UPDATE: Progressive TripSense is now Progressive MyRate
I decided to take Progressive Insurance up on their offer of a minimum of 5% off of my insurance by trying their TripSense program. The device arrived with some expensive packaging and I had no problems getting it working. It essentially sits on your car’s OBDII port and records how you drive. When you want to look at your data and send it to Progressive, you plug it in your USB port and have their software parse the data and shoot it off.
After a bit of research I found that the device is made by Davis Instruments and they even have CarChip Software and a CarChip SDK available at their website. It works perfectly with the device I got from Progressive. It gives you almost complete control of the chip.
I’ve already tried hacking the thing. It seems like they were anticipating people like me and I cannot easily change the on board thresholds on the device that define “Extreme Acceleration,” “Extreme Braking,” and the speed bands without getting errors.
The log files that both the CarChip software and the Progressive software generate are identical, so I should be able to see if I screw something up.
Finally, another interesting thing about this device I found: it only records the latest activities. If you fill the small amount of memory on the device, it will delete the oldest log. Basically, I could drive like shit until the last 300 driving hours before I need to submit and start driving like an angel.
Update 25 Aug 05: Unfortunately, the way their devices are set up seem to be optimized to record only a few specific things. I calculated that it will store my driving information for a little over 50,000 miles before it runs out of space.
Also, I’m pretty high up on Google when you search for Progressive TripSense. As a result, I’m getting a lot of hits from gate2.progressive.com. Hi guys!
Comments 3
Been using TripSense since early 2004 (when it was in early testing) and have since saved lots of moola with it. Got as high as 18% off in my spring 2005 renewal.
Was in an accident in Nov 2005 (t-boned in downtown Mpls), and the crash caused a short circuit in some of the car’s computer circuits, namely the ones that control the door locks and window controls. As a side effect, it also took out all the data on my TripSense chip. So I guess that kind of throws out the whole mathmatical reasoning behind these things, which is to calculate what kind of drivers get in the most accidents!
Posted 24 Apr 2006 at 06:49 ¶Jacob - why do you suspect accident caused problems with data on tripsensor? call me at 440-395-0285 to discuss. I work on TripSense project at Progressive. thanks.
Posted 24 Apr 2006 at 07:27 ¶I don’t know why the accident caused problems with the TripSense chip, I was just as confused as Progressive was. They had me ship my old one in and I got a replacement in the mail. If I looked at the data on the chip, the first 150-200 rows were good, then the rest of the data (about 250,000 lines) all said this:
D1 FF (Corrupt)
Like I said, the accident must have caused an electrical spike that both took out some core computer circuits (doors+locks) and the TripSense chip.
Posted 26 May 2006 at 04:56 ¶Post a Comment