Monday, January 16, 2017
By Carkhabri Team
Rollr Mini: The Smart Car Device
Since our world revolves around our phones these days, it only makes sense to have everything connected to it; like your car. Why wait until you go to the car servicing center to find out what exactly is wrong with your car? Wouldn’t it be great if your phone, or rather an app, could tell you those exact things? Well, now it can, thanks to the Rollr Mini Device and the Rollr App.
Keeping in line with the company’s motto, a “seamless app for everything on the move”, the Rollr App is integrated with the Rollr Mini Device. The device plugs in to the OBD-II port (a standard diagnostics port found in all the cars manufactured after 2008) in your car and can tell you everything about it, as well as about your driving patterns, via the Rollr app. The device tracks your car’s location, its health and all its trips.
The device itself is pretty small with a great looking form factor and design. It’s unobtrusive and quite robust, and it syncs brilliantly with the app via the inbuilt SIM card, which you can find both at the Play Store and the App Store.
Installation
Installation is pretty easy – you plug the device in your car’s OBD-II port (you can search for the port’s location online or on the Rollr Mini website), open the app and activate the device by entering the device’s serial number and the activation code; you will see your car added as a link on the app’s home screen. You’ll have to wait a few minutes and, if your car is started, you will see a Car Online indicator in the app. Now let’s move on to the specifics of what Rollr Mini can do for you and your car.
Car Tracking
This one is quite simple to understand. The tracking part tells you where your car is, regardless of whether it’s on the move or not. This is similar to other GPS systems in the market with the same functionality. But what’s different about Rollr is that it allows two people to track the same car. Suppose you are driving to a new, unknown location and are worried about your safety. Through the app, you can add another user as a secondary owner to sync with the Mini device to keep a track of when you leave, the route you take and when you arrive at your destination. You can also set up Place Alerts through the app. This involves pin-pointing places of interest, and when the car arrives at them, you get notified. Rollr Mini works when you’ve gotten out of your car, too. After having stopped a particular trip, if your car moves beyond a small distance, you’ll get a notification through the app. This is great for instances when your car is getting towed away!
Car Health
Your car’s health, or the lack of it, is what usually has you running to the service centre and shelling out big bucks on maintenance and repairs. And we’ve all come across situations where the car servicing guy tells you that there are ten things wrong with the car, when there could only be two. That’s where you trust the Rollr Mini device instead. The moment you plug the device into the OBD port, it syncs with your car’s engine. The Mini device and the engine’s sensors work together to communicate the car diagnostics to the Rollr app. These are the six parameters of car health that the Mini device shows on the app:
1. Malfunction Indicator
2. DTC (Diagnostics Trouble Codes) for different engine modules
3. Battery Level
4. Coolant Temperature
5. Ambient Temperature
6. Fuel Level
The first four parameters are the basic ones and get shown for all cars, while the last two will depend on your car engine’s sensors.
When you check these parameters on the app, they appear with easy-to-see indicators next them, green if everything is good and red if they are not. You can also tap on each individual parameter to see its different functions. Take the ‘Engine’, for example; the Engine tab will show you a list of all the sensors in your engine and their status. This is brilliant for when you see a red indicator next to the ‘Engine’ because then you can check exactly where in the engine the problem is.
Trip Management
Trip management shows you your entire driving history. The locations you’ve driven to and from, at what time they occurred, the duration of the trip and the route of the trip. All these features come in very handy when you’ve lent your car to someone else, or even for people who manage a whole fleet of vehicles. You can also check your past driving history for as far back as four months, including each day the car was driven. Another good feature is that it even shows rash driving incidents (such as hard braking, speeding etc.) recorded per trip.
Rollr Score
Additionally, Rollr also tells you about the driving behaviour. The driving behaviour is dependent on four factors – speeding, idling, hard accelerating and hard braking. So, the next time you boast about your driving skills, remember there is proof.
The driving behaviour is summarized in a nifty score out of ten that tells you how good or bad a driver you are. With the Rollr score, you can keep a track of your driving habits, especially if you want to improve.
Alerts & Notifications
One of the most useful feature is Alerts. The Rollr app gives you real-time notifications based on conditions that you set – for example: you can set a speed limit for the car via the app. The moment the car exceeds the set limit, you get a notification on the app telling you so. You also get notifications for Place Alerts, Car Start Alert, Towing Alert, and Device Unplugged Alert. The Device Unplugged notification is also sent to your phone via SMS so it’s a great security feature to have when you are away from your car.
Overall, the Rollr Mini device is quite a nifty gadget that everyone should have in their cars. Whether it’s for your benefit, or to check up on someone else’s driving. It’s great that the Rollr app integrates smoothly with the device, and your car, with no hassles whatsoever. The app itself is easy to use but the best feature, according to me, is the part about the engine status. I’ll clearly be saving a lot more money when I take my car out for servicing the next time!
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