cloudyourcar

[cloudyourcar]

Can you nowadays imagine a city of any size without traffic jams? I mean in the closest 10 years, and not in the far future? In the times when a car is still the most popular means of transport. The answer is no, I suppose. It's like trying to imagine a world without hurricanes - highly impossible. City traffic is another element, and extreme sometimes, so we should see it as such.

Still, the effort we put to change it is titanic, to improve it - extreme and in the end - pointless. Lots of terrific engineering ideas allows to respond to traffic difficulties. Monitoring systems, adaptive and live traffic lights or regulation systems for inbound and outbound city traffic are just some of the examples we have in range

Those are great for many reasons. They are commonly used in cities, so travelling is possible in spite of the increasing number of vehicles and commuters. However, these solutions are not perfect. We all try to 'react' and 'research', but we base only on the samples of reality. Thus, we make wrong conclusions of the phenomenon that we can’t actually control. It seems like fighting nature's force rather to use it's potential.

Let’s ask what if? What if we tried a different approach? What if we decided to analyse this phenomenon not locally, but using global methods? What if we implemented a big scale research that requires millions of sensors and data collectors, and finally, a system that would be able to analyse gathered data? What if it’s not just wishful thinking but an actual project possible to realise?

Big Data Analytics includes trends analyses and data mining. Big Data assumes gathering all available data from many fields and sources. There are no samples, medians, etc., but factual data about factors that may influence city traffic. We can collect and combine data about various events like: vehicles localisation, driving trajectory, traffic accidents, weather, holidays’ calendar or even department stores’ open hours.

Imagine how many significant correlations we can reveal by such an approach? This way may help us finally understand the traffic and change our point of view of this common city characteristic. Thus, we can make predictions and accurately react on time.

You may think that this is an idle wish, but this technology is real and available at your fingertips. You can find more Big Data Analytics examples in the book above. This book was my inspiration to write about big data, but the second tiger was a real product that it describes - Cloud Your Car. I believe that Cloud Your Car in cooperation with Big Data is a sensational example of the next generation product.

Cloud Your Car allows us to take a closer look to the route traffic as it is. It collects most of the core data that are not available to measure in any previous approach. When we combine together vehicle's position, driving quality and route characteristics with information mentioned earlier, we can receive a whole picture of how 'street noise' looks like. From this point I can say that we are just a step behind predicting the future!

Now, imagine that we are able to collect these data from most of the vehicles on routes. Shortly, the data and analyses will transform into planning only right urban models of how to design and organise transport, routes and city centers. This means cities that actually suit us, not the reverse.

by: Robert Szewczyk

Wersja po polsku.

[cloudyourcar]

From BHA to Indiegogo - the rise of Hardware Start-ups

Till the February 10th 2014 many said that Hardware is the new Software and that the future of Hardware startups is shining brightly. Even more so, after Google bought Nest for as little as some billion dollars. The truth is that not many teams choose the tough journey towards the development, design and production of hardware. But some teams like us, have gathered from all over Europe, to meet and accelerate their business thorough the Berlin Hardware Accelerator (BHA).

In November BHA teams have been meeting on workshops and events. Many of our fellow BHA teams have started to gather funds for production ramp up through crowd-funding platforms. This is a great way to enable the community to bring to life our hardware solutions. Pockethernet, the Swiss army knife for Network administrators is one of the excellent examples . They are doing incredibly well in their Indiegogo campaign, with almost 200% of their goal reached and more than 700 backers. Alima - which is the smart indoor air quality monitor for home is also live on Indiegogo. Very soon, because on Valentines Day '14 another  BHA startup is launching their Indiegogo campaign. Brightup – an intuitive and smart light automation system, which is very promising and one of the best in their niche.

Of course these are only some examples of hardware start ups that are, like us, working hard to bring the customer great solutions.

We wish you all the best guys!

[cloudyourcar]

GSM connectivity SIM & considerations

We are all used to cellular connectivity provided by local carriers via plastic SIM cards they give us. Did you know that the technology where a plastic SIM can be eliminated exists since GSM network was invented? First of all we have to realize that the core functionality of SIM cards is to identify your mobile phone in carrier's network. That's all. Unfortunately, as long as the hardware is so separated from GSM connectivity service some extra effort, like plastic SIM card placement, is necessary.

Apple revolutionized music distribution industry combining hardware, software and music publishers into one product - an iPhone. But they haven't managed to eliminate the need for a plastic SIM.

Amazon proved it is doable while releasing Kindle 3G. Did you try that one? There is no plastic SIM card, although its built-in 3G module has a capability to identify the unit into cellular network so you can download new books anywhere in the world. The point is that Amazon also created something even more important - the Whispernet.

