Drone Telematics is Ideal for Families with Young Drivers

If there’s a young driver in your family, upgrading your vehicle with a telematics system like Drone is a great way to know where they are and how they’re driving. Drone combines high-speed cellular LTE connectivity with an onboard GPS receiver to relay the exact location of the vehicle to your smartphone or the Drone website. You can even configure geofence notifications, so you know when the vehicle arrives at or leaves a specific location. Let’s look at how these features work to help keep parents calm when their kids are driving the family car or truck.

GPS-Based Vehicle Locating

The X1-MAX, X1R and DR-5400 Drone modules include an integrated GPS receiver antenna. Location information is visible within the DroneMobile app on your iOS or Android smartphone or on the Drone website. The GPS locating capability is impressively precise. This accuracy lets you know which side of a driveway you’re parked on or exactly where the car is in a mall parking lot.

If your son or daughter is out with the car, you can check their location and speed while they’re on the move. If you expect them home at 10:30, you can see whether they’ve left their friend’s house or movie theatre, or if they’re just around the corner.

Young Drivers — When you use the Drone app to find the location of a vehicle, you can click on the icon to see how fast the car is traveling.

Geofences Deliver Instant Alerts

A lot of families allow their kids to use the family vehicle to go to work at a part-time job. By logging into the Drone website, you can create alerts based on an address or a geographic area on a map. The website allows you to set these warnings (called geofences) based on a radius around the chosen location or using a rectangle or adjustable polygon. Another option is to use the POI (Point of Interest) feature to set an alert. You can enter the address of a business or someone’s house, and the Drone system will let you know when the vehicle arrives at or leaves that location.

As you can see from the above screenshot, this family has configured the system to let them know when their son arrives at the drugstore where he works. This information will also be recorded in the Activity Log so that it can be reviewed later.

Speed Warnings Promote Safety

You can always click on the Location tab, then click on the vehicle icon to see how fast it is traveling. Likewise, you can configure the system to send an alert to your smartphone if the vehicle exceeds a preset speed limit.

The Curfew Alert feature is another way to monitor the use of your vehicle. Once you’ve configured a start and stop time, the system will send a notification if the vehicle moves during that time period. There’s no way to sneak out at night with the car when this is activated.

Drone Reduces Parent Stress

Most of us trust our children to take care of our vehicles. That doesn’t mean that we don’t worry when they’re driving. With Drone on board, we can check their location and speed as often as we want. Visit your local authorized Drone retailer to have the hardware installed in your vehicle, then choose from the Premium, Premium Plus or Ultimate service plan packages. You can learn more about the fantastic features of Drone by visiting their website, Facebook page, Instagram page and Twitter, or their YouTube channel.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

The Importance Of Proper Car Audio Speaker Installation

The speakers in your mobile entertainment system are one of the most critical components in determining how your system sounds. If you choose poorly designed speakers that have distortion issues from poor cone, suspension or motor design, no amount of signal processing can make your system sound great. The methods used to install your speakers are as important as the design of the speakers themselves. In this article, we are going to look into some of the common mistakes that occur during speaker installation and how to maximize the performance of your speakers.

Speakers Need A Stable Foundation

If you want to listen to a record player, you want the unit to be on a solid table or stand. You’d never try to hold the turntable on your lap – the needle would jump and bound all over the place. When it comes to speakers, you want all the energy from the motor to move the speaker cone and not the basket. Why would the basket move? Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: When one body exerts a force on a second body, the second body simultaneously exerts a force equal in magnitude and opposite in direction on the first body.

When the voice coil pushes the speaker cone out, the inertia of the cone is also pushing back on the fixed magnet. If the speaker isn’t mounted securely, it will buzz, vibrate and otherwise move around. These vibrations cause all manner of distortion.

Look at a set of high-end home audio speakers. Years ago, Linn had a set of narrow floor-standing speakers that used a pair of small midrange drivers, roughly 4.5 inches in diameter. The front baffle of the speaker enclosure was 1.5-inch thick MDF. If you knocked on it with your knuckles, it sounded like concrete. And yes, those speakers sounded excellent!

