General Motors' OnStar app will help in accident detection

General Motors' OnStar app will help in accident detection by smartphone

The automaker of General Motors is launching a new smartphone app called Guardian, for customers who want to use OnStar's remote support service capabilities when they are not physically inside their car.

OnStar said on Wednesday that it will roll out OnStar Guardian as a smartphone app with an active subscription. With it, you - and seven of your family or friends - can take Onstar's suite of services wherever you go.

The Guardian allows customers to monitor their loved ones through active location sharing. Think of it as the GM version of Apple's Find My Friends. App OnStar customers to track the location of approved users through live GPS sharing. GMs consider it useful to "walk home after dark, spend time in a rideshare or a rental vehicle, or when a teenage child is riding in a friend's car." 

This app has four main features: Mobile Crash Response, Roadside Assistance, Emergency Services and Location Status. 

The first feature is quite useful as it works with the smartphone's sensors to detect crashes. Even if you are a passenger in a vehicle without OnStar, the Guardian mobile app can alert OnStar to an accident and tell an advisor to contact emergency services. For those running Android, it will automatically connect you to an OnStar consultant. 

It sounds just as a roadside assistance bus. Anyone with the Guardian app can request assistance, even if the vehicle does not have an active membership. The emergency service will connect you with an advisor who can provide medical instructions, alert 911 and stay on line until additional assistance arrives. 

Location Status follows other apps that allow family members and friends to share their location in the app. Should anyone decide to move out, they can easily share their location so that family members can see their whereabouts. Users and up to seven other people can also use this function. 

General Motors' OnStar division can tell a thousand tales of sending help to drivers at the right time. 

To aid in the rollout of the app, OnStar will provide mobile services complimentary for six months. This offer is good for current OnStar users, can redeem this offer till 31 July. 

As people want to monitor family members spread across the country. "They also want to know where they are, where they are going, providing peace of mind to know where family members are”.