Whispernet is nothing more than a stack of agreements with 3G carriers across the world. Thanks to those agreements, Kindle can work almost anywhere in the world. You don't have to sign a contract with local carrier, right? It's because Amazon already did that. You pay for data transfer when you buy books or the reader itself. Connectivity works seamlessly in the background without user's contribution or effort. This is the future. For more deailed info about Amazon's Whispernet go here http://amzn.to/1exu9yv

Although Kindle's case is pretty obvious and seems easy to implement, the truth is pretty sad. We were told that we have to care for connectivity on our own, and we believed that. Amazon has proven that connectivity can work way easier. I am waiting for Apple to achieve the same sooner or later. Cloud Your Car has it already in place!

At Cloud Your Car we believe that you, the user, shouldn't ever worry of product stability and robustness. You shouldn't be forced to sign any contract or to understand how internals work in order to start using the product. We believe in a zero-configuration approach.

We strongly believe that in most business cases the ease of deployment and use is crucial.

That's why we decided to take advantage of best practices from Apple, which is the high quality hardware with easy to use software resulting in insanely great product. We also took best practices from Amazon, which are seamless 3G connectivity, no contracts and ease of simplicity of buying. We all love the Amazon's 1-Click Ordering, don’t we?

Anyway, every Cloud Your Car unit has to transfer significant amount of data via GSM carriers. In case of US, it uses both AT&T and T-Mobile networks. In Europe it is a wide range of over 50 carriers. In other countries like South Africa, Brazil or India, we have already contracted leading network operators. In order to keep it running, we are forced to charge users monthly for every Cloud Your Car unit in use. We are still working on our pricing strategy, but we expect to keep in range of flat $10-$15 worldwide. It's a pay-per-use model. You can stop paying anytime with no obligations or commitments.

This product was designed for you.

[cloudyourcar]

Cloud Your Car is moving out... and moving in to a new office! Check the photos from the last week, you will find them on Flickr.

[cloudyourcar]

Last Saturday Cloud Your Car has been presented on the hy.co Demo stage in Berlin. CEO, Patryk has given the attendees a great pitch gathering lots of positive feedback and followers on Twitter and Facebook. See the photo gallery on Flickr

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10 biggest pains that can be solved by Connected Car - case study

The first thing that came up and which we researched more thoroughly was the case of companies that offer Wrap Advertising in different ways. The biggest pain in this business is that they offer services that probably affect ‘something’ but they can not really measure it.

Connected Cars  - How can connected car systems measure the impact of “Wrap” advertising?

This case interested us the most, so we decided to check how the business looks: what exactly is offered on the market and how and where connected car solution might help. Here are our conclusions:

4 kinds of wrap advertising offers available.

1. Wrap advertising companies that focus on graphic project and production. This is perfect for corporations or fleet companies that would like to make a use of the sales surface on vehicles. This should raise the company's recognition among people in general and of course among its customers. Additionally ,this should have a positive impact on sales or at the very least a response from the market at large.

2. Organizations that look for and catalog drivers from a myriad of locations that are willing to let their car be wrapped in an advertisement for which they will receive a fixed monthly stipend. Cooperation with these companies means that drivers have a dedicated GPS receiver installed in their vehicles to monitor their car's locations and time. Unfortunately this data is not provided to the ad publisher so it also might be fraudulent or faked. These companies are not responsible for the visual aspect of the ad.

3. Companies that cover all aspects of the projects and provide full service. These organizations take care of the visual part, realization and sometimes even measurement of its impact on potential customers. It can not be overlooked that they may cooperate with companies mentioned in 2nd point.

http://www.houckads.com/

4. Public transport companies that rent space on their buses for wrap advertising. The main advantage for the publisher is that public transport is instantly monitored and the ad's impact can be measured more precisely than in the first or second examples above.

Talking numbers:

For example there are about 30 organizations located in New York City and a similar number in Los Angeles and just for the comparison 58 organizations in the whole United Kingdom.

You can learn more from the white papers: http://www.adsonwheels.com/files/ARD_WhitePaper.pdf

How is wrap advertising measured so far? Connected cars use in wrap advertising business.

Wrapped ad companies also admit that a connected cars system is important for their business to evolve and increase the value proposition of their offer.

"The vehicles can be equipped with GPS tracking. This provides detailed vehicle information and in some cases, audited reports necessary for monitoring the effectiveness of an advertising campaign. Accordingly, there is still an extremely limited supply of available data on the efficiency or impression rates attained by mobile vehicle advertisements."

