus installation.
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Ford’s SmartLink dongle adds an LTE hot spot and smart features to older cars For a monthly fee, of course |