Build an on-demand car wash app with Smartcar

More often than not, car wash services get criticized for unpredictable, seemingly endless wait times. Vehicle owners have to plan ahead and spend a chunk of their time on making it to the car wash.

Mobile apps are trying to solve this problem by letting car owners book on-demand services. Still, even having the car wash come to you can be a tedious process. For example, vehicle owners have to manually enter their car’s location or install a piece of hardware that can locate their car. For interior detailing services, customers have to physically hand their keys to the washer.

In short, we at Smartcar saw that the car wash industry was poised for innovation. After all, there had to be a way to strip away all that complexity, and to make on-demand car washing as easy as a few clicks.

Building a better car wash experience

Today, the Smartcar team is enabling car wash businesses to level up. Our API lets you quickly and securely pull data from and send commands to vehicles using simple HTTP requests. When building a car wash app, you can use our API to let washers locate, unlock, and lock your customers’ vehicles remotely.

The best part? Smartcar works across car brands and as a pure software solution — no need for expensive hardware like OBD-II dongles.

To integrate with the Smartcar platform, simply add a “Connect my car” button to your mobile or web app. Smartcar’s authorization flow will let your customers log in with their car brand’s app credentials (Volkswagen Car-Net app, Tesla app, etc.).

Scaling with Smartcar

Developers and car wash companies can quickly scale using our API:

• You can easily offer car wash subscriptions, by allowing your customers to consistently share a digital key as well as their car’s location with your washers.
• For business insights, you can use our vehicle info endpoint. It will tell you the makes, models, and years of production of the cars you’re serving.
• Finally, if you want to expand your business to other services, our API endpoints will allow you to do so. Preventative maintenance, tire changes, roadside assistance, package delivery… The possibilities are endless.

Are you ready to get the show on the road? Create an account for free and get started today! You can build an on-demand car wash app like this one in no time:

For further details, check out our docs, and don’t hesitate to contact us with any questions. Happy building, and have a good trip!

Smartcar is an API that allows mobile and web apps to access data from and send requests to cars (think “check odometer” or “unlock doors”) — across vehicle brands, hardware-free.

Want to take our API for a spin? Check out our docs and get started with our demo app! Have any questions or feedback? Shoot us an email! 🚀

PS: Follow us on Instagram!

Originally published at smartcar.com on November 2, 2018.