“Transit media measurement is a constantly evolving and improving process. The Traffic Audit Bureau for Media Measurement (TAB) launched a new methodology designed to generate Truckside and mobile display impressions by linking Global Positioning Satellite (GPS) tracking technology with Federal Highway Administration traffic density data. “

“Many third-party agencies put a GPS unit on the advertising car and one requires the driver to get auto insurance via the company.“

“You will have to agree to have a Global Positioning System (GPS) installed in your car and leave it on. This is the way that the company tracks the number of miles you have driven. There will be a minimum number required (usually 800 to 1000 miles a month) and the contract can be voided if you don't drive the required number of miles each month.”

Fleet cars, transport vehicles or companies fleet are usually fitted with GPS trackers and some so-called positioning system. So for PR companies or wrap ads that based on publishers car fleet the problem of measuring the ad's impact might not exist. On the other hand this is necessary for the ad provider to see which campaigns work better than others.

An alternative for connecting cars and measuring wrap advertising's effectiveness is counting passing cars and pedestrians who might notice the ad. It is similar to the old method of traffic density measurement. The best is of course both solutions combined.

If the campaign refers to the event promotion the campaign's success might be verified by number of tickets sold or in general survey.

Survey research among consumers who might have seen the ad.

Billboard advertising audiences can also be measured through driver surveys. A sample of drivers are asked about the routes traveled as shown on a map, and a transparent overlay is then placed on the top of each driver's map to reveal billboard structures that were passed

As you might noticed these are not modern or automatic analysis methods, this means that there is an important need for automation of this process.

What effect do wrap ads have?

The Visual Impact of Trucks in Traffic, showed:

96% noticed truck side ads

98% said fleet graphics created a positive image for the company or the product

96% said fleet graphics had more impact than billboards

75% of people developed an impression about a company and its products

29% would base a buying decision on the impression

One of the biggest advantages of sponsored vehicles is the word-of-mouth effect and buzz effect the publisher may achieve. A well prepared wrap campaign interests people and makes them talk about the ad, product and brand. What may increase the campaign's efficiency is education of the people who directly carry out the project. By educating each driver about their sponsor, a branded message can be delivered to a specific audience where they live, work and play.

Prices

Single vehicle wrap costs start from $3,500 and range up to $5,000 and can last for three to five years, though some sources report that the cost may be lower. A vehicle wrap in Phoenix, AZ costs about as much as one month of billboard advertising but lasts much longer! 3.000$-4.000$. You may also find prices starting from $800 to $3.200.

If a company decides to hire more drivers this would be an additional monthly cost of $400 per vehicle. This calculation is based on the driver's payment for a full car wrap, lesser amounts applies for a partial car wrap or a window wrap.

General rates for wrapping in public transport.

Depending on wrap range, the prices are $150 up to $35,000 per ad per 4 week period.

Generally range of rates depends on timing and market.

Wrap Advertising takes 19% of average marketing budget in organizations and it doubled in 2003 to 2.09B$. The numbers are of course more impressive in US where in 2007 transit advertising budget was $800mln and $1.2bln in 2014.

Check also the full report: http://www.crankycreative.com/vehicle-wraps/

Audience

Wrap ads get from 30,000 up to 70,000 views per day. The Trucking Association & Outdoor Advertising association of America reports that in a single year, a delivery truck make 16 million impressions on consumers over 75% have a positive influence on customers. According to the Outdoor Advertising Association of America, wrap ads represent the lowest CPM (cost per thousand impression) among all types of outdoor advertisements. Mobile (wrap) advertising it thought to be the most effective and efficient form of outdoor advertising, reaching more consumers than any other form of outdoor advertising and and does it for a lower price.

At least 95% of American citizens are in range of mobile ads. Everyday they are reached by media targeting vehicle drivers and passengers. The average American has traveled 302 miles in the past 7 days during this time he/she is exposed to wrap ads on trucks, cars and buses: this allows fleet wrap advertising to boost name recognition 15 times better than any other form of advertising! In comparison there are 5.2 B passengers (single rides) in UK commuting everyday in public transport and being “exposed” to mobile ads influence.

According the research conducted in London public transport: http://www.cbsoutdoor.co.uk/Our-Media/Bus/

73% of London commuters prefer buses with advertising

80% of consumers have responded to a bus advert

86% of bus passengers and 91% of London bus passengers can spontaneously recall a bus advert

65% adults have noticed bus advertising in the last week, and that number grows to 74% in London.

Suggestions

The most important things to fix or add for improving the attractiveness of mobile media should be:

1. Developing an audience measurement system and tools for measuring ROI

2. Adding more innovative media opportunities, such as digital formats.

3. Transit advertisements should be better targeted and provide accountability metrics, more updated and available data and being able to more accurately measure impressions

4.Provide more demographic analysis and definitely provide a more obtainable means of tracking success and ROI

5. Reliable, third party verified delivery metrics

6. Having a measurement system would be extremely helpful in getting serious clients

7. Provide effective and believable research and not just ridership numbers

Summary

Obviously, the market for wrap advertising analytics is bound to be disrupted sooner or later. All parties lack a simple tool for monitoring, analyzing and managing their ad campaigns, although such tools for online advertising have existed for over a decade and are a known commodity.

