Posted on 03/13/2014 9:07:58 PM PDT by RoosterRedux
A couple worried about teaching their sixteen-year-old son good driving habits has invented a device that allows parents to peak in on how their kids are driving.
Jaideep and Sandhya Jain were featured in USA Today for their start-up company Truvolo. Truvolo is a small device that plugs directly into a car's on-board computer. The device then sends stats about the car's health as well as the driving habits of the operator back to a smartphone. Truvolo notes G-forces from abrupt acceleration, deceleration and swerving. It also accesses information usually reserved for mechanics, allowing users to catch dangerous problems well in advance of a breakdown. The device can also issue alerts when a driver has arrived at their destination.
The pair, who both hold masters degrees in computer science, came up with the device after having a hard time finding a similar product anywhere else.
(Excerpt) Read more at autos.aol.com ...
I might lose a small fortune (opportunity cost...I am up 4% on my investment), but this article explains why this is not a risk I should take.
If a family of computer scientists can develop an device that does what CalAmp does for half the price, CalAmp will die.
Bad habit picked up by watching too much "Downton Abbey.";-)
I suspect they used essentially off-the-shelf components with a little software doing the communication for the app.
If their products can be reproduced by a mom and pop operation...this new industry will be turned on its head!
As said, I will dump my CAMP at the opening bell tomorrow and will watch for this stock to take a dive in the months ahead.
“This is the basic CalAmp (California Amplifier - “CAMP”) product. They are touted as the machine 2 machine leaders.
If their products can be reproduced by a mom and pop operation...this new industry will be turned on its head!”
For some time, one has been able to buy the software and connections to hook a laptop into the cars computer. Lots of performance cars have them for real time monitoring of their performance. CalAmp is more than just a couple of pieces of hardware.
What you should worry about is everyone getting on board with being tracked.
My reading into CalAmp has indicated much positive work on their part, but company reviews online by their employees are quite negative.
Frankly, I haven't seen why their proprietary products could not be easily reproduced by others (i.e. GPS and acceleration and stopping abruptness and tight cornering detectors/algorithms are not patented).
One is about being tracked...and another is my investment in CAMP.
As with most inventions, they can be used for good or evil.
Of course, some are purely evil...but I don't think this is one.
It helps parents see how their children are driving so they can take action accordingly.
It was the bit to track us all.
I have had a problem with that idea also.
It is what it is.
I agree. That’s what my brother tells me once a day.
Do they make these for 777’s?
Even though CalAMP is already down by 2%, is there a way to short this stock?
The problem with dealing with all this HTML bullshit is that after a while, even what you wanted to say gets lost in the HTMl.
http://www.marketwatch.com/investing/stock/camp
And a motivated kid will disable the device in under a minute...
My teenage son has totaled 2 cars and heavily damaged a third. He’s also got two deer strikes under his belt. He is only 19. I could use this I think...
and if he is like my teenagers we would never know it was disabled. Give a 13 year a gadget they can run it, a 16 year-old can pervert it.
Some vehicles have it placed elsewhere.
All you have to do to disable it, is unplug it.
Don’t some insurance companies already have a device to do this?
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