Latest news with #geofencing
Yahoo
10-06-2025
- Automotive
- Yahoo
Volvo Trucks introduces automatic speed limitation for increased safety
GOTHENBURG, Sweden, June 10, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Volvo Trucks launches a new service which enables the activation of automatic speed limitation in predefined geographical areas. The main objective is increased safety. Safer truck traffic in busy city areas, less damage within the truck depot and less stress for drivers who will know they will not accidentally exceed the speed limit. These are the main benefits of Safety Zones, Volvo Trucks' new digital service. Volvo is one of the first truck manufacturers to launch a service of this kind. Using Safety Zones, transport companies can set speed limits for each truck as it enters a predefined geographical area, a technology often referred to as "geofencing". When the truck is operated within the area, acceleration above the zone speed limit is restricted by the engine. The truck actively brakes to reach the zone speed limit if it enters the zone with a higher speed. "With this service, a transport company can secure that the speed of the vehicle is kept low. For example, in a harbor or at a logistics center, or in areas with a lot of people and traffic moving about like busy city centers and around schools," explains Johan Rundberg, product manager at Volvo Trucks. "The aim of the service is to make the traffic environment safer and to reduce stress for the driver. At Volvo, we continuously develop our safety systems with the purpose of taking steps towards our long-term vision of zero accidents with Volvo trucks." The fleet manager defines the geographical zones on a digital map, configures the allowed speed limit and has full control of which zone should be used for each truck. The driver will see in the instrument display that he or she is in a speed-limited zone and what the maximum speed is. Safety Zones is a subscription service and part of Volvo Connect, Volvo Trucks' interface for digital services for all customers. In the Volvo Connect portal, the fleet manager will receive an event notification whenever the truck enters or leaves the zone, and if the driver violates the maximum speed. The new service is available on Volvo's heavy-duty trucks Volvo FH, FM and FMX Euro 6 and with electric drivelines. This includes the new Volvo FM Low Entry, a truck that comes with electric drive only and which is especially suitable for traffic in city areas. The service is available as of June 2025 for new trucks and as of September 2025 for existing trucks. Facts: Safety Zones A service in Volvo Connect, Volvo's digital service platform, that combines vehicle positioning with rules set for specific zones on a map. The telematic unit onboard the truck transmits its GPS position and receives instructions set by fleet management. Customized speed limits can be set from 20 km/h and above. Up to 300 zones can be active in a truck. The service automatically sets and limits the cruise control to the maximum set speed in the zone. Volvo Connect Positioning service is a prerequisite for Safety Zones. Available on Volvo's heavy-duty trucks Volvo FH, FM and FMX Euro 6, and trucks with electric drivelines (produced later than autumn 2022), including Volvo FM Low Entry. How Safety Zones works: When entering a zone, the truck will automatically brake to meet the set speed limit. The driver is notified in the instrument display. For safety purposes, the driver can override the speed limit by doing a kick-down on the accelerator pedal. If the driver uses cruise control, the speed cannot be set to a speed higher than the zone limit. Entering, leaving, override and speed violation events are shown to the fleet manager in Volvo Connect. LINK to high resolution images Press images and films are available in the Volvo Trucks' Media Hub: For more information, please contact:Helena LindMedia Relations Director, Volvo 76 5536257 This information was brought to you by Cision The following files are available for download: Volvo Trucks_Safety Zones_final VT SafetyZones 2025 2 Safety Zones 1 VT SafetyZones 2025 3 VT SafetyZones 2025 5 Volvo FM Low Entry View original content: SOURCE Volvo Trucks Sign in to access your portfolio
CNET
08-06-2025
- CNET
Smart Home's Secret Tech Is Geofencing: Here's What It Is and How I Use It
