TELUS and Mojio want to make your old car smarter

TELUS and Mojio have announced plans to launch the Mojio connected car solution in Canada later this year.

The IoT movement promises us an entire world of internet connected devices. A place where we can communicate with all of our appliances and electronics via the web. A lot of these connected devices are also big ticket items that we only buy a few times in our lives so that kind of all encompassing connectivity is still a ways away. The cost of building your own personal Internet of Things is simply too high for a lot of people.

Enter Mojio, which hopes to bring connectivity to the car you already own without breaking the bank. Mojio is a peripheral that plugs into your car’s on-board diagnostic port (OBD II) and works with a smartphone app to bring the ability to track your trips, diagnose problems with your car, share vehicle location, and more via a dedicated app store.

The company’s latest partnership will see TELUS become the first Canadian carrier for Mojio. Mojio will access to the internet via TELUS’s network and service will cost $6.99 per month. That’s after your first year, which is free, and the initial up front cost of $169. Not too bad for a technology that promises to turn cars as old as 18 into connected vehicles. Pre-orders are starting now and Telus and Mojio say the device will ship in time for the holidays.

Mojio, founded in 2012 out of Vancouver, released its SDK last summer and secured $2.3 million in seed funding last October.