Add-In vs Add-On: What the Two Words Mean and Which One You Need

An Add-In is a piece of software built on the platform's SDK that runs inside the High Point GPS platform, as a new page or panel, or inside the driver app on the driver's device. It reads and writes the fleet's data through the same API everything else uses. Bus Route Progress, Timeline Map, GeoDocs, ELD Info and Ruleset Switcher are Add-Ins. The platform and add-on library partners publish them, and a reseller with developers, High Point GPS builds custom ones, can write an Add-In for a single fleet's workflow. Installing one is a configuration step in the fleet's High Point GPS platform database; nothing goes in the vehicle.

An Add-On is a physical device that connects to the GPS tracking device through its IOX expansion port and sends data up through the GPS tracking device's connection. IOX-BT for Bluetooth tags, IOX-NFCREADERA for driver ID, the Bluetooth sensor gateway and temperature sensors, the PTO reader, cameras that connect through IOX, and the Keyless module are Add-Ons. They are installed in the vehicle by an installer, and the data they produce appears in the High Point GPS platform as new streams the platform's rules and reports can use. Many Add-Ons come with a companion Add-In that displays their data.

If the fleet already has the data and needs to see or use it differently — a better view, a report, a workflow, a document, a driver-facing screen — the answer is an Add-In. If the fleet needs data the GPS tracking device does not have — a temperature, a door, a driver's identity, a PTO state, video — the answer is an Add-On, usually with an Add-In to present it. A parent app for a school bus is an Add-In; the card reader that records the child boarding is an Add-On.

Both are listed on the High Point GPS add-on library, where the distinction is visible in the listing type. Add-Ins are often licensed per database or per vehicle per month; Add-Ons are purchased hardware plus, sometimes, a plan. Custom Add-Ins are a development project against the SDK; custom Add-Ons are rare, since the IOX ecosystem covers most sensors. High Point GPS supplies and installs Add-Ons and builds and deploys Add-Ins for fleets across Quebec, Ontario and the northeastern US.

The names are close enough that fleets mix them up in a purchase order. These examples settle which is which.