BOSTON -- Imagine convenience store customers settling parking tickets, buying oil changes and, of course, paying for fuel at the pump.
Two Boston-area businesses have partnered to transform the humble gas pump into an Internet-connected "transaction station," according to a report in The Boston Business Journal. LogMeIn Inc., a provider of Cloud services and remote-access solutions, signed on to help Verdeva Inc., a developer of vehicle and driver information services, back in May to develop the pump technology.
The concept: allow users to manage vehicle-related transactions, such as pay Department of Motor Vehicles fees and renew vehicle registrations, make auto insurance payments, settle parking ticket fines, renew their vehicle registrations and even buy oil changes, all from the pump.
To create the first prototype, Verdeva is tapping into LogMeIn's Xively IoT platform, a platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that accelerates "Internet of Things" (IoT) initiatives. IoT refers to the ability of everyday objects--such as a gas pump--to connect to the Internet. The Xively IoT platform is built on LogMeIn's Gravity cloud infrastructure, which supports secure connections between people, devices and data.
The smart pumps would also feature Verdeva's Efficient Vehicle Assessor (EVA) technology, which the company describes as a "more robust and commercial version" of the E-ZPass electronic toll-collection technology. With EVA, the pumps would be able to ascertain a vehicle's mileage, which would then enable insurance companies to measure mileage and adjust premium payments without requiring controversial vehicle-tracking technology.
In an interview with the Boston Business Journal, Kevin Condon, CEO of Verdeva, described a scenario where gas stations across the Northeast could install the smart gas pumps within the next two and a half years, with the footprint spreading to up to 20 states by 2019. Verdeva is in talks with large convenience store operators who could serve as the first customers, he said.
Security is an important aspect of the wireless, Internet-connected gas pumps, Joe Gaska, vice president of sales and business development at LogMeIn's Xively division, told the newspaper. "The most important thing with these pumps when we started talking about it is security and how do you make sure that issues like the [recent iCloud security breach] don't happen because there is a lot of data being passed through," Gaska said.
Verdeva is working on securing seed funding, so he could share no firm date for a commercially available product.
Click here to view the full Boston Business Journal report.
Members help make our journalism possible. Become a CSP member today and unlock exclusive benefits, including unlimited access to all of our content. Sign up here.