Dride is a new car dashcam powered by Amazon Alexa. It offers an interesting new in-car experience. One that combines smart video recording with audio interaction.

Inside is a Raspberry Pi and the software is open-source: so you can build your own Dride using a Raspberry Pi.

The commercial product is currently looking for backers on Kickstarter. Once installed on your car's windscreen it combines a smart dashcam with a hands-free driving device.

https://ksr-video.imgix.net/projects/1628352/video-746250-h264_high.mp4

Dride: Open-source Raspberry Pi smart dashcam

It records DVR video, like a regular Dashcam. But the device stores the recorded footage in a cloud service. It also stores GPS locations and records license plate numbers. Data that could prove valuable if you are involved in a traffic incident.

Dride is our revolutionary new product built to enhance every aspect of your driving, protect you from dangerous mobile distractions, and build a community around driving smartly and safely.

But it's the hands-free driving device that is more interesting. The speaker provides safety alerts. It also comes equipped with Alexa assistant, allowing you to interact with Alexa while driving your car.

You can get Alexa to read and write messages, and it offers audio navigation advice as well as safety alerts. It features ADAS (Advanced Driver Assistance Systems). The camera scans for cars ahead of you, and if you are too close it alerts you to slow down.

Building your own Dride

The device is equipped with WiFi, Bluetooth and GPS and connects to your mobile phone.

We are using Raspberry Pi that enables other programmers to build their own app on our platform. Our mission is to create a friendly environment for developers which is why Dride is built on Raspberry PI. So not only was it the perfect platform for us but it already has an enormous community with plenty of innovative projects that can work with Dride.

Dride is another example of folks taking the Raspberry Pi platform and putting it to commercial use. The software is open-source, so you can build your own Dride using a Raspberry Pi.