This the first post in a retrospective series documenting CarmaLink’s history from 2008-2021. Content written and provided by Kevin Holmes and Chris Suozzo.
2008 - 2009
Founded in 2008 as Carma Systems Inc. by four like-minded entrepreneurs who saw the automotive industry lagging behind the technology industry and wanted to try their hand at building the future of in-car automotive entertainment systems.
The initial business concept was to launch an aftermarket in-car computer that could fit into a double DIN standard slot in a car’s dashboard. The focus was on measuring vehicle performance and providing a rich multimedia experience (think of what CarPlay or Android Auto is now in 2023). We determined that a key differentiator would be the ability of this product to display information collected from the vehicle itself, through a connection to the OBDII port. This port, required on all US vehicles since 1996, made available a wealth of live sensor and diagnostic data that was not normally accessible to the user.
We hired a few senior full-time engineers and recruited several Computer Science interns from RPI in Troy, NY, for the summers, some of whom would later continue to work full-time after they graduated. Most would go on to work in Silicon Valley at various well-known tech companies like Apple, Pure Storage, Twilio, Oracle and Facebook.
Our first product was based on Windows Embedded and .NET 1.0 which was brand-new at the time. An OBDII “dongle” of our own design would provide a data connection to the vehicle wirelessly over Bluetooth. Despite making considerable progress on what was clearly an ambitious goal, the cost and complexity of developing a high-end aftermarket infotainment product that served a relatively small market forced us to reconsider our strategy.
At this point, we knew we needed to pivot, but we didn’t know where to go with what we had built. This involved a lot of soul-searching and reaching out to our networks to see what (if anything!) could use the technology we had been developing for another use case.
A kernel of the original idea remained: it was clear that there was value in the vehicle information locked away within the OBDII port, normally only accessible by bulky scan tools. Being able to surface this information on a device the user already had would be ideal. During the summer of 2009, we worked to move our .NET embedded application onto a Windows phone that could work with our OBDII dongle. Apple’s iPhone was still relatively new, but their recent introduction of the App Store and “Made for iPhone” program gave us the perfect entry point to a new platform with massive potential.
2008 pictures
Pre-incorporation office (Drywall Lane garage that is now a batting cage) circa April 2008 in Voorheesville, NY.
After buying some used/new furniture from a local office shop so we’d have somewhere to sit.
The area in the back of this photo was a large garage bay with storage and a small loft.
Nick and Kevin went to Boston, MA for a C#/.NET 1.0 bootcamp. Segway engineers attended and we also visited a friend’s music studio. Kevin still wears that SUSE 10 hat from time to time.
Drywall lane office after a few more months of being lived-in approx August 2008, complete with whiteboards and a summer employee’s (TJ McNally) desk who helped us with our initial graphic design efforts while being an all-around great friend.
Sketching out the original in-dash infotainment product and staffing, along with deliverables for SEMA 2009
Matt graduated from college around this time and moved back to the Albany area to join us.
In September of 2008, Nick and Kevin attended the Web 2.0 conference in NYC.
Bunn coffee maker was legendendary and it looks like there was still some left in the pot.
Bluetooth modules from several manufacturers were evaluated for use in the dongle, including CSR, Bluegiga and Ezurio.
Early hardware POCs leveraged 3rd party firmware developed by Elm Electronics to support the variety of protocols and interfaces used to implement OBDII.
Though we did have a garage bay, OBDII vehicle emulators that mimicked various sensor output and engine faults made testing much easier!
At the end of 2008 we wanted something more hip than a small garage in Voorheesville. This resulted in us renting an apartment on Willett Street next to Albany’s Washington Park. This was a Carriage House from 1878 that has since been refinished.
This was THE spot to get lunch. Debbie’s Kitchen!!
At some point in 2008 we realized doing a “dark launch” was silly and needed a web presence for the company.
2009 pictures
We made a point of having a robust Internship program to help build our engineering resource pipeline (thanks Joel on Software!) Every year, Kevin and others would attend RPI to recruit students who were interested in working at Carma. We always made a point of trying to stand out from the rest of the mega-corps in an effort to attract like-minded individuals. You may remember that “Is This Good for the COMPANY?” sign from the movie Office Space.
We had a prototype app called Doctor Auto for diagnosing and sharing commmon CEL issues that included a social component.
Our first hardware was a POC of the Bluetooth OBDII dongle with a 3d printed case (codename ‘Sword’). While the ELM327 helped jumpstart development, we ultimately decided to bring the entire firmware stack in-house.
We were outgrowing the Voorheesville garage and the Willett Carriage House by this time. So the hunt for a more permanent location began in the winter of 2009. We ended up initially subletting part of a house/office off Delaware Ave in Delmar, NY. Within a few months we had taken over the entire building and the other tenants moved down the street towards Delaware Plaza. These pictures are from various locations we decided not to lease.
Once we finalized the Delaware Ave location, Kevin wired up the building with some help from his brother Andy for gigabit ethernet connectivity. This was before fast 802.11 wireless was affordable. We spent about a week preparing the building and getting it cleaned up before everyone moved in and we officially consolidated the Voorheesville and Albany locations once and for all. This is when things really started to take off for us.
L to R on moving day: Miranda Sehl, Kevin Holmes, Chris Suozzo, Nick Cosimano, Matt Suozzo, Steven Cosimano and Richard Sehl
Matt Suozzo, Nick Cosimano, and Jeff Frey with our .NET/Windows mobile prototypes from July 2009. We had managed to obtain all of the standard OBDII data, including Check Engine Light codes, and built out a nice interface providing some gauges.
FT engineering team that summer, L to R: Matt Suozzo, Nick Cosimano, Kurt Mattis, Chris Suozzo, Kevin Holmes, Miranda Sehl
Around the Fall of 2009 we started the “Fun Friday” tradition where we would make an effort to get out and enjoy ourselves as a team. These kinds of activities ranged from going on hikes, to seeing movies, carving pumpkins or ordering lunch and watching the IT Crowd. This was also around the time when Jesse Hutton joined the engineering team.
Cotton the cat joined our team around December of ‘09. She was living behind Nick’s mechanic’s shop and was being evicted so the office agreed to take her in and promote her to Head Cat at Carma.
Bernie our Office Manager and manufacturing guru was also a well-known band/venue photographer and he took some good pictures of our office party that year. This was at a bar called Red Square that was then rebranded a few times and is now Loch and Quay.
L to R: Matt Suozzo, Chris Suozzo, Jesse Hutton, Nick Cosimano, Miranda Sehl, Ellen Sinopoli, Tom Sinopoli, Kevin Holmes, Peter Olsen
Prototype VehLink .NET App screenshots
