Our Launch
I don’t post here often, but today is a very special day for Dash – one that deserves a few minutes of reflection. Today, we officially launched our first product, the Dash Express, and began selling it to the general public.
This day has been a long time coming. Dash was founded almost five years ago in 2003. At that time, the company’s mission was to create the industry’s best traffic information by using a network of vehicles that would send back their speed and position to computers that would track the speed and flow of all of the highways and arterials in the country. At the time, we didn’t know how we would transmit this information, how we would grow this network of vehicles, or how we would make this information into a business.
Over the years, as with many businesses, our original concepts changed and evolved as we learned what we could and couldn’t do. After a long time playing with a wifi-only network structure, based on cars exchanging information as they passed each other, we found a cost-effective way to augment wifi by using the cellular network. Our original idea of putting devices in fleets of delivery trucks and taxis also morphed when we realized that our device had the ability to bring the Internet to commuters in their cars. It was in this way that Dash evolved into the world’s first two-way “connected” Personal Navigation Device (PND) and our traffic experiment evolved into the Dash Driver Network.
We have spent significant time and resource to test our concepts. As many of you know, last summer we launched the Dash National Road Test (NRT), where we put 2,000 prototype Dash devices into 25 U.S. cities. Our volunteer testers logged over 2 million miles and 50,000 hours in this test, and we learned a ton about what worked and what didn’t. We used the data from this test to revamp our original prototype into the Dash Express that enters the market today.
We do think we have built a better product for our target customer, and as the first Dash Express units hit the market, I want to make sure that people understand our design center and our vision.
Most GPS devices today are designed to help users find their way to places they have never been before. These devices emphasize routing, guidance and map features, and generally, do a very nice job completing this task. Most commuters, however, almost always know how to get where they are going. As a result, a typical GPS device is only actually used a few times a month. At Dash, our design center is the commuter and our mission is to have a device that consumers use and rely on every day. Our goal is to give consumers all of the information that they need about their commutes and their destinations, in real-time, and in a way that is simple to comprehend while driving.
In order to achieve this goal, Dash has concentrated on connectivity. Our devices uniquely use both wifi and cellular networks to provide a nearly “always-on” connection to the internet. We use that connection to send and receive speed and flow information, and to power the Dash Driver Network, giving users the most comprehensive traffic solution on the market today. We also use that connection to give users access to real-time, relevant destination information from the Internet – information like gas prices, movie times, community ratings of restaurants and businesses, and the ability to search the Internet for people, products and services. Finally, we use that connectivity to allow us to update every Dash Express “over-the-air” so that we can transparently ensure that our users always have the latest software, maps and other features.
While we have built out a lot of functionality into the Dash Express, particularly in the area of connected services, we are far from done. We realize that there are a number of additional navigation, routing and map features that would be nice to have, and we intend to continue to develop those areas. We also have just touched the surface of what is possible in the connected services area. We have lots of plans to develop the next generation of these services that will allow you to do things like make restaurant reservations, buy movie tickets, go house hunting and lots more. In addition, we plan to leverage the great information coming out of the Dash Driver Network to provide not only better traffic information, but better routing, maps and other information as well. It will take us some time to deliver all of this functionality, but, if you stick with us, we promise you that it will be a very interesting ride.
I’d like to take these last few words to thank all of you who have supported Dash on our ride so far – our employees, our investors, our partners, our Beta testers, and now, our customers – because this ride has just begun. In the words of Winston Churchill, “Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.”
Thank you for supporting Dash and please drive safely!
Paul Lego
CEO
March 28th, 2008 at 4:05 pm
[...] Dash Blog added an interesting post on Our LaunchHere’s a small excerpt [...]
March 31st, 2008 at 5:59 am
Paul - thanks for helping me get my Dash on day one!
BTW - I think a sign of a great product is when your blogs have died down because everyone is playing with their devices so much. With obviously no major issues. Great job. Well worth the wait.
March 31st, 2008 at 7:34 am
I had problems connecting to the cellular network with my unit as well as the AC charger was not able to charge the unit. However, Paul did reply my email regarding the issues and I hope someone at Dash will be able to help me out and get it working within this week.
