This App Turns Your iPhone Into An Intelligent Dash Cam To Avoid Car Accidents

By Rebeca Maia, NoCamels July 11, 2016 2 minutes

Nexar App Screenshot. Courtesy

Few things are more maddening than reckless drivers getting away with it; especially when it’s your car they’re hitting! That’s why Nexar has launched the world’s first artificial intelligence dashboard camera app; one that turns your iPhone into a recording device that can track and report on bad drivers – and even give you advance warning.

The app recognizes traffic lights, remembers the license plates of bad drivers, notices if you break suddenly and records events for you to share them with insurance companies or police.

How does Nexar work? After downloading the app, prop your smartphone on your car’s dashboard, with its rear camera facing the road ahead. If someone cuts you off, forcing you to hit the brakes, Nexar asks you if “something happened?” If you confirm the occurrence by tapping a button on the screen, the app captures footage from 20 seconds before and 10 seconds after the incident and sends it to the company’s database for archival, therefore collecting factual proof of the event.

Blacklisting problematic drivers

Car Accident. Courtesy

Nexar also says it can re-create a 3D graphic reconstruction of the car’s exact positioning during the accident by using the smartphone’s sensors, something that might prove incredibly helpful when attempting to settle disputes over who incited the collision.

In addition, Nexar is able to “read” and identify license plates of problematic vehicles, those that have committed repeated traffic violations, warning you about who to avoid on the road. However, some users are pointing to the fact that the app could become a distraction itself, as it presents an overflow of information. Others are saying Nexar is like a “Big Brother,” collecting information on millions of drivers.

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Nexar’s natural partners: Insurance companies

Undeterred, Nexar follows the trend of driver assistance systems, started by Israeli company Mobileye, the pioneer in this field. Nexar also integrated with top Israeli navigation app Waze to provide real-time alerts of car crashes and other disruptions to the regular traffic flow.

To generate revenue, the company – which was founded by Eran Shir, former manager of Yahoo’s Creation Innovation Center in Israel, along with entrepreneur Bruno Fernandez-Ruiz – plans to work with insurance companies by providing documentation on car accidents.

Since last year, Nexar has raised $14.5 million from investors. As of now, Nexar is available on iOS devices in some areas in California as well as in Tel Aviv, with plans to expand into additional cities in the future.

Naturally, the budding startup still has a long road ahead of it, but at the price of saving lives, it is definitely worth the toll.