Vehicle telematics compatibility

A method performed by a computing system implementing a telematics service, the method comprising:

• obtaining a set of telematics data for a vehicle transmitted by a telematics device over a wireless communication network, the telematics device interfacing with an on-board electronic system of the vehicle via an on-board diagnostics (OBD) link;
• identifying, within the set of telematics data, a vehicle identifier of the vehicle and a device identifier of the telematics device;
• updating account profile information to indicate a relationship between the vehicle identifier and the device identifier;
• retrieving vehicle profile information for a group of vehicles of which the vehicle is a member based on the vehicle identifier, the vehicle profile information including predicted compatibility data for the group of vehicles with respect to a group of telematics devices of which the telematics device indicated by the device identifier is a member;
• and
• sending the predicted compatibility data to a client application operating at a client device over a wide area network,
• wherein the client application presents the predicted compatibility data at the client device, including an indication of compatibility and/or incompatibility with respect to each data item of a plurality of telematics data items supported by the telematics device, and
• wherein the predicted compatibility data is based, at least in part, on a plurality of previously reported sets of telematics data obtained from a plurality of telematics devices of the group of telematics devices over wireless communication networks in which each of the plurality of telematics devices interface with a respective on-board electronic system of a respective vehicle of the group of vehicles via a respective OBD link.

A telematics device to interface with an on-board diagnostics (OBD) connector of a vehicle's on-board electronic system, the telematics device comprising:

• an OBD connector by which the telematics device establishes an OBD link with the on-board electronic system via the OBD connector of the vehicle;
• a wireless communication interface by which the telematics device communicates with a telematics service hosted at a server system via a wireless communication network;
• and
• a computing platform programmed to:
• upon the OBD link being established with the on-board electronic control system, activate an OBD-compliant protocol layer, and obtain an initial set of telematics data for the vehicle, including a vehicle identifier;
• transmit the initial set of telematics data over the wireless communication network along with a device identifier of the telematics device directed to the telematics service,
• wherein the initial set of telematics data is operable at the telematics service to respond with compatibility data for a group of vehicles of which the vehicle indicated by the vehicle identifier is a member with respect to a group of telematics devices of which the telematics device indicated by the device identifier is a member;
• receive the compatibility data from the telematics service over the wireless communication network;
• and
• responsive to the compatibility data indicating a first state, deactivate the OBD-compliant protocol layer to discontinue interaction with the on-board electronic system of the vehicle via the OBD link;
• responsive to the compatibility data indicating a second state, activate or continue interaction of the telematics device with the on-board electronic system of the vehicle via the OBD link using the OBD-compliant protocol layer to obtain runtime telematics data of a set of data fields specified by the second state during operation of the vehicle;
• and
• transmit a subsequent set of telematics data including the runtime telematics data to the telematics service over the wireless communication network.