Installation Guide and FAQ for PANION APP

Hej,

Have you heard the news? ABB’s new venture subsidiary – PANION – is pushing vehicle electrification.

We thought you might like to be part of the movement.

About PANION

PANION was founded on the belief that smart, sustainable transportation is the key to a clean and green future.

As a corporate start-up of ABB’s eMobility division, PANION is on a mission to become the global authority for transitioning to electric vehicles and charging infrastructure.

We see ourselves as reliable business comPANIONs, supporting enterprises in their transition to electrifying their fleet and ensuring sustainable and effective management.

What’s the Prototype About?

At PANION, we aim to provide groundbreaking technology and support our partners as they transition to electrified vehicles.

To make the process of transitioning your fleet as easy and as possible, we will collect and analyze data from the drivers smartphone and provide substitution recommendations based on your car’s specific driving activity.

Using a custom-built mobile app PANION will collect trip data on current vehicles and provide an analysis of their electrification suitability.

This is where you come in.

As the driver of the to be analyzed vehicle, you will help to collect the data for this mission.

For more information, contact us: [email protected]

Participation Guidelines

Project duration

Currently, we are working with a data collection period of two months. Our research has shown that this will provide us with enough information to present a reliable substitution analysis.

However, this exercise continuously validates our findings, so we may need to extend this period a while longer.

Data collection

This mission aims to make an accurate estimation of the “EV readiness” of your vehicle. That is to say, can you safely substitute your car with an electric version? And: how much would this reduce your carbon footprint?

To answer these questions, we need to understand the distance your car travels and how long it’s on the road for. We built a mobile app for this purpose: This is the prototype you’ll be testing. The PANION app collects GPS, gyroscope, and accelerometer data to make its assessment.

You just need to remember to track your daily car trips. Simple.

Find out more about our data privacy.
Link: https://www.panion.org/privacy-policy/

BLUETOOTH BEACON

You have been or will be invited to use the PANION app with an iBeacon Bluetooth device. This is a small device which you as the driver will be asked to position in your car. It enables the PANION app on your smartphone to trigger an automation of starting and ending the trip recording. The device itself does not log any data. It is only able to send out a Bluetooth signal which is recognized by the PANION app when the beacon has been paired once. Position the beacon device in a way it can’t be easily moved, e.g. the glovebox since it contains a motion sensor to make sure it only sends out the trigger signal when the car is moving.

Installation Guide

STEP 1: DOWNLOAD THE APