If you’re in the need to monitor the use of your car, being driven by your chauffeur or even your children, and add an element of safety at the same time, the Rollr Mini is your device. We test one to see how effective it is in real life.
Growing up, one of the most distinct memories I have is of being constantly chided by my mother about my driving habits. You see, I was, and am, how should I put it mildly…an enthusiastic driver, and my mother always had a problem with how quickly I would cover ground when driving, no matter which car it was. So, most days of my youth were spent with my mother constantly threatening of getting the top speed and acceleration of my car restricted so I couldn’t drive enthusiastically. Thankfully, she didn’t know how this could be technically done, so after every lecture, I would once again hit the road and drive in my usual style. Now, if she ever had access to a device like the Rollr Mini, the scenario would’ve changed very quickly.
To give you a brief, the Rollr Mini is a small device that plugs into the OBD port of your car – the one that service centres use to detect the health of your car and its electronics – and can be used to keep track of the car’s location and a myriad of other parameters. For instance, it can monitor the speeds that the car is being driven at, the amount of braking force being used by the driver and even how many times in a trip was the speed limit exceeded. In addition to these parameters, the Rollr Mini can also send you alerts on when a car has been started, the coolant temperature and even any error codes that the ECU might have thrown up due to a malfunction in the car. The amount of information available depends on the kind of car you own and how many of its functions are being monitored by the ECU, which is tapped by the device and transferred to your mobile phone.
Setting up the device is easy, you just need to find the OBD port of your vehicle and plug it in, and after installing the Rollr app on your phone, activate the device in a few easy steps. From there on, you can control the notifications the device sends you – for instance every time the car is started, or the device is removed from the car – and you can even share this info with other people, say, for instance, other family members.
The primary use of the device then is to monitor the usage pattern of the car – speed, location and driving behavior – and is a very useful device if you like to keep track of where your chauffeur or your children are at any given point of time, and what their driving pattern is. Additionally, it also functions as a vehicle tracker, which constantly indicates a vehicle’s location, so would be useful in case of vehicle theft. However, since its easily removable, it isn’t a theft deterrent.
So, if you’re like my mother and would like to keep track of a vehicle’s use, the Rollr Mini is a great device for you. As for me, I’m just thankful that such technology didn’t exist when I was growing up!