Imagine you run a 3-month campaign on 300 vehicles in cooperation with a trusted and experienced company providing high-quality wrap advertising. At the end of the campaign you likely have no idea what kind of effects it achieved, nor any breakdown of the statistics to explain a lack of results. How can someone justify paying for such a campaign without knowing the end results? Were those cars really driving 70% of the day? Or maybe one of them was broken down and out of commission for a whole week? There is large number of issues that affect campaigns, both directly and indirectly. Being aware of them is the key to success.

Fortunately the tool is already here. Cloud Your Car is an extremely easy to use tool that tracks cars in real time, providing useful analytics of and insights on your campaign. The advantage of Cloud Your Car is its portability and fact that it can be deployed in a large number of vehicles in just a snap. Ask your wrap advertising company about Cloud Your Car,  it is highly possible that they already have invested in it and can provide you with detailed data, reports and charts.

For more info check those links:

Book: Transit advertising in Europe

An article: Small business - advertising expenses

Infographic: Vehicle wraps

[cloudyourcar]

Gray Fleet Management - Why are there no tools on the market?

A company-wide focus on having exclusively gray fleet drivers can be really beneficial for business, however, a gray fleet may also be hard to manage properly.

Gray Fleet - A Brief Description

“Gray fleet” is a term applied to drivers that use their private cars, which are physically owned by the employee, for business as a part of the company fleet. Thus, a full time employee may use his private car at work to do a job outsourced by a company to a variety of independent drivers.

A company-wide focus on having exclusively gray fleet drivers can be really beneficial for business, however, a gray fleet may also be hard to manage properly.

Gray fleet  - Let’s Start with the Benefits  

The basic advantage that gray fleet drivers bring to an organization is a low cost of investment. With this method, a company does not have to invest a large amount of money upfront to buy or lease cars. The average cost of a car lease is from $200 up to $600 per month, plus running costs: fuel, minor repairs, scheduled maintenance etc. Of course, the costs depend on car type and lease terms but at first blush, gray fleets seem to be the cheaper option for companies, especially if reimbursement rates per miles/day etc. are taken into consideration. The rate conditions may differ and it can be higher for the first 10.000 miles and then gradually drop. Of course, a particular gray fleet's terms may include additional “alert” expenses but it is not universally the case, it depends entirely on the conditions included in agreement between the organization and the driver(s).

If a company decides to operate and grow its business on the backs of gray fleet drivers, it should keep it in mind to carefully prepare the contracts, rules and conditions to attract responsible drivers and let the gray fleet and the business itself grow. Properly motivated gray fleet drivers may turn out to be better employees than full time drivers that operate company cars. Psychologically speaking, one cares more about his own property than another person's, especially when it seems to lack any personal owner as a car belonging to an organization or company often can. To this end, one fixed rate can motivate gray fleet drivers to take care of the car to prolong the lifespan of the vehicle. Company owned vehicle fleets sometimes require on-the-spot maintenance due to mistreatment, so organizations may also save on so-called “preservation costs.”

Gray fleet  - Drawbacks

Once a company decides to try a gray fleet, at least as a temporary solution, they will face numerous problems that it brings along. In companies where fleet management is important, or a core part of the business, a gray fleet is recommended only in a crisis and only in the short term. Why? For trivial reasons - gray fleet drivers are very hard to manage properly.

First of all, a gray fleet's core attribute is that the vehicle is not the company's property so without an owner agreement it can not be monitored by any method in the company's fleet management system.

The organization has limited abilities to regulate and optimize the gray fleet drivers' work - accordingly to company standards and procedures

Limited influence on drivers' trip or annual reports (mileage, car usage, working hours, route fees)

Submitted reports can not be corroborated with any outside analysis or data points.

Gray Fleet – Reducing the Cash Leak

In the era of the internet of things, the technology and optimization of company expenses is essentially a requirement in order to plan even small investments in advance and monitor the return(s) they bring. Up to half of the money spent on gray fleets can be wasted due to a lack of proper management of, or control over, gray fleet drivers. ‘What is it that actually raises the running costs of gray fleets in organizations?' you may ask. Generally there are four most common factors which can be easily prevented with a little help from technology:

Personal errands and trips during working hours

Over-usage of the car when the company covers annual vehicle maintenance costs

Not planned or optimized routes

Falsified or inaccurate mileage reports

As I mentioned above there are limited ways to control the expenses on gray fleets. Gray fleet drivers' costs may be calculated according to:

Fixed day/annual rate

Fixed mileage rate

Mileage  limits per day or month

2-step mileage rates

Reported  mileage driven

Real mileage driven during working hours - this applies only when the gray fleet is supported by fleet management solution

The easiest way to reduce gray fleet costs is to apply technology that allows the organization to manage any kind of vehicle in the fleet and does not require any installation or owner permission, allowing it to be used in any sort of fleet arrangement, including gray fleets.

