July 18, 2018

Smartcar: The car API for developers

Sahas Katta

CEO + Co-Founder

Create a Smartcar developer account and start building apps that communicate with connected cars!

Since 2015, we’ve been working on a car API that lets developers communicate with vehicles (think “lock doors,” or “check odometer”) from web and mobile applications.

This idea came from the following observations and beliefs:

  • Building apps that communicate with cars is difficult — too difficult for most developers to consider integrating with vehicles.
  • Developers need a simple and hardware-free path to build for cars of all brands, not just one or two.
  • Vehicle owners who connect their cars to apps should be in total control of what data they share with these applications.

We invited developers to use our car API platform and worked closely with this community to fully understand their needs. Here’s what we built (and learned) in the initial months…

📱 Building apps for cars: A beginner's guide to car APIs

What does a car API look like in action? Why should you connect to cars with an API instead of OBD dongles or smartphone telematics?

More importantly, is a car API platform the right choice for you?

👉 Learn from real examples of apps built with car APIs

We’ve been hard at work building our developer experience

We’re focused on creating a developer experience that makes it easy to get up and running with Smartcar.

What we’ve shipped

  • An endpoint set focused on vehicle info, location, odometer, and lock / unlock doors
  • A support center with getting started guides and FAQs
  • SDKs in 5 languages
  • An open-source demo app that helps you get off the ground quickly with Smartcar
  • An authorization flow that lets us add compatibility for additional car brands with zero development effort

What our developers have asked for

  • Help with making their first request to Smartcar (check out our support center)
  • Compatibility with 10+ car brands
  • Support for teams in our developer portal (coming soon!)
  • More API endpoints (coming soon!)

Today, we’re opening our platform to developers everywhere. We can’t wait to see what you build on Smartcar — and our team is here to help every step of the way.

Ready to get started?

Create an account, try our getting started guide, and let us know what you think. 🚀

Everything you need to know about car APIs. Delivered monthly.

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