The idea of being able to measure one’s personal carbon footprint continues to gain steam as the technology to accurately measure such a complicated figure becomes easier to use and more accessible. One of the newest developments on this front has been produced for the ultra hot iPhone/iPod Touch platforms, an application called greenMeter which purports to measure the carbon used by the operation of a car.
Designed by Hunter Research and Technology, and destined to be utilized by hypermilers everywhere, greenMeter uses the accelerometer of the iPhone to measure the exact fuel economy of a vehicle by measuring the coefficient of drag, vehicle weight, rolling resistance, even weather conditions and the current price of fuel. The app converts said information into a dynamic graphical display which can inform a driver of the energy used by the car over a period of time.
Priced at $5.99, greenMeter probably won’t have a huge take rate among the merely curious driver, but six bucks still seems pretty reasonable for anyone truly interested in cleaning up their driving habits—or fiddling with the performance of their vehicle.