With the smart home space getting more crowded and connectivity coming to he vehicle, there’s been a growing number of driving assistant and monitoring devices that have sought crowdfunding in recent months.
Driver Watchdog is a wireless plug-and-play device featuring dual HD 175-degree panoramic cameras. The external camera records road conditions and accidents, while its internal camera monitors distracting behavior going on inside the car. The cameras record simultaneously and automatically stream data to the cloud for storage and review at a later time.
The device ships in April and its future retail price is $499, but early bird Indiegogo backers can get one with a panic button and two free months of data at $249. The remote panic button triggers recording of both cameras and sends an emergency message to pre-selected contacts. Driver Watchdog’s makers are hoping to raise $30,000 by Dec. 15.
Potential customers include parents who want to monitor their kids’ driving, as well as adults who want to keep tabs on their elderly parents. But success is no guarantee because there are just too many similar products on the market –- or that have already failed to achieve crowdfunding goals, including Caruma, which is similar in several ways to Driver Watchdog, including the dual camera functionality. Driver Watchdog also isn’t cheap when factoring in the price plus the cost of data service after the first two free months. The plan is to offer data of 5 GB at $9.99 a month, 10 GB at $14.99 a month, and unlimited at $24.99 a month.