Anicet Mbida 06:51, March 09, 2023

Anicet Mbida delivers to us every morning what is best in terms of innovation.

This Thursday, he is interested in a new method to identify the problems of a car, a kind of "Shazam of mechanics" integrated into the car and which listens to the noises of the engine.

The innovation of the day is a kind of “Mechanical Shazam”: a new way to identify problems with your car just by listening to suspicious noises.

Except that it is not an app to download to your phone.

It is a system directly integrated into the car.

But it works just like the Shazam app.

That is to say that we will place microphones in several strategic places (engine, suspensions, transmission…).

And each time the car will start, accelerate, brake;

the system will dissect all the noises it makes.

In seconds, it will tell you if there is a problem with the valves, the transmission belt or the clutch.

Exactly like the experts who are able, just by ear, to give you a complete diagnosis.

And is it effective?

Does it really work?

The principle is quite simple: a healthy vehicle is recorded under different conditions.

This gives a reference noise which is then compared to that of the car.

So if you hear a snap in the front or a squeak in the back, there's something wrong.

The whole difficulty is to be able to identify precisely where the problem comes from.

This is why they use artificial intelligence techniques.

It's quite clever, because even if today's cars are full of sensors (you can even know the pressure of your tires), there is always information that you can't get.

Hence the idea of ​​relying on suspicious noises.

It's V2M, an American startup working on this technology.

They are currently in contact with several manufacturers to integrate it as standard.

This would make it possible to anticipate breakdowns and automatically make an appointment with the garage.

What would be great is to have the same thing on your phone when you buy a used car...

It exists !

Unfortunately not for the general public.

Skoda has developed an application capable of identifying a whole series of mechanical problems with just the microphone of a smartphone.

But it is reserved for its mechanics when they do the overhauls.

We hope that one day we will have the equivalent on our phones.

We would thus have our little expert in the pocket when we buy a used car.