Matt Howard here from ZoomSafer. We’re sorry to hear about the bugs and user experience challenges that you encountered with our beta. That said, feedback (good, bad, indifferent) from hundreds of others like you, has been critical to our efforts to improve.

We’ve spend a ton of time over the past few months hardening the software — and we’re releasing V1.0 on jan 7th that delivers a significantly simplified user experience and a broad set of performance optimizations.

With regard to battery usage — there is definitely a tax given we use GPS to determine speed. That said, we have introduced device side management controls, which means you can quickly and easily change your safe driving settings directly from your phone. For example:

1. if you want preserve battery you can switch to “manual-activation” instead of “auto-activation” — requiring you to manually activate the software when you start to drive but preserving device battery.

2. you can change your preferences to determine how you would like to handle hands-free inbound calls while you are driving (all, some, none).

3. you can enable or disable the hands-free voice dialer.

4. you can change your preferences to determine if you want ZoomSafer to auto-reply on your behalf (or not) while you are driving.

5. As the account administrator you can decide if you want to expose these device side management controls (or not) — which is useful for parents or corporations who use ZoomSafer to enforce safe driving policies.

Thank you again for your feedback. We’re working hard to make ZoomSafer the best that it can possibly be to help prevent distracted driving. If you interested and available, I’d welcome the opportunity to talk with you directly to learn more about your experience and and share with you plans for our next release.

Thanks!

Matt@zoomsafer.com

Thanks for the post.

My name is Matt Howard, founder of ZoomSafer.

Just wanted to offer a few thoughts to explain why voice safety reminders in the context of one’s driving experience could indeed be very useful — and perhaps not so creepy.

I don’t know if you have kids — but i do. Indeed when my kids are in the car with me — i find that i am a much safer driver and i generally make better decisions. “Do i really need to send that text this moment? Probably not.”

Creating context so drivers make better decisions is what ZoomSafer does. At least for some people it would be useful context (and not at all creepy) to hear a subtle reminder from a loved one, e.g. “don’t text and drive”.

Now if it’s your boss? Or, the Governor of your State that just passed legislation? Sure, that would creep anyone out.

In the end, the service is fully customizable. You create the context that works best for you.

Hope that make sense.

Cheers,

mjh
matt@zoomsafer.com