If you have trouble finding your car in a busy garage, or always find yourself coming back to a lapsed parking meter and a ticket stuck under your windshield wiper, you’re in luck. A new Bluetooth sensor, in combination with an iPhone app, can make losing your car and racking up fines a thing of the past.
The device is called AwareCar, the first product by San Francisco startup Aware Stack. Co-founder Daniel Abel Rayan came up with the idea for the company’s product after he spent 20 minutes searching for his car in a multilevel garage in San Francisco.
Wasn’t there an easier way to find your car than a wild goose chase, he wondered?
AwareCar is a coin-size Bluetooth sensor you leave in your glove compartment. First and foremost, it’ll help you find your car in a busy garage or parking lot; as soon as your iPhone comes into Bluetooth range, it’ll alert you. But it’s actually a lot smarter than that: By drawing upon public parking information for most cities, AwareCar can actually detect where you’re parked … and if that’s at a meter, it’ll automatically remind you to set a timer, notifying you how much time is left and if you’ve walked too far to make it back to your car in time.
That’s great functionality. What’s most impressive, though, is it comes at an affordable price: just $9 per device. And more functionality is coming down the line. Rayan told CityLab that future updates will automatically set your car in Do Not Disturb mode when the car is in motion, and integrate IFTTT support so the AwareCar can interact with other apps.
AwareCar will ship in December, but it’s available for preorder on Kickstarter now, where it has already raised three times its funding goal.
Source: Kickstarter
Via: CityLab
John Brownlee is a writer for Fast Company, and a contributing writer here at CoM. He has also written for Wired, Playboy, Boing Boing, Popular Mechanics, VentureBeat, and Gizmodo. He lives in Boston with his wife and two parakeets. You can follow him here on Twitter.
5 responses to “Flip off meter maids with AwareCar, an app for better parking”
Waste of $9
Would be more helpful if the $9 goes to “I’ll automatically deduct $20 to the meter so the maids don’t steal your car.”
Since this is a Bluetooth device that means your phone is doing all the work. So why do you need the device? Everything it does could be done with just an app.
I thought Bluetooth range was about 30 feet? If so, how does THAT help me find my car in a multilevel garage again? If I’m already within 30 feet of the car… pretty sure I can eyeball it on my own from there. In fact, I’m pretty sure most key fabs’ lock/unlock remote has a greater range – which is what I use. Flashing lights and a horn will get me those final yards every time. Or maybe the car finding feature of AwareCar is for people who need, but have not been taking, their daily dose of Ginkgo Biloba? Yeah, that must be it.
This seems like a useless device and a complete product push. Sounds a bit like John Brownless has a vested interest in Aware Stack.