Speaker Installation – Consider Mass

To combat the forces generated by the moving speaker cone, you will want to consider beefing up the mounting surface. In the case of a subwoofer enclosure, an extra-thick front panel can help. Vertical braces on either side of the speaker mounting surface help even more. The best solution is to run full-size braces from the front of the enclosure to the rear. Full depth braces lock the front and rear panels together and add dramatic strength to the speaker mounting surface. These braces also control vibrations in the rear panel to improve performance further.

For a smaller speaker such as midrange or midbass driver in a door, adding strength is a little more difficult. The most common practice is to add a layer or two of butyl damping material (sound deadening) to the metal around the speaker. You can even add a layer or two on the inside of the door skin if you are concerned about thickness. Damping materials with an aluminum layer add a little extra mass.

If your installer is constructing a set of speaker mounting adapters, then ask if they are using a material that has some mass to it. HDPE and ABS are good; acrylic is even better. A material like Corian – the DuPont countertop material – is fantastic. You can easily cut and shape Corian and glue parts together with Cyanoacrylate (Crazy Glue). You may want to use thread inserts or t-nuts with all of these materials. While it is readily available and easy to work with, don’t use wood for speaker adapters inside doors – it will get wet, swell up and deform. It can also hold water and get moldy.

Speaker Installation – Location Matters

If your audio system is going to use factory speaker locations, most of the time these are acceptable to provide an unobstructed output path to the listening area. The last thing you want to do is block the output of the speaker by putting something in front of it. Keep magazines, books, paper and other objects from piling up in front of, or on top of, your speakers.

For subwoofers, the location of the sub has a dramatic effect on how it sounds. You want the energy from the subwoofer to be able to mix with the sound from your midbass speakers as easily as possible. For this reason, hatchbacks and SUVs are great for bass. If you have a sedan, then firing the output of your subwoofer through a ski pass-through works well. You can get away with firing subs into the trunk of a sedan, but you will want to ensure that your midbass drivers can play fairly low – say 75 Hertz or so – to ensure that you don’t lose impact and dynamics.

Back-Wave Cancellation Problems

We use speaker enclosures for two primary reasons – to limit the movement of the speaker cone and to prevent the sound coming from the rear of the speaker cone from canceling out the sound coming from the front. You need to prevent the rearward sound from mixing with the front. For midrange speakers, this means building good quality mounting adapters. Your installer can also use sound-deadening materials to seal up openings in the interior skin of your door panels. You will get better speaker performance with proper back-wave management than you will just buying better speakers.

Weather Protection Ensures Longevity

When mounting speakers in a door panel, it is inevitable that the back of the speaker will get wet. The interior of doors are not completely watertight, and this poses a challenge for installers. Creating an enclosure out of a water-resistant material would be the perfect option, but there is rarely enough mounting depth and it is difficult to create an enclosure that is large enough not to affect the performance of the speaker. For many years, installers have used foam ‘hats,’ cut in half to protect the top of the speaker from direct exposure to drops from the window seal. These are a good option. A thick foam gasket mounted behind the speaker mounting surface can also help. Companies like SoundSkins and F.A.S.T. Rings have ready to apply pre-cut solutions.

There are dozens of other considerations when it comes to having your speakers installed. The most important task for you is to partner with a retailer that does high-quality work and has an excellent reputation. Choosing great speakers for your car audio system is a lot of fun. Hearing them perform up to their potential is even better.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

Control Your Vehicle with Google Assistant or Apple Siri

Drone from Firstech has made communicating with your vehicle more accessible than ever, thanks to integration with digital assistants like Google Assistant and Apple Siri. Remember when Michael Knight used to talk to KITT using a communicator on his watch? KITT could start the engine and be ready to go in a split-second once Michael arrived on the scene! If you’re feeling like recreating some classic ’80s television or simply want to unlock the doors of your vehicle without having to touch anything, Drone and the DroneMobile App have made this a reality.

