The full article is published at Computer World By Brian Nadel
Now that you’re used to working outside the corporate office, it’s time to stretch the boundaries beyond the kitchen table or guest bedroom to the ultimate mobile office. It might lack four walls and a water cooler, but your car offers a killer corner-office view of the world and can let you work just about anywhere.
Salespeople, insurance adjusters, utility workers, and many others have long understood the benefits of working out of a car. In a very real sense, their office is wherever it needs to be, whether that’s a client’s conference room, a construction site, or even roadside at a fender bender. But there’s a gotcha: to be an effective mobile base of operations, the car requires a technological transformation with the right equipment.
For the past 30 years, I have embraced the concept of the hybrid office, working in my office, at home, and at the offices of clients and collaborators. More and more, that includes my 9-year-old Audi A4 AllRoad. In fact, rather than fly to nearby cities for collaborations, meetings, and presentations, I often drive. On a recent hectic two-day Boston trip, rather than flying (and dealing with the inevitable late or canceled flight) from New York, I hopped into my car and drove. Sure, it takes longer than flying, but it just about evens out when you factor in the cab rides to and from the airport, the time killed in the security line, and the interminable waiting.
There’s another way to bathe a car in Wi-Fi by making use of the car’s On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) port. The OBD technology is on every car made since 1996. It’s generally used for viewing automotive data by repair technicians, but the magic here is that its 12-volt line can power Spectrum Tracking’s Smart OBD hotspot.
Only about the size of a mint tin, it slides into the car’s OBD port. The hardest part can be finding the port. For my car, it’s under the dashboard near the driver’s left thigh. To find its location, try your vehicle’s manual or going to CarMD.com for the location.
Once in place, it took about 30 seconds for it to fire up. The Smart OBD hotspot tapped into the AT&T mobile network in the woods of western Connecticut with 18.9Mbps broadcast over the 2.4 and 5GHz Wi-Fi bands. That’s plenty for many of my online needs, but the throughput rose to 36Mbps in suburban New York City, more than enough to run transactions with the company’s servers, grab a bunch of emails, or run a video meeting.
The device also tracks the car’s position using GPS and relays diagnostic information — like the car’s speed, coolant temperature, and battery voltage — to its app. It costs $77 but requires a mobile data account that might add $10 a month.