There are just a few fleet management solutions that are recommended to gray fleet management because these solutions do not require installation and are dedicated to monitoring the car conditions or driver’s habits. Mojio, Automatic, and Cloud Your Car.

Two first examples instantly send the driving dynamics and car's condition via Bluetooth to the driver’s smart-phone, thus real travel data is gathered and may be sent as trip reports to the organization. The data gathered is also secured from fraud or accidental erasing to not lose the entirety of the crucial trip information. Cloud Your Car works differently, as it is strictly designed for fleet management. Cloud Your Car offers plug-and-play hardware, - a tracker - and an application for the fleet manager and organization. Generally, Cloud Your Car tracker is powered from car’s cigarette lighter socket and does not require a fixed installation or the car owner's permission like traditional trackers. The plug automatically sends the trip report to a remote server, thus there is no risk of fraud or data erasure, accidental or otherwise. Another Cloud Your Car advantage is the software which helps the organization optimize gray fleet costs, shows where money might be wasted, how high the risk of accident for the company as a whole and each individual driver is, who drives the most efficiently and needs another driver's ed course, etc. With easy access to such records and analysis, the company's human resources department can easily calculate working hours or annual bonuses and it can also be used in the financial department as a wages calculator.  

With such a system, every one of a company's departments can have automatic access to (gray) fleet reports and benefit from them, thus the fleet management solution also optimizes work in all the offices of the business simultaneously.

It should be obvious that in a crisis, measurement and analysis help a company to effectively and wisely manage their resources and make the right business decisions based on accurate data. What is important in this case is that this measurement must not overwhelm the business's core activities, it must be automatic and easy in use to save time, energy and money.

[cloudyourcar]

GLONASS - what is better about GLONASS than GPS?

First of all, Glonass is a space-based satellite navigation system analogous to the GPS but operated by the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces. It is widely considered to be an alternative to the GPS system...

GLONASS introduction

First of all, Glonass is a space-based satellite navigation system analogous to the GPS but operated by the Russian Aerospace Defense Forces. It is widely considered to be an alternative to the GPS system - Global positioning system released for public use by the American Army. In spite of the now obvious redundancy, the Glonass system was created as an alternative to the American GPS system. Surprisingly we are now able to benefit more from cooperative work based on those two systems simultaneously rather than just one of them. Basically, Glonass is no different than GPS when it comes to features, global coverage and also precision. The Glonass development process began in the the Soviet Union in 1976, and it was restored and finished in the early 2000s under Vladimir Putin's presidency when it became a top government priority. The Glonass restoration program was one of the biggest in the Russian Federal Space Agency and by 2010 Glonass had achieved full - 100% coverage of Russia’s territory and also a full orbital constellation of 24 satellites thus enabling global coverage.

GLONASS System Design

1. Control segment - This segment monitors the satellites' status, determines the ephemerides (the locations of various celestial bodies used for navigation) and the satellite clock offsets according to GLONASS and UTC time.

2. Space segment - This is the part of GLONASS system located in space; that is - the satellites. The segment consists three orbital planes with eight satellites per plane which gives a total of 24 satellites. In comparison, the GPS systems consists of six orbital planes with a minimum of three satellites per plane and 28-31 satellites constantly working.

3. User segment - This is the equipment that allows tracking and receiving of the satellites' signals. This part of GLONASS / GPS systems depends on the users need and available technology.

GPS core info

GPS was the first system released to the masses and available for everyday users. Now it is commonly implemented in electronics and it is a bit cheaper compared to individual GLONASS receivers, thanks to the popularity of the the GPS system. The truth is that Glonass hasn’t been very widely installed in tracking devices or fleet management systems which are available globally, in spite of the numerous transport companies that use some kind of fleet management system and probably have transport in Russia. Trackers operating only on GPS system work very well in Russian territory, but as elsewhere there are of course blind GPS spots. Having (supplemental) GLONASS receivers resolves this issue in Russian territory and allows for 100 percent coverage. The latest changes in Russian commercial and import law regulate the importation of electronic devices, so from now on every electronic device to be sold in Russia that allows positioning must operate on GLONASS. The consequence might be clear, most old types of trackers offered and operating on Russian territory must be exchanged or improved with a GLONASS receiver.