DroneMobile and Apple Siri Control

Version 4.3 of the DroneMobile app for iOS adds Siri digital assistant integration using Shortcuts. Shortcuts is a scripting app that acts as a go-between for DroneMobile and Siri so that your voice commands can control your vehicle. Once configured, you can say, “Hey Siri, lock my car.” Siri will confirm the vehicle you want to lock using the name you entered on the Drone web interface. You can say “Yes,” and the vehicle will lock a second or two later. You can tell Siri to start your vehicle just as quickly. Just say, “Start my car.”

Google Siri Control — When you request an action, Siri will confirm the name of the vehicle using the information you provided in the Drone web interface.

Adding the shortcut from DroneMobile to your smartphone is easy. All you have to do is tap on the Add to Siri icon at the top of the Controls Screen. The Shortcut app will pop up and let you customize the command text. You can configure it to recognize any text command you want. If you want the standard “Start my car,” then click Add to Siri. Alternatively, you can enter a custom command string like “Fire up my ride” or “Kitt, it’s time for action.” Other Drone commands that are compatible with Siri and the Shortcuts app are Stop, Lock, Unlock, Trunk, Aux 1 or Aux 2.

DroneMobile and Google Assistant

If you are an Android phone user or have a Google Nest smart speaker in your home or office, then you can integrate the Google Assistant app with DroneMobile to control your vehicle. You’ll need Version 4.4 of the DroneMobile app to make this happen. The Google Assistant and latest DroneMobile apps are, of course, available from the Google Play store.

Drone has added an extra level of safety and security to its Android solution by including a PIN code. You can configure the PIN by logging into the Drone web interface, clicking on Edit Profile, then scrolling down to Unlock PIN.

Voice commands work a little differently on Android. If you want to remote start your vehicle, say, “Hey Google, use DroneMobile to start Kelly’s Truck.” In the background, Google Assistant launches the interface to DroneMobile, then transmits your request to start the vehicle. You’ll be asked to confirm the PIN for starting or unlocking commands. The system works best when you say the pin as a number, rather than a series of digits. So, one-thousand two-hundred and thirty-four trumps one two three four.

Talking To Your Vehicle Is Easy

Giving your engine a few minutes to warm up while you gather your belongings in the morning can dramatically reduce wear on the engine and make the vehicle more comfortable if it’s hot or cold out. Being able to use voice commands with the latest versions of the DroneMobile app means you can multitask. When breakfast is finished, and you’re loading the dishwasher, just say, “Hey Siri, start my car.” All of the functions that work with your phone or smart speaker will also work with an Apple Watch or Android SmartWatch.

If you’d like to be able to use voice commands to control your vehicle, drop by your local authorized Firstech dealer and ask about the Drone telematics interface and a Compustar, Arctic Start, FTX or iDatastart vehicle security or remote starter system. You can find a dealer near you using the dealer finder. Be sure to visit the blog section on the Drone website, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or YouTube to learn about any new features, products and technologies from Firstech and Drone.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

A Close Look at the Four Drone Subscription Packages

Drone is a state-of-the-art vehicle control, monitoring and tracking solution from Firstech. Using lightning-fast LTE connectivity, the system will let you unlock the doors, pop the trunk, remote start and ensure that nobody is tampering with your vehicle — from almost anywhere on the planet. The Drone system requires a service package to let your smartphone connect to your vehicle. You have four packages to chose from, and each includes more features and information. Let’s take a close look at the functionality in each solution.

Drone Basic Subscription

Designed to provide remote control and security system (if equipped) feedback, the Basic package is an inexpensive way to make sure you are always connected to your vehicle. All packages include remote start, keyless entry, auxiliary output control and security system alerts. You can check the battery voltage and the temperature inside the vehicle at any time, from anywhere your smartphone has access to the internet.

