Intelligent Speed Assistant App

for iOS & Android

Whenever driving in an unfamiliar areas, the driver has to focus on the street signs. In reality though, people don't always pay attention to every single sign they see. So I notice that I need some assistant that shows me the current speed limit reliable, no matter where I am.

8 min read

Background

I have been traveling a lot recently with my car. Since 2022 it is mandatory that the vehicle manufacturer offer an intelligent speed assistant (ISA). Sadly though, my car was built before 2022 😅. So I had to come up with an idea to get an ISA myself. I checked out the app store and I didn't find any app that offers that reliably. When using apps like Google Maps or Apple Maps for navigation, they allegedly show you the current speed limit for your location. In reality it's most of the time vastly incorrect. So it wasn't reliable at all, and I had to come up with my own solution.

Technology Stack

Since I wanted to make an app for both platforms (iOS & Android), my first choice was React Native. For the backend I chose Python & FastAPI & SQLAlechmy to dive deeper into the work ORM layers with relational databases & REST APIs in Python. For the frontend I used TypeScript with React Native & Expo. I am so used and in love with TypeScript, so I don't even wanna go back plain JavaScript.

Data

The heart and brain of the app, is the actual reliable data. I am using a reliable data source, for which I pay per request. I tried quite a few and most of them didn't work the way I wanted and had lots of flaws.

How it works

The app is requesting every 10 seconds the backend, based on the current accurate location, which is then requesting via HTTPS the data REST API and returns the current city, street (based on latitude, longitude) as well as the current speed limit. It then stores the result data together with the location into a database, so that later on I can track my whole route where I travelled around. I plan to show it on an map, so I can track all the places I visited.

Alerting when driving too fast

Moreover it very important to get notified right away, when I drive too fast. It tracks the current driving speed and compares it to the current speed limit. Whenever I drive faster, than the current speed limit, I get a notification ring sound, in order to reduce the speed right away.

Summary

I am using my app on a daily basis. However it is quite pricey. For every request I have to pay. Personally it is worth to travel safe, but I doubt that others would pay for it for every request. Therefore currently it is not published in the app store, so it only my personal app, however I don't wanna be without it anymore when driving with my car, since it provides security for me and it's just handy 😄.

Any Questions? Message me.