What is it? : Simply put it is a peripheral for your car that reads data that your car is already capturing.  The read data is then sent to your smart phone and helps you become a more efficient driver.  Simultaneously it helps you analyze issues with your car and correct them as necessary.How does it work?:  You take the device and plug it into your cars OBD II port.  OBD stands for on board diagnostics.  The port is usually found under the dash on the drivers side (depending on vehicle).  You also need the FREE application from Automatic for your smartphone.  We used an iPhone 5 in our testing.  The device connects to your car and then your smartphone using Bluetooth after which the application takes over and monitors your car and your driving habits.  ** You can move the device between different cars and have the application remember your vehicles.What does it do, exactly? :  The Automatic will monitor your driving habits such as speed, quick acceleration, hard braking, etc...  It will also monitor codes from your car for problems...and simultaneously tell you what the codes mean and what you need repaired (ie. pesky check engine lights, etc).  The device also has audible alerts for when you drive at 70mph, brake hard, and or accelerate too quickly.  The audible alerts are small beep patterns that are emitted from the device and just quick warnings...nothing too loud or obtrusive.  It just helps you to understand your driving habits and maybe adjust them for more fuel economy.  While all of this is happening, the application on your smartphone is collecting this data via bluetooth so it can give you a report on your driving.  The application and the device are supposed to track when you fill up at the gas station (supported on some cars as per their site).....; we have not tested this as of yet.How did you test it and what cars did you try?:  I have only had it for 2 days now and we tested in the following vehicles: 2006 Acura MDX, and a 2009 Altima Hybrid.  We plugged it in, paired it to the phone, and setup our vehicle (takes 1-2 minutes).  We then naturally went on some drives and fortunately enough they involved some highway driving (speed limit 65mph).  I am also fortunate in that I have a 16.5yr old son who is learning to drive and a bit over confident in his skills.  We went out on our first journey and once on the highway, my son hit 70....the Automatic let our an audible beep that alerted the kid that he was at 70mph....he slowed down.  The car we used for our first set of testing was our Acura MDX with about 6 passengers...so it was a bit heavy.  When we got off of the highway at what was a short exit ramp, he ended up having to brake a bit hard...the Automatic alerted him to that.  (PS...the app does tell you what alerts mean what...with sample sounds). That was day one...the app for some reason did not keep a record of that drive and that does concern me somewhat; I feel that it is an error on my part and not the device.I personally think this is a great way to learn how to drive efficiently and to get information from your car that already exists  (yes, our cars have black boxes;;lol).  Also, since we have a youngster that is beginning to drive, this device makes it easy for him to know when he is wrong and when he is driving correctly.  While it will not fix habits for established drivers, it will alert you to things you can change.I feel this is an excellent product and has a huge potential going forward.  So far I love it and I have no hesitation in recommending it.  I do recommend that you check if it is compatible with your vehicles before you buy.5/5 stars for us.UPDATE 10/30/13:  I have been using this device for a few days now and am even more impressed with it then I was before.  Here is what I learned:1. You must have your smartphone in the car with the application running in the background for the smart processing to provide you information about your driving.  It actually calculates your $$$ spent on gas and notifies you of how many hard accelerations, braking's, etc.2. Today it came up and prompted me to add 3 contacts that it could notify in case of a severe crash.  I did...it accessed the contacts on my iPhone.  One piece of advice..make sure those people are aware you are going to add them; they will get a text message (my wife got a text and panicked, until I explained the situation).  This will actually send messages to 3 of those people if you, god forbid, are in a severe crash.  Naturally you must have cell coverage when that happens and an undamaged phone.3.  The device will run and operate without the smartphone application and continue to provide the driver audible alerts for speeds at 70mph, hard braking, and hard acceleration.  It just cannot track your driving on the application...this is a PLUS point as anyone can use the car and feel a bit smarter about driving habits.So far so good....more to come in the days ahead, I am sure.  IMPRESSED!