A new service that automatically alerts fleet managers and drivers to low vehicle battery levels is now available from Airmax Remote.
Introduced as both Covid restrictions and the imminent arrival of winter increase the risks of vehicle battery issues, the new service monitors voltage levels and alert fleet managers and drivers initially when a vehicle’s battery requires charge, followed by secondary notifications for critical battery health when there is a significant risk of the engine not starting.
The new service will help fleets avert the risk of breakdowns and vehicle downtime; Airmax Remote said that overall vehicle utilisation has reduced among its corporate customers by an average of 22.8% as a result of the lockdown.
The telematics specialist has now reprogrammed its black boxes in situ so that they send battery status information to the data warehouse, which is then translated into alerts that can be sent to the vehicle owner using the enterprise platform accompanied by email or SMS, or via the Airmax Remote driver account. The driver and fleet manager are also provided with recommendations as to how to restore the battery health of the vehicles.
The technology will also monitor the battery performance throughout a journey and report voltage values not considered ‘healthy’.
The battery health feature, will be made available within Airmax Remote’s latest version release and rolled out to existing customers on a phased release, forms part of Airmax Remote’s wider SMR offering, which includes vehicle health checks to provide remote monitoring of customer fleets.
The vehicle maintenance suite of data complements existing vehicle DTCs (diagnostic trouble codes), vehicle warning notifications and variable service data and includes the ability to set service reminders.
Dave Hill, head of engineering, Airmax Remote, said: “Where Airmax differs from other data service providers is that we control our product development and the embedded firmware, thereby we are agile and able to react to market requirements. This is a complimentary dataset to those we already provide to monitor the overall health of a vehicle, and can pass on the benefits to our customers, in this case, a robust vehicle battery health monitoring solution which will protect fleets and drivers over the coming months and part of our long term product development roadmap.”