March 31st, 2008 at 10:24 am
One of the tech support contacted me through email this morning and got everything sorted out. They’ll be shipping me a new device soon with a RMA label and I’m very happy with the great customer support!
March 31st, 2008 at 5:26 pm
I am proud of the accomplishments that Dash has provided in the GPS world. I do believe that Dash Express is revolutionary in its capabilities. But now that the Dash units are out for the world to see, the time has come to provide these units with its fullest potential. These units are lacking some functions that should be addressed in order to gain a more substantial fan-base. Right now, the ballots are out, but the votes are not far behind. It seems that everyone is waiting for the firmware update, to provide some repairs and more functionality.
As a user of Dash, I am again, pleased with the traffic and the internet based search. But I am more pleased with the over the air updating, for it provides potentional to the updates needed to fixed and tweak problems with mapping and adding functions that isn’t available presently. My hope (and I believe I can speak for others) is that Dash will be good listeners to its customers and allow us to help you build out the GPS of GPS’s. All many of us ask for is a listening ear.
Thanks
March 31st, 2008 at 5:46 pm
One of the things I’m waiting and watching for before purchasing is to see what DASH does with comments from its userbase. The company that manufactures the model I currently own does not appear to pay much attention to the feature set that its users keep requesting on various online forums.
If DASH shows that it really IS listening, and is allowing power users who regularly post about issues to be, in essence, a large corpus of paid beta-testers who can truly affect the course of the firmware updates, then I will be signing on sooner rather than later.
March 31st, 2008 at 6:47 pm
Is there any plans to offer a friction mount for the Dash? I don’t like leaving a mount in my car because it’s an invitation to thieves. I know the Dash can be disabled if it’s stolen, but that’s useless to me since you never know if it’s going to be ever recovered.
March 31st, 2008 at 7:02 pm
I love this device. Now if only it could be made into a smaller form factor - and yeah, a friction mount would be helpful.
BTW, I called tech support today. They picked up immediately and solved my problem in a timely manner.
March 31st, 2008 at 7:06 pm
Oh I should also add that as much as I love the Dash, I do not plan to buy one unless there’s a friction mount available…
March 31st, 2008 at 7:28 pm
@Vadim - I’ve already had a GPS stolen from my car, so I *always* take my GPS with me. It’s just a matter of moments from removing the dash/windshield mount and taking the GPS with you…
March 31st, 2008 at 9:29 pm
Ok guys, Mark from Dash here to jump into the conversation. Sorry about the lag, we have been knee deep in launch work and this thread went from a single comment to a lively discussion FAST. Anyway:
@Howard - sorry to see you had a less than optimal experience to start with, but I glad we are going to get you a new unit. Please be sure to reach out to our CS team if you need any further assistance, and you can always ping me if you needed: Mark AT dash.net
@Suttles1972 - As a member of our product team you should know that I am always looking for direct customer feedback to help shape our product roadmap. So be sure to drop a comment here and let me know what features you want us to add. I can’t say when the features might get rolled out, but your feedback is valuable to us.
@David - well I hope we can show you that we are serious about not only listening to our customers, but also to the community at large. So what feature are you looking for to get your over the hump?
@Vadim - I am happy to say that our unit works with standard friction mounts! So if you buy a standard friction mount you should be good to go!
@Alex - I am glad you found our support group to be helpful. We really want to make sure all our customers have a great experience with Dash! I know those guys personally, and not only are they great at their jobs, they are also genuenily nice people.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:29 pm
@Vadim - Just about any friction mount will work with the Dash. Personally, I bought one on amazon for less that $15 and it works like a charm.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:33 pm
Mark - Are there any plans in the works to host a user forum on my.dash?
March 31st, 2008 at 9:39 pm
@Mark W
Thanks for getting the unit to me ASAP…I would love to see the street name your are on and speed in the lower left corner like ETA is on the right
March 31st, 2008 at 9:41 pm
Posted this in a different Blog post, but this seems a tad more active. Just a couple quick questions :
I live in an area that uses HOV lanes extensively. There are many times where the HOV lane is flowing freely while all the other lanes are stop and go. How will dash handle this? When I’m driving alone I would like to see if it is going to take forever — but conversely in the morning I carpool and would like if dash were able to know that somehow.
