Today at CES, a company most people would be familiar with Bosch took to the stage and presented some new products they have been working on. They have really turned their attention to creating smart cities and connected cities, expanding beyond the smart home that we have seen so many products of. Sometimes, it’s the simplest products that catch the eye and the eCall Plug is just that.
The eCall Plus is your typical USB dongle that is inserted into your vehicle’s cigarette lighter. Built into it is a whole bunch of smarts that not only can it detect a crash and call the emergency services but it can monitor driving behaviour.
There have been products in the past that plug into newer vehicle’s OBD port. But with the release of the eCall, we can see that these kind of driver behaviour monitors will become mainstream.
The eCall uses a built in accelerometer and an integrated micro-controller to collect vehicle dynamics data on the basis of acceleration, braking and cornering. At the end of each trip, the eCall transmits the data to the app on your smartphone.
We hope to see insurance companies encouraging us to use these devices that might help us to reduce our premiums based on safe driver behaviours.
No release date on the eCall plug as yet but expect to see it part of a bigger suite of connected cities devices.
[ces18]