Drone Subscription — You can check the temperature inside the vehicle using the DroneMobile app on your smartphone.

Drone Premium Subscription

Stepping up to the Premium package adds GPS location-based tracking features. You gain access to the GPS Car Finder feature so you can pinpoint the position of your vehicle in a matter of seconds. The Drone system can be configured to provide speed-based notifications to the user, so you will know if the kids or your employees are driving safely. Using the same technology, Curfew Monitoring will let you know if your vehicle moves after business hours or bedtime.

Point of interest (POI) and geofence alerts are also included in the Premium subscription. You can define geographic areas that will trigger a notification on your smartphone when the Drone-equipped vehicle enters or leaves those zones. Setup for the location-based alerts is done through the web interface at accounts.dronemobile.com. The Premium package includes 10 point-of-interest locations and four geofences.

The Premium package also offers maintenance reminders, so you’ll never forget when it’s time for an oil change. Likewise, diagnostic trouble code alerts will let you know if your vehicle has an issue that might require service.

Premium Plus and Ultimate Packages

If you are a business owner, knowing where your assets are and how they are being used is crucial to managing your expenses. The Premium Plus and Ultimate packages are designed specifically for you. Both packages include a breadcrumb function. The Premium Plus package records a breadcrumb every two minutes, and the Ultimate records every 30 seconds. For clarification, breadcrumbs are location updates based on time. Every 30 seconds, or two minutes, the Drone system will note the location of the vehicle. Just like Hansel and Gretel, the system leaves a trail of location markings as the vehicle moves so you can review the route it has taken. Both packages also log turn-by-turn updates, and there are no limits to the number of geofence and point-of-interest notification locations you can add. Finally, the Ultimate plan includes location-based alerts, so you can be notified when your staff arrives at a client location.

History Log Information

All packages provide access to six months of activity in the History Log. You can sort information by vehicle or by the type of event for specific analysis. The information can be quickly and easily exported into a CSV file that will work with an external spreadsheet or database. The Trip Report option shows start and stop locations and times, based on the vehicle ignition being turned on and off. If any alerts are configured, they are added to the report.

Communicate and Manage Your Vehicle with Drone

Whether you want the fastest unlimited-range remote control solution for a personal vehicle, or need detailed asset tracking for a fleet of company trucks or vans, Drone has a service package that delivers a perfect, easy-to-use solution. Visit your local authorized Drone retailer today for more information. You can find a shop using the Find a Dealer page on their website. For more information, follow Drone on its Facebook, Instagram and Twitter social media pages, and check out the latest feature and tutorial videos on their YouTube channel.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

Product Spotlight: Sony XAV-AX5500 Bluetooth Media Receiver

Sony’s new XAV-AX5500 media receiver not only covers all the ground, but it also raises the bar in terms of smartphone connectivity. Equipped with WebLink 2.0, you can see and control your compatible smartphone right from the 6.95-inch touchscreen on the radio. Of course, Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, high-quality Bluetooth audio streaming and all the digital media support you’d ever want are also included. Let’s check it out!

Same Great Look with New Features

The Sony XAV-AX5500 is an evolution of Sony’s famous XAV-AX5000 media receiver. The upgrades include WebLink 2.0 smartphone display technology that lets you cast most apps to your radio to see and hear all the action. Commands from the radio screen are fed back to the phone for easy and intuitive control. Waze and YouTube are two of the most popular applications for WebLink, and both offer an app icon on the WebLink home screen.

Users can upload home screen background images to the the XAV-AX5500 to express their style by personalizing the installation to their vehicle.

The XAV-AX5500 includes 5-volt preamp outputs instead of the 2 volts of signal available from the AX5000. This extra voltage will allow your installer to turn down the sensitivity controls on any external amplifiers to reduce background noise.

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Smartphone Connectivity

The AX5500 continues to offer Apple CarPlay and Android Auto smartphone connectivity with its plug-and-play USB port. Both of these phone interface technologies use voice recognition to make it quick, safe and easy to access your music, make phone calls or send text messages using plain-English voice commands. Likewise, you can get turn-by-turn navigation directions to the address of your choice by simply asking.

