mrshoe

The real problem is industry-wide adoption of metrics-driven design.

When I studied cognitive science, the method we employed for HCI was User Centered System Design. Granted, this was a backronym for UCSD, but the point remains — design should be user-centered, not metrics-driven.

When I launch Netflix, it is abundantly clear to me that their design is driven by their metrics. What I want to see at the top is my “continue watching” shows — 99% of the time I just want to watch the next episode of a show that I’m already watching. Instead, they show me row upon row of shows that I have never watched. Their metrics prove to them that getting me hooked on new shows will increase my engagement and increase the amount of time I spend in their app. Guess what? As a user, those are not my goals! Their UI is effectively one big advertisement for Netflix itself. Wonderful.

Unfortunately, virtually all tech companies have accepted metrics-driven design as conventional wisdom at this point. Run an A/B test and see which button treatment performs better, based on the metrics the company cares about — not what the user cares about.

One outlier here is Apple. They do not design based on experiments and metrics. And the Apple TV app does in fact display the shows I am already watching as the top row. Go figure.

We designed our own magnetic phone mount, which comes with the product. Once you start mounting your phone in your car (especially with our mount, which is amazing), you won't want a separate screen for your camera. :)

The advantages of mounting your smartphone, with the cutting edge hardware and active software ecosystem that come along with it, are truly huge. When I rent a car now I am incredibly frustrated without the mount. Luckily ours has a magnetic pluggable backend, so I can pull it off my adhesive mount and attach the vent clip for use in other cars.

We are using industry standard encryption algorithms for all of our wireless traffic. We are also consulting with external security experts, in addition to the expertise we have in-house.

All of our over-the-air firmware updates are cryptographically signed.

We are initially shipping only in the US, but hopefully total world domination will follow eventually. :)

We do require an OBD port, which is present on all cars 1996 and newer.

Other than that, it should work on basically all cars, assuming you don't have e.g. an existing backup camera that mechanically blocks the installation.

The solar window is actually transparent. Our PD team is second to none! They were able to make the whole solar assembly look uniformly black while not sacrificing solar efficiency.

The camera frame is indeed paired with the car adapter at the factory, which is a theft deterrent. They will not function without each other.

The RearVision also comes with a security tool that must be used to attach and remove the camera frame.

Excellent question. It takes decades for new features to fan out to the majority of new cars. After that it then takes decades more for those features to reach saturation of all cars on the road, because only 7% of the car population turns over each year.

The bottom line is it's generally 40 years from the point when features like seat belts, air bags, traction control, and backup cameras are first introduced and when they reach 95% saturation.

Throughout this adoption process, demand for these features among those whose cars don't have them increases significantly!

The RearVision comes with a security tool that is used to attach and remove the camera frame. The camera frame and the OBD adapter are also paired at the factory and will not function in isolation.

The OBD adapter does serve a very important role in the system in that it has a power source and can wake the camera frame when necessary (before you ever launch the app!). All of our vision algorithms also run on the OBD adapter, which is a key aspect of the power model.

And I'd love to show it to you! :)

The video screen is definitely the main focus of the app, for obvious reasons. When the video stops, we also show an app launcher screen that's optimized for use in the car (large touch targets :) ), which you can configure to include a few of your favorite music or nav apps.