I can see that you could easily have 2 dash users that give conflicting info. One is stopped and the other is zooming along. The second question is that some of the HOV lanes are shared in both directions and flip in direction of traffic flow - or even are closed - depending on time of day. How will dash handle this?
Curious
March 31st, 2008 at 9:44 pm
Ahh… I didnt realize they had friction mounts with a base where you can attach any device with a suction cup. I’ve been using a Garmin friction mount which only works with some Garmin devices… Thanks for clearing it up!
I should be getting a Dash soon.
March 31st, 2008 at 9:46 pm
I wish there was a way to edit comments… Anyway I forgot to add that it would be still nice to see a custom friction mount for the Dash since it would be less bulkier than a friction mount with the arm attached.
March 31st, 2008 at 11:30 pm
@JStu - yes, we do plan on creating forums in MyDash. We are working to get those live ASAP… can’t promise a time frame on it, but we are working on it now.
@MattS - thanks again for the feedback. I will be sure to get it to our design team.
@Curious - I have to get up in about 5 hours so I don’t have time to write the response that these questions deserve, so I promise to get back to you tomorrow.
Mark
April 1st, 2008 at 8:10 pm
@Mark…You sleep???
April 1st, 2008 at 9:30 pm
@MattS - I am getting a surprisingly decent amount of sleep for having just launched this product, having a newborn (4 month old), and a 3.5 year old who recently became scared of the monsters in her room, which recently has me getting up around 5:30am. Anyway, back to the real purpose of this thread…
@Curious - Thanks for your patience on this one. So let me try and answer all your questions around HOV lanes and reversible roads. Currently we don’t have a setting that allows you to put yourself in HOV mode, that would enable us to use HOV based traffic data and routing (since in some metros HOV lanes are physically separate from other metros). This is something we are evaluating and it is on our roadmap. Now in terms of traffic data, as we learn about metros and we get more drivers out in the market we are able to set aside outliers in the data (such as an HOV person during a jam, or someone replacing a tire during free flow conditions).
Ok, now onto the roads that have “reversible segments”. Some roads (like 90/94 in the Chicago area) have “express lanes” that are physically separate from the rest of the road and they ALSO change direction. For these specific stretches we don’t collect traffic data because there aren’t often set rules for the direction of the traffic flow. For example, holidays or special events can change the flow, so we just allow people to route onto the road as needed but we don’t send up the traffic data. This is something that we will add at a later date.
For other reversible roads, such as Clara Barton Parkway in Washington DC, where the road changes direction in the day, but it also follows pretty set rules, we DO provide traffic data on these roads.
Now to give you some perspective on the prevalence of this type of situation. We collect traffic data on over 2.1 million miles of road, and there are only something like 10 roads in the US that have some form of a separated expressway lanes that may change direction where we aren’t collecting traffic data. And we are working on addressing all of these.
Mark
April 2nd, 2008 at 9:14 am
Thanks for the reply, Mark. Can we ask about specific roads?? I don’t have a dash yet, but will be looking for a gps solution in the next few months.
April 2nd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Hello, In the near future will you be adding a traffic incident list menu on the dash unit?
April 2nd, 2008 at 3:52 pm
@Curious - Feel free to shoot me an email directly Mark AT Dash.net to ask about specific roads.
@solrackm - We know that users are interested in not only knowing the traffic flow, but why traffic is slow, so traffic incidents are something we are evaluating for our roadmap.
April 5th, 2008 at 4:44 pm
A question about the roadmap and upgrades: if I get a DASH now, and you roll out lots of great upgrades, at what point am I going to have to buy a new unit instead of getting the updates as part of my monthly subscription? If the updates require hardware changes instead of just firmware, and I have a current monthly subscription, can I turn my unit in for a new one?
April 8th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
@David - we currently don’t have any plans to “end of life” units, so we don’t have any details to share in this area. I would like to emphasize that unlike other GPS manufacturers, we have a HUGE incentive to keep our older units up-to-date with great software since we want our subscribers to be happy subscribers, which means they will continue to subscribe.