If you search through your smart home app or feature list, you'll often run into the word "geofencing" or something like automatic home/away settings. That signals a powerful, useful feature that far too many users don't even bother turning on. I'm trying to change that. My experiments with smart home technology have shown me all sorts of ways to tap into geofencing technology. If you're interested in saving time and finding clever new ways to use your tech, I highly recommend it -- although there are some data tracking details you should know, too. I'll explain Read more: What is a Smart Home, Anyway? Geofencing: Mapping your location Geofencing requires giving an app location data, such as your address. Tyler Lacoma/CNET Geofencing is a mobile technology that taps into location-based data (usually via GPS and other map app tricks). It allows users to fence in a specific spot and create rules about what happens when they leave that spot, as tracked by the location of their phone. Different companies have different types of geofencing methods but the end result is the same. In smart homes, the geofenced area is typically a home. When a user moves away from their home with their phone or other device that's tracking their location, it dings when it reaches a certain distance away, which causes connected devices to do things. More complex geofencing allows users to literally draw on a digital map to set its boundaries but in most cases, you just give the app your address and it does the rest for you. An important note: Consumer-focused geofencing should not be confused with marketing or law enforcement geofencing, which shares the same name but is a completely different practice. In law enforcement, for example, geofencing refers to requesting user data from all mobile devices in a specific area. Courts are currently in disagreement on whether this growing practice is legal. How smart homes use geofencing Smart home apps have a number of ways to get started with geofencing and some are very simple. Tyler Lacoma/CNET So, what does geofencing actually do? It can change how home devices act when someone is away from home vs. when they are at home or arriving home. This has several practical, time-saving capabilities. For example, users may be able to set routines that turn off the lights, lock the door and close the garage when they start driving away from home. Or, if they regularly get home in the dark, they may be able to link up smart lights to turn on as they're approaching the house. That's just the start of what you can do with geofencing and a smart home. Other people may prefer to focus on their smart thermostat, letting it automatically ease off heating and cooling when they leave their home, then make things more comfortable when they get back. Getting started with geofencing capabilities ADT's new hub has a few extra tricks and supports features like geofencing. Tyler Lacoma/CNET You don't have to arrange complex smart home routines or draw lines around a map to take advantage of geofencing. In fact, it's best to start small when first using this feature and see how it works in your own home. One of the easiest ways to begin using geofencing is to get a smart plug that supports home/away modes. The plug will simply turn off a connected device when you're gone, which can help save electricity. You could connect it to a light, a fountain, fan or air purifier and see if it turns off as you leave and starts working again when you arrive home. That may give you other ideas about what technology you'd like to control based on leaving or arriving home. Home and away settings are a particularly easy way to use geofencing, especially when arming security devices. Tyler Lacoma/CNET Or, if you have an existing security system, you can check to see if it supports home/away modes that use geofencing. It can be very handy to set your security system up to automatically arm and disarm based on whether you are out of the house. Plus, you may not even need to purchase any new devices, just change some settings in your app. I recently tested these sorts of services with ADT and the ADT+ platform, which also allows you to integrate smart lock behaviors and more. If you're looking for new tech that includes geofencing, look for devices that support Matter or that work with major platforms like Alexa, Apple Home and Google Home. Geofencing isn't guaranteed, but this makes it more likely. Is geofencing safe and private? Geofencing will let companies know when you're leaving home. RerF via Getty Geofencing is generally considered safe. In my years of smart home testing, I've never heard of consumer geofencing being misused or landing anyone in danger. The worst that can happen is that geofencing stops working because of bugs or app problems, which could leave a security system disarmed or require reboots and patches (as people have reported on Reddit). Well, that's the worst for individual consumers, anyway: If you're a government, geofencing apps may accidentally show secret military bases. On the privacy front, things are more complicated. Geofencing does require enabling various location-based tracking data. That gives apps -- and the companies that own them -- access to info about where you live, when you leave or arrive at a location and possibly other data. They may use that data for internal analysis and marketing purposes, or even sell it to third parties (although that usually requires some kind of warning or consent). Apps generally need to enable location-based data on demand to use geofencing correctly so you can't usually set it to only activate once like you can with other apps. That's a privacy concession not everyone is willing to make. To learn more, visit our pages on the best smart home devices, security practices to keep your home safe and the cheap smart devices CNET editors are still using.
