Airbiquity Customer Nissan Receives High Usability Marks In New SBD Connected Car Benchmarking Report

SEATTLE -- July 8, 2014: Airbiquity Inc., the global leader in connected car services, today announced that one of its marquee customers, Nissan Motor Corporation, was recognized by research firm SBD for the usability of its NissanConnectSM Mobile Apps connected car system. Airbiquity's Choreo™ connected car service delivery platform powers NissanConnect Mobile Apps and its global deployment now encompasses nine Nissan models. SBD is a UK-based independent, technical, and market research consultancy specializing in automotive security, connected car telematics, and driver assistance systems. In partnership with US-based research firm Morpace, the two companies conducted an independent, in-car usability test observing U.S. consumers performing a variety of tasks on seven different automotive models to better understand the relative usability of their connected car systems.

Among the findings, SBD rated NissanConnect Mobile Apps highest among all automotive manufacturers across three important categories: 1) "Setup" which describes how easy it is to setup the car to access services, 2) "Communicate" which describes how well the system allows a user to connect with the world outside the car, and 3) "Stay informed" which describes how well the system provides information such as news to the user. In addition to scoring highest in these three benchmarked categories, the SBD survey also indicates that 91% of the users surveyed found the Airbiquity-powered NissanConnect Mobile Apps system to be "easy/very easy to use." A full copy of the report can be purchased on the SBD site here.

"The connected car is quickly becoming a reality for new vehicles and their drivers. However, we have to recognize that this is cutting edge technology, and consumers can get frustrated with the usability of these systems as they develop. It's terrific to see SBD bring forth independent research with this kind of discipline and rigor to help the automotive industry improve connected car technology" said Scott Frank, Airbiquity Vice President of Marketing. "Airbiquity believes strongly in the power of connected car technology and user experience. This report verifies that by finding more than half of users surveyed were more likely to buy a Nissan because of their experience with NissanConnect Mobile Apps."

"Technology fragmentation and the pressure to offer more apps and services is making it increasingly hard for automakers to offer a singular user experience for in-car infotainment systems" explains Andrew Hart, SBD Head of Advanced Research. "One of the reasons the 2014 Nissan Altima with NissanConnect Mobile Apps scored well within our study is because of the seamless and consistent integration between apps and the rest of the system."

Airbiquity's Choreo connected car services delivery platform enables automotive OEMs to globally deploy, manage, and dynamically update differentiated connected car programs for their customers from the cloud. Choreo serves over 4 million vehicles around the world and supports hundreds of millions of vehicle transactions per month for leading automotive OEMs such as Nissan, Ford, Renault, Fiat, Chrysler, Dodge, Jeep, and SRT. Driver Experience, Airbiquity's latest product offering, was launched in 2013 and began providing infotainment delivery for Nissan North American Altima and Rogue vehicles.

Airbiquity believes it's imperative to ensure the increasing availability of technology, infotainment, and services in the car does not interfere with driver safety. Therefore Airbiquity built technology and policy management controls inside the Choreo platform to ensure speech recognition and text-to-voice capabilities are engaged and select application features disabled when a vehicle is in motion. This allows drivers to enjoy personal applications, cloud content, and services inside their connected cars without taking their eyes off the road. Choreo also enables other driver safety and convenience features like remote vehicle tracking and monitoring, geo-fencing, and automatic crash notifications.

See the experience: Airbiquity Experience