Road Angel Professional Connected

[craigyb]

I've just removed the pogo alert from the A8 and replaced it with the new Road Angel Pro Connected. £299 from my local dealership. This unit does online updates via it's onboard GSM/GPRS section. So it constantly updates with mobile and fixed camera locations.

It warned me of a Scamera van on the M61 this morning, I didn't see one, but better safe than sorry.

The unit is a bit larger than the pogo, nearly double the size, but the display is clear and concise, you can see the udpates being made etc. and it comes with 2 remote controls so you can mount it at the front of the screen out of the way.

Subscription is £4.99 a month, so only £10 a year more than the pogo alert subscription.

[techieboy]

How does the data download work, Craig? Do you have to shove your own PAYG SIM in the unit and keep it "topped up" with credit?

[craigyb]

It comes with a built in SIM and GSM/GPRS phone section.

Once registered it receives an SMS from Orange and updates automatically from the ROad Angel servers over GPRS.

Whilst I was out and about this morning it updated about 4 times.

So the £4.99 a month covers these updates.

[techieboy]

Cool. Thanks Craig. I was fearing large data download bills like I get when I've got the TomTom Traffic rubbish enabled and it's dialling up every 10 minutes.

Now if only they made it with a small discrete screen and a separate brain to hide away, it would be almost perfect.

[craigyb]

Well after a few weeks and now two RA units, I would avoid this product like the plague.

Where do you mount the Speed camera detector? On the dash in direct sunlight? of course your do.

What happens when you do?

The RA overheats even though it's not powered up and dies, the charging circuitry is rubbish and the charging light flashes. You are unable to power up the RA even though it's hardwired as the battery requires some charge, catch 22 when the charging is suspended.

The local RA sales manager tells me it was fixed in a new firmware release, but now on my second RA and just charging it in my lounge it has died again with the flashing red light. Even after I updated it from the web as instructed.

Listen to RA's answer to this problem.....

"My Professional won’t work in my car and it is a hot or very sunny day, what can I do?"


The Professional needs at least some charge in the battery for it to work properly. If the charging circuit has been suspended for some time, due to the excessive heat in the car, it is possible that all of the available charge in the battery has been used. To continue charging the unit remove the Professional from the car and charge it in a cooler location. It may take up to ten minutes from removing the unit for the internal temperature to fall enough to allow the battery to start charging properly again. Successful charging is indicated by a constant red LED on the front screen.

Excessive heat? what a crock of sh!te, it's June and not exactly hot, my car even has a solar roof to keep it cool and teh unit still breaks.

[CarMad]

Ouch that doesn't sound good at all. I wondered about getting one of these myself but I'm not going to bother now.

[Golfer]

Originally Posted by CarMad

Ouch that doesn't sound good at all. I wondered about getting one of these myself but I'm not going to bother now.

I was also going to get one, not now, sounds a crock of ****e

[grahammackie]

I was searching for something else on Google and came across this thread and I hope you excuse my hi-jacking it.

I am the MD of Road Angel Group and sometimes feel the need to jump to the defence of our products.

Firstly Craigyb is correct the unit is designed to shut down the charging circuit when the temperature inside the device reaches 40 degrees c, something that it can easily do when on a black dashboard in bright sunlight.

When designing the Road Angel Professional Connected we wanted to offer maximum battery life and therefore chose Lithium Ion batteries, as used by other phone, sat-nav and laptop manufacturers. Unfortunately LI batteries come with a warning - charge them when they are too hot and you will permanently reduce their capacity and therefore their useful life. This is not unique - in all TomTom user manuals they also state that charging will not occur in their devices in temperatures above 45 degrees.

Since the first devices were shipped wehave released some new firmware that drastically improves the battery life of the Connected Professional device. We are also testing some new firmware for release in July that gives you advance warnings when the battery is getting low.

I hope this goes some way to explaining the issues you are having. If you would like to receive advance updates of any new firmware changes please e-mail me at graham dot mackie at roadangelgroup dot com.

regards

[craigyb]

Graham

Your tech support have just emailed me the latest firmware, although they are not 100% certain it will fix this problem, I will test it over the next few days where the weather in my lounge should be fair to middleing.

[Golfer]

Originally Posted by grahammackie

I was searching for something else on Google and came across this thread and I hope you excuse my hi-jacking it.

I am the MD of Road Angel Group and sometimes feel the need to jump to the defence of our products.

Firstly Craigyb is correct the unit is designed to shut down the charging circuit when the temperature inside the device reaches 40 degrees c, something that it can easily do when on a black dashboard in bright sunlight.

When designing the Road Angel Professional Connected we wanted to offer maximum battery life and therefore chose Lithium Ion batteries, as used by other phone, sat-nav and laptop manufacturers. Unfortunately LI batteries come with a warning - charge them when they are too hot and you will permanently reduce their capacity and therefore their useful life. This is not unique - in all TomTom user manuals they also state that charging will not occur in their devices in temperatures above 45 degrees.

Since the first devices were shipped wehave released some new firmware that drastically improves the battery life of the Connected Professional device. We are also testing some new firmware for release in July that gives you advance warnings when the battery is getting low.

I hope this goes some way to explaining the issues you are having. If you would like to receive advance updates of any new firmware changes please e-mail me at graham dot mackie at roadangelgroup dot com.

regards

Graham, my RA2 does not ref to work on my dashboard whatever the temperature, so why should this "Later Model" be any different?. I will not be upgrading to this model thanks.
@ £4.00+ per month I would expect better service from the unit sorry.
All dashmounts are subject to highish temps, none I have tried have failed due to this.

Changes in Software will not affect the operation of the unit IMO.