Classic Style and Intuitive Interface Look Great in the Dash

Sony has eschewed fancy colors and lines to offer a clean look that looks great in the dash of your car or truck. Six hard buttons, a large bezel-less 6.95-inch display with a capacitive touch interface and easy-to-understand menu options make this radio look great while streamlining the process of learning all the functions.

The AX5500 includes Bluetooth hands-free calling with an external microphone and high-quality audio streaming with album art display capability, thanks to AVRCP 1.3. You can have your retailer upgrade the radio with an SXV300v1 SiriusXM satellite radio tuner module for genre-specific music, information and entertainment.

Dual USB ports allow you to connect your smartphone for Apple CarPlay, Android Auto or WebLink Cast connectivity and play MP3, WMA or FLAC audio, or MP4, WMV or MKV videos from a USB memory stick connected to the other port. The USB ports provide 1.5 amps and 500 mA of charging current.

Vehicle Integration Features

The XAV-AX5500 has a dedicated backup camera input jack so your installer can connect a backup camera and have it display automatically when the vehicle is in reverse. The radio also includes support for steering wheel audio control interfaces so you can use the factory buttons to change volume, tracks or stations.

The amplifier built into the AX5500 is rated to produce 20 watts of power into each of four channels. The radio includes adjustable electronic crossovers so that the built-in amp can be optimized for use with an external subwoofer system. Speaking of signal processing, the radio includes Sony’s Dynamic Soundstage Organizer. It helps create a realistic soundstage across the dash of your vehicle and is adjustable to accommodate any type of vehicle. Your installer can further fine-tune the sound of your system with the built-in 10-band equalizer and Extra Bass processing.

Installer-Friendly Design

Your installer will love integrating the XAV-AX5500 into the dash of your vehicle, thanks to the compact chassis design. Instead of being 4 inches tall by about 6 inches deep, the rear chassis is 2 inches tall and an inch shorter. This design leaves more room for interface modules, wiring and RCA cables that are typically tucked behind the unit.

Upgrade Your Driving Experience with the Sony XAV-AX5500

If you’re shopping for a new radio for your car or truck, drop by your local authorized Sony car audio retailer and ask for a demonstration of the XAV-AX5500. From its intuitive interface, great looks and quick start-up process to the fantastic features and sound quality, we are sure you’ll be impressed. To learn more about this radio or any of the amazing Sony car audio products, visit their website. Be sure to follow them on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram to stay up-to-date with the latest product releases.

This article is written and produced by the team at www.BestCarAudio.com. Reproduction or use of any kind is prohibited without the express written permission of 1sixty8 media.

Drone Telematics is Ideal for Families with Young Drivers

GPS-Based Vehicle Locating

Geofences Deliver Instant Alerts

Speed Warnings Promote Safety

Drone Reduces Parent Stress

The Importance Of Proper Car Audio Speaker Installation

Speakers Need A Stable Foundation

Speaker Installation – Consider Mass

Speaker Installation – Location Matters

Back-Wave Cancellation Problems

Weather Protection Ensures Longevity

Control Your Vehicle with Google Assistant or Apple Siri

DroneMobile and Apple Siri Control

DroneMobile and Google Assistant

Talking To Your Vehicle Is Easy

A Close Look at the Four Drone Subscription Packages

Drone Basic Subscription

Drone Premium Subscription

Premium Plus and Ultimate Packages

History Log Information

Communicate and Manage Your Vehicle with Drone

Product Spotlight: Sony XAV-AX5500 Bluetooth Media Receiver

Same Great Look with New Features

Apple CarPlay and Android Auto Smartphone Connectivity

Classic Style and Intuitive Interface Look Great in the Dash

Vehicle Integration Features

Installer-Friendly Design

Upgrade Your Driving Experience with the Sony XAV-AX5500

Testimonials

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