Earlier this week I was greeted in office by a Mr. Donahue
Martin to demonstrate a new car alarm system that's on the market called Rottoguard.
This car alarm system integrates the user's cell phone in the alarm and
alerting process.
How it works
The alarm system (Rottguard) uses a SIM card of your
choosing (Digicel/LIME) that will be the source of communication. The SIM card has to be functional and be able
to send and receive text messages. Also the SIM has to have credit on it at all
times to communicate back to the owner of the vehicle if something is wrong. In
case of foul play the alarm calls and sends a text messages to the owner's
phone saying an unauthorized personnel aka thief has open the car door, start
the engine or even shake the car in anyway. After which the user has the ability
to either shutdown the engine or request the location of the vehicle which can
be viewed in Google maps on your phone. This is done by sending a text message
with your personalized password attached to it to the alarm system. The request
for vehicle location is given in coordinates that can only be viewed on a smart
phone (Android, iPhone or Blackberry) or a PC.
Setup and
Maintenance
The setup cost is $28,000 (includes setup and GCT) which is
currently an introductory price. Plus you'll need credit on the alarm SIM card.
We were assured that $100 to $200 credit would be more than adequate for the
month. Rottguard is not allied with any armed response team so the
responsibility is on the user to give the information to the proper authority
when the time comes.
From A Consumer Perspective
After the demonstration I took to the streets to see what
would be the crowd response to Rottguard.
Carl Carr (Computer
Technician) "The alarm system sounds quite impressive and the fact that
you can remotely disable the engine via a simple text message makes it a perfect
solution to stop vehicle theft without any major confrontation. Also, this
alarm system seems more proactive than current alarms against theft."
Crosby Boswell
(Car Owner) "I love the idea and I will be the first one in line to
purchase one next week. But my problem is that with King Alarm when your
vehicle is stolen they will track it for you and retrieve it, but with this one
you'll have to give the location to the police and hope that they humor you and
retrieve it. I'm sorry, but most Jamaican police don't jump to the opportunity
to do work."
Final Thoughts
Rottguard seems well thought out and seeing it in action is impressive. The product mentioned in this article was provided courtesy of Auto-Don Trading Company Ltd 19 Keesing Avenue, Kingston 10, Office#: 923-9566, Cell#: 382-9713.
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