Parakaleo Mobile

What it actually does

While you drive, the app uses your phone's GPS and its motion sensors, the accelerometer and the gyroscope, to notice three kinds of hard moment: hard braking, hard acceleration and hard cornering. It also keeps count of how far you have gone.

Your Mobile Safety Score starts at 100 and drops whenever the phone feels one of those hard moments. The harder the moment, the more it costs. It is weighed against how far you have driven, so a single rough stop on a long, smooth trip barely moves the needle.

The app also compares your GPS speed with posted speed limits, unless you switch off Speed limit checks in its Settings. When you stay well over the limit, it records a speeding event with the trip: the time, your peak speed, the posted limit, how far over you went and for how long, with no location. The limits come from OpenStreetMap and can be missing or wrong, so speeding events are a guide, not proof.

Everything is worked out on the phone itself. Only a short summary of each trip comes to us. We never receive raw GPS points, and we never see the route you drove.

What you'll need

• An iPhone or an Android phone.
• The Parakaleo Drive companion app. It contains no purchases and unlocks nothing. You manage your licensed account and plan on the web, in the portal.
• An active Parakaleo Mobile plan on your portal account, with one paid slot for each vehicle.
• A few permissions: location set to Always, so trips are caught even when the app is closed, plus motion sensors and notifications. The app explains why before it asks, and tells you plainly if tracking ever stops.

Getting started

1. Set up a licensed account in the portal on the web, activate a Parakaleo Mobile plan and choose how many vehicles to cover.

   

2. Go to Add a Vehicle, then Parakaleo Mobile, and add a phone vehicle. You'll get an eight-character pairing code and a QR code. Both last ten minutes.

   

3. Open the app, tap Pair a vehicle, and type in the code or scan the QR. The app asks the driver to accept the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy and to confirm they are 18 or older, and it records which version they accepted.

   

4. Drive as usual. The app spots the start and end of each trip by itself and sends the summary when it can.

   

One phone pairs with one vehicle at a time. Pair a new phone and the old one is unpaired, which is handy when you upgrade. Drivers who don't own the account need no portal login at all, just a code from the owner or a manager.

The honest trade-offs

A phone simply sees less than a radar does. Mobile scores are built from motion and GPS alone, so they can be a little noisier, and that is why we started with cautious thresholds. If you were a passenger, you can mark the trip in the app and it won't count. The app uses some battery while you drive, and if you switch off location or motion permissions, tracking stops until you turn them back on. For most people none of this is a dealbreaker. You should still know it.

Keeping it fair

Where there are cash prizes, someone will try to cheat, so we watch for it. Trips that look like a faked location, an impossible jump in position, or two phones in one car at the same moment are held back and checked by our team before they count. Mobile prizes are reviewed before they are paid, too.

Your data

The app sends a short summary of each trip: when it started and ended, how far it went, the top speed, and any hard braking, hard acceleration, sharp cornering or speeding events. Trip details are deleted automatically after 90 days. The account owner or a manager can also delete a vehicle's trip data whenever they like. All the details are on our data deletion page. Safety Scores are meant for coaching and fleet management, not for credit, hiring, firing, tenant or insurance-eligibility decisions.

Is it right for you?

Mobile suits you if you drive a personal car, if you want to be up and running today, or if your vehicle is too old for Engine. It is a weaker fit if you run a fleet that needs the most detailed hazard data, or if you can't rely on a phone being in the car and switched on. For those, Parakaleo Engine is the steadier choice.

Price and billing

$20 per vehicle, every month, billed in the portal in US dollars; applicable taxes may be added at checkout. No hardware, installation or setup fees. The app is a companion to a licensed account set up on the web. It contains no purchases and does not sell or unlock anything. You can add a vehicle at any time, and it is charged pro rata for the rest of the current billing period. Removing a vehicle or cancelling gives no credit or refund (except where the law requires one) and takes effect at the end of the period, so you keep access until then. Deleting your account is different: it ends your subscription and your access immediately, with no refund of the current period except where the law gives you one.

Rewards

Mobile vehicles earn points and compete in the monthly Safety Challenge, only against other Mobile drivers, on a leaderboard and with a prize pool of their own. A cash prize requires both a referral and a minimum distance, as set out in the Safety Challenge Rules in the portal, where the prize amounts are also shown. Points have no cash value on their own, but they can count toward qualifying. Leaderboards show display names and scores to other accounts, and you can ask us to hide your display name. Anyone who refers others must disclose that they receive a reward. Apple and Google are not sponsors of the Safety Challenge.

Mixing methods

Each vehicle uses one method, and that choice stays with the vehicle for good. One account, though, can hold both: some vehicles on Mobile, others on Engine. They are billed as two separate subscriptions, and each method has its own scores and its own leaderboard.

Ready when you are

Set up a licensed account in the portal on the web and activate Parakaleo Mobile. Want the deepest in-vehicle data instead? Take a look at Parakaleo Engine.

Open the portal ↗ See Parakaleo Engine