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Radar detectors, meet social networking.
Escort, known for its “ticket protection” line of radar detectors, launched Escort Live, which will connect Escort’s existing lineup of radar detectors with a smartphone Android/iOS app that reports radar, laser, and other detection activity as soon as it occurs.
The technology will be made available to owners of Escort products that are about five years old or less, said John Larson, the chief executive of Escort, at a press conference at the CES 2012 show here. The secret? A special power cord with processing logic, Bluetooth and even a USB port that can be used to retrofit the existing Escort detectors, and connect them to the devices.
Since a connected product is as good as its network, how many users can be expected to take advantage of this? “Tens of thousands” of the devices shipped in December, when the product was announced, and about a million devices should be able to be retrofitted, Larson said.
Current Escort owners with compatible detectors can purchase the SmartCord Live power cord, smart phone app and the ESCORT Live subscription through 2012 for a special introductory price of $79.95, the company said. Executives did not reveal the price of the subsequent subscription.
How does the app work? When a user gets an alert on the detector, it then translates the information right on your smartphone, which goes right to the cloud. That information then gets sent down to other users, and then to other radar detectors and smartphones.
The app reports your current speed, and interfaces with the Escort Defender network of red light cameras and other incidents. The app can then flag the user via an audio alert if he or she is traveling 5 MPH, 10 MPH, or other speeds above the limit.
If radar, laser, or some other alert is detected ahead of the driver’s car, an audio warning sounds and a warning flashes on the smartphone, with the type of alert and the estimated distance ahead.
A live map mode also alerts drivers where speed traps exist, both using audio and visual alerts. “It is designed to give you information that you need to know,” Larson said.
A heat map reports an incident with a red dot, then turns from red to yellow after 30 minutes. “You don’t care if someone got a ticket there six months ago, you care if someone gave them ticket 20 minutes ago,” Larson said.
Drivers can choose what distance they’re alerted at, and what flags they wish to know about: red light cameras, speed traps, and other hazards, as well as different types of radar to sense.
The Escort app also includes live traffic, powered by Google. Unfortunately, the system does not track driver speed and direction, reporting back the sort of connected, live traffic information that TomTom provides, for example. “That might be a version 2.0 feature,” Larson said. Escort also tipped other products that it plans to ship, including Escort QuickStart, which uses the smartphone to provide remote starting capabilities. The app also allows multiple vehicles to be tracked; location-based geofences can also be set up. QuickStart is available now, however.
Escort also announced Escort MobileTV. “We are designing and enginering hardware for mobile GTV, meaning that at 60 to 65 MPH you can get a clear picture of networks right there,” Larson said.
So far its just for the iPad, but Escort plans to introduce hardware for new vehicles on the road, Just 45 major U.S markets are covered, for now. “By the end of the year we look for the product to be out and launched, and more content to be available over time.”
Escort also plans a SmartOffice product for fleet workers and other road warriors. A mobile, ruggedized tablet (at 228 x 190 x 30 mm), it will be powered by Intel’s Oak Trail processor, and run either wither Windows 7 or Android 4.0, according to a company flyer. A 8.9-inch LCD touchscreen will hide Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. Onboard, it will include a Windows Office suite, front and rear cameras, Bluetooth, a barcode reader, a credit-card reader, and even tap into the OBDII diagnostic port with the vehicle to report vehicle problems and provide fleet tracking. “One device, one connectivity fee,” Larson said.
Mark Hachman Mark joined ExtremeTech in 2001 as the news editor, after rival CMP/United Media decided at the time that online news did not make sense in the new millennium.
Mark stumbled into his career after discovering that writing the great American novel did not pay a monthly salary, and that his other possible career choice, physics, required a degree of mathematical prowess that he sorely lacked.
Mark talked his way into a freelance assignment at CMP’s Electronic Buyers’ News, in 1995, where he wrote the first story on Native Signal Processing, an Intel-based software multimedia initiative that later became the topic of a Fortune cover story and …
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