In spite of the fact that there are 31 GPS satellites and 24 GLONASS satellites in orbit and both systems have full independent global coverage, there are still many dead spots where accurate positioning is not possible. Private users' and companies' demands have dramatically increased in recent years, now requirements for electronics features and quality is really high. Currently there is more than one type of tracker - GPS receivers - commonly used GPS driving navigation made users believe that other types of trackers would show the position exactly the same detailed way. Personal GPS trackers which were made to operate apart from auto routes or sidewalks can’t use route maps. Usually it’s software that eliminates bugs in positioning and inaccurate locations. If the software does not include road maps in the system the location sent from the receiver might be difficult to understand and incorrect if the connection conditions are poor. Generally, the more satellites that are visible to the receiver and the less noise around the receiver such as trees, buildings etc. the more precisely the location is calculated. Sending more GPS or only GLONASS satellites to allow for better positioning would definitely improve the precision but the investment is rather long term and might in fact be unprofitable form the very beginning. The solution for this is cooperation of both systems -  GPS and Glonass in unison. So, the market for electronic components offers GPS and GLONASS combined receivers to be installed in the hardware which vastly improves positioning.

Since the importance of fleet management and transport tracking has increased Glonass has also become more attractive for logistics companies. The market has changed, as well as it’s needs so there was no more place for imprecise localization and unreliable GPS tracking systems in this particular niche. Each electronic device that allows localization services and is about to be offered on the Russian market are obligated to cooperate with Glonass system and should be equipped with Glonass receivers.

Trackers equipped with both GPS and GLONASS receivers may offer the users the best quality in positioning; a position which is based on information from 48+ satellites! Not only that, it gives 100% coverage in Russian territory and offers similar precision in other parts of Asia and Europe.

GLONASS in addition to GPS provides significant advantages like: increased satellite signal observations, better spatial distribution of visible satellites, reduced DOP factors  - Horizontal and Vertical Dilution of Precision, faster RTK results - decreased occupation times which means getting the location fix faster.

In order to determine a position, traditional GPS receivers needed to track at least four satellites. In combination with GLONASS the required minimum of tracked satellites is five, just one additional GLONASS satellite. With all the potentially available GPS and GLONASS satellites positioning performance in urban canyons and other locations with restricted visibility, such as forested areas improves, as more satellites are visible in the non-blocked portions of the sky.

GLONASS receiver in mass-market consumer products

Every geek probably knows that recently released Smart-phones have installed GPS and GLONASS systems. For those of us who may have recently been living under a rock: Apple started inputting GLONASS beginning with the iPhone 4s. The same applies to Samsung Smart-phones, HTC, Huawei, Motorola, Nokia, Sony, Sony Ericsson etc. A large list of these brands' phone models already support Glonass. What's strange in the case of GLONASS is that fleet management companies and their tracker suppliers have not invested in this product improvement.

There are just a few fleet management companies that offer trackers with GLONASS in their system, nevertheless most of these trackers are imported and made for the mass-market, not dedicated to a specific group or company as it should be.

Mass-produced Chinese GPS + GLONASS trackers are made with poor quality components, are bulky and mostly dedicated for inside car installation only. The same trackers might be offered by more than just one fleet management company, so there is almost no difference in these companies' fleet management offers. In any case, the same issues and problems with trackers may occur and the most important thing is that the particular company has no impact on the trackers themselves nor on how they actually work.

I have found a pretty impressive number of mass-produced GPS + GLONASS trackers, each are widely used in fleet management systems and companies. Most of them are produced in China or Germany and rely on permanent installation somewhere within the vehicle.

Fleet GPS Tracker + GLONASS support T3 by Meitrack’s

T3 includes GPS and GLONASS tracking functions, at least the list of functions mentioned in the product description is incredible long. Let’s point out the most important ones:

Available GPS and GSM tracking, means that the positioning is also based on cellular positioning data to improve precision. Tracking by SMS; when sent, the trackers sends back the link with the actual position. Tracking on demand - must be initiated to receive the object location. Tracking in time or distance interval, useful and detailed, but might be expensive. The usage of data transfer increases 300 or 400%. Of course you will find also motion and acceleration sensors, Geo-fence alarm, low battery, SOS, speeding, tow alarms and more. As you can see it does everything but my experience says that just ⅓ of the features will ever be used, the rest are useless or non-functional.

STEPP III / TFOX-LT

The most important details about this tracker are that it is one of the smallest on the market, has low power consumption, and is equipped with GPS, GLONASS and Galileo satellites receivers. Embedded software allows it to initiate transfer alarm messages, additionally various sensors like voice announcement, movement detection sensors, distress buttons and others may be optionally installed.

