Car Black Box

Got this cute little device which the manufacturers call Road Memory installed in my car, the device is a video camera with GPS chip set integrated, some call it car black box, for the reason that when you install and allow it to run, it would record all the audio, video & G Force variables of the car and is tagged to the geographic location which makes it an interesting tool to look and review historical activities of the car; drawing analogies to aircraft black boxes.

The device opens interesting possibilities for personal and commercial usage. Simply put, when you play archived video files generated by the camera over a computer, you can view all the video with the exact location coordinates, date, time and the path traversed on a goggle map, along with a graph of G-forces which were at play precisely at that instant. An intuitive light weight application is provided along with the CD to view these video files generated in travel.

The device is essentially a plug and play device, you just need to stick this device to windshield of your car, connect power to car’s cigarette lighter charger, you are up and running. The device has a 1.3 mega pixel VGA camera with a provision to tilt to a suitable angle and positioning, has an SD slot which will store all the files which will be generated while on move.

My friend in Korea says that, insurance companies offer substantial discounts on insurance premiums for vehicles which have these devices installed. The video, he says, submitted as evidence for litigation is permissible in courts, should hold good in India too.

Ideally 2 hours of video data takes 1GB space, the data is recorded in a continuous loop, and this means that you will never miss the freshest data. The device has an internal memory and an emergency battery which lasts for 20 seconds, which will ensure the capture of a video of any accident incident, that’s even when there’s no power.

On the desktop application part, its simple and intuitive, just copy the video files from the SD card and open with this desktop application, you should be connected to the internet to see the location on the google map though; sample video file of me driving in Hyderabad and surroundings is below. The device cost me 150$, should be definitely a useful for fleets, if not for personal transport vehicles.