Check Your Oil, the Bluetooth Way
As a child I used to watch the man at the local gas station remove the dip stick from my Dad’s Ford pick-up, clean it off with the filthy rag in his hip pocket, then replace and remove it again to check the level of the oil. Sometimes he’d deem it acceptable and sometimes he’d peer around the hood and say, “Butch, think you need a can.”
Those days may soon be over thanks to the Oil Condition Monitor by Intellistick, a replacement for the dipstick that comes with your car. The gizmo uses sensors to monitor the car’s oil and sends the information via the magic that is Bluetooth to the driver’s PDA, smart phone, or laptop. (Looks like having a Windows operating system is a requirement.) You don’t even have to pop the hood to know when it’s time for a can.
The IntelliStick picked up Popular Mechanic’s Editor’s Choice Award for 2007. (If you want to see a demonstration of the beauty that is this idea, click here to see CNET’s video. To visit the IntelliStick homepage, click here.)