GS - TRAQ with GPS & GLONASS

Supports Glonass, GPS, Galileo and Compass satellites systems. Allows working up to 24 hours, equipped with sensitive GPS chipset SiRF star - III and dual-standard NV08C module of Navis, movement - detecting sensor, Geo-fence system, signaling about excessive speeds, antenna disconnection, ignition, shutting down or low battery.

Aplicom and A5 GLX

A5 GLX GPS + GLONASS trackers, it is a heavy duty telematics unit that may be integrated with most professional fleet management applications. All its features can be configured giving the flexibility to fit various customers needs. Available configuration tools provide wireless modification and configuration. The A5 GLX GLONASS tracker is available and integrated with fleet management systems operating globally like: GpsGate, Helpten, Sledenje, T.U.C.S. (We'll be described in the next article).

Cloud Your Car Plug - GLONASS + GPS receiver

It can not be overlooked that Cloud Your Car Plug also supports GLONASS and GPS giving the user precision in localization and a short waiting time when getting the satellite fix. The advantage of the Cloud Your Car Plug and app is that the hardware is strictly dedicated for the software we develop, so full control, cooperation and responsibility is provided for the user like in no other fleet management system that uses mass-produced, generic GPS + GLONASS trackers.

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Apply for free device!

We're running a limited set of free trials in order to test our product in different real life scenarios. After the free 14-day trial you can either return the devices or keep it forever! There are no hidden fees or automatic renewals involved with free sample device. 

As we're building Cloud Your Car for you, our prospective customers, your opinion is most valuable to us. If you're lucky you'll get the unit and you'll be asked to fill a feedback form twice: once in the middle and once at the end of the trial period.  

The trial batch is limited to 150 devices. Don't hesitate, be the first and apply now!

Cheers,  Cloud Your Car Team

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Merry Christmas

This is the first Christmas for Cloud Your Car and it is especially important for us because we have you supporting us for a year now. I am extremely proud and happy that this project has met so much enthusiasm and support from you and other followers. We could not do this without you waiting for the next news release, e-mails with feedback and questions that push us to work and think harder to finally provide an excellent product. I believe in it very much and I know you too.

So for this year Christmas and New Year to come I wish you as much positive emotions, feelings and support in everyday life as I am receiving from you. Support and enthusiasm for your ideas and goals from people that surrounds you, from young and elders, from wise-men and those ordinary, from idols and fans you meet everyday and occasionally.


I would like to also sincerely 'Thank you' for over a year-long support and the feeling of having a goal to provide you what we promised.

Hear you soon… stay tuned.

Happy Holidays!

Patryk CEO of Cloud Your Car

[cloudyourcar]

Watches for developers

Chronos, watch titled as being wireless development tools in a watch. Last week Paweł, Michał and Olek found them on a Black Friday sale and bought them without much hesitation. What did they find interesting about it and how exactly they plan to develop with their new watches?

Paweł was the one that found it so his plan has been probably considered twice, and he actually has two ideas:

#1 is to construct a discreet remote control system for mobile robot via accelerometer signals. Implemented gesture recognition might be also used for access control, for example to unlock doors.

#2 idea is to build a sport watch with additional belt to measure blood pressure, unfortunately the belt is quite expensive, so Paweł is considering constructing his own blood pressure belt.

Olek explained his idea shortly: “I bought the watch to have a remote control for my computer”.

Meanwhile I learned that Piotr has been developing for Chronos Watches with a friend. They have been analyzing the SimpliciTI protocol under diverse radio power.  You can read more about the project.

Learn about Chronos: http://www.ti.com/tool/ez430-chronos&DCMP=Chronos&HQS=Other+OT+chronos

[cloudyourcar]

New engineer on Cloud Your Car board!

This week we gained a new team member - Piotr who joined our team as the Python Frontend Developer.

Piotr will be strictly cooperating with Michał, both are working on backend and frontend of the Cloud Your Car API and the Web App. Wish him good luck and get know more about Piotr from his LinkedIn profile.

From the very beginning we wanted to show Piotr our hospitality and how cool we are! Aren't we? ;) So on Wednesday the 4th of December we organized lunch with Board Games. We went totally crazy, we ordered pizzas, pasta, salads, coke and brought GAMES!

Spending few hours on playing, making jokes, laughing and just having fun was relaxing and charged full up our lifes' batteries. We had at least 5 games propositions and many ideas what to play with, but definitely the number one game was Jungle Speed, than we played 'hands' and 'well known names' on post-it cards, known from Tarantino's movie Inglourious Basterds

It's hard to say who had the highest score, but who cares about scoring...

Piotr, welcome on board!

Check Cloud Your Car photostream on Flickr.

[cloudyourcar]

As we're approaching the Cloud Your Car Plug's release we are conducting a series of tests. One of them was making sure the LiPo cells don't pose a fire hazard when short-circuited or overheated.

First the batteries were heated in an oven for a couple of hours and they passed the tests. Then, standing on the balcony all together we caused a short circuit to see if the battery would catch fire or explode. We could not resist to record it, so here you can see exactly what happened and how the LiPo cell reacted.

Conclusion: we don't have to worry that our device may accidentally set a car on fire.

[cloudyourcar]

Last week four from our Cloud Your Car team have been at Disrupt in Berlin and later at Websummit in Dublin, sound very busy, isn’t it?

From Monday and Tuesday Anna, Patryk and Kosma have been in Berlin. On Wednesday and Thursday in Dublin with Michał. All together say that it was great to go there and meet so many inspiring business people who were interested in Cloud Your Car solution and our team. Many of them left valuable comments that inspire to further work. It was also wonderful to meet so many startups in one place, have the opportunity to talk with founders, co-founders, investors and potential users. Participating in such events is sometimes the only way to meet and confront own idea with important business people and entrepreneurs known from headlines.  

Generally, the opinion among Cloud Your Car is very positive but there is also a coin reverse and personal point of view.

Anna described TechCrunch Disrupt as being focused on developing business and business networking, what was challenging and inspiring. Websummit is about startups lifestyle, fun and networking with each other. But basically it’s a great idea. Of course there is always something that could be better like bigger stands spots. It was so crowded so people were stepping each other feet, moreover we had no chairs to sit down and rest even for a while after all day standing and pitching the product. Generally, both events were organized on high level technically and essentially - people they have invited as experts.

Patryk mentioned about broken coffee machine at Disrupt, what is kind of funny because the one in Cloud Your Car office also doesn’t want to cooperate with us. Patryk was really impressed with conditions at the event: lightning, sound, acoustics, amazing and professional people that visited Cloud Your Car stand. The thing that disappointed Patryk a bit was numerous of sub-events that took place during Websummit. Generally his expectations were slightly different than occurred. Definitely, at TechCrunch Disrupt one could meet more investors and people from target businesses but Websummit was more about networking with other startups.

Check also Patryk’s private blog @disruptingtelematics.tumblr.com

Michał have been at Websummit in Dublin and as always plainly shared his opinion and described how it was. The first thing he mentioned was good food, atmosphere and stage pitches which were very well prepared, professional and worth taking part in all. He underlined his unfortunately missed Elon Musk speech, what was important for him to listen to. What else to grumble about? Poor wifi connection, no chairs to the rest, a lot of software houses on the micro stages instead of hardware startups, too many personal pitches than products. Finally, the number of events with limited seats that required to sign up and book a seat and related to excessive mailing from Websummit. It was really hard to find the right e-mail with the ticket in it.

Kosma as always was open and direct, he underlines the importance of meeting all of these people taking part in Disrupt, to see what they are actually doing and how their idea turned to be a successful business that earns. He was impressed with conditions provided by organizators like well working wifi but also made fun of broken coffee machine and people standing in miles long queues. Kosma also mentioned an impressing talk with a guy who has understood our product way better than we do. If they switched roles, the guy would pitch as well as Kosma if not better. It’s essential when you meet someone who doesn’t need to be smashed with information to understand your startup. Being at American event in German country you expect to at least speak some German, but people communicate mostly in English. Surprisingly there were many Poles and people speaking Polish like a guy from kebab on the street or John Biggs! The event happening fast, intense and was really tiring. There was no time to see the city, except of some tram stations and roads. After the second day Kosma was on his last legs but happy and motivated.

Want to get to know Kosma better? Check his Disrupt memories on his blog @hackerideals.tumblr.com/

Check the photo relation on Flickr

[cloudyourcar]

On Thursday the 17th of October 2013 Paweł‚ has finished his neural network for the next Plug tests. The past two weeks Paweł and Lidia have been gathering...

On Thursday the 17th of October 2013 Paweł has finished his neural network for the next Plug tests. The past two weeks Paweł and Lidia have been gathering braking data from the Plug’s accelerometer. This data was supposed to help Paweł construct an algorithm that identifies sudden braking. For our amusement - and I hope for yours too - not everything went well... Enjoy!

The same day Paweł fixed the neural-network and conducted the tests again. They went much better, he said.  

[cloudyourcar]

It’s our 2nd day at TechCrunch Disrupt and from the very beginning Cloud Your Car has become very popular among ladies. Either our startup is so sexy... or it’s Kosma. If you want to be with us here in Berlin watch the live stream: http://tcrn.ch/18xtFRX

[cloudyourcar]

We are hiring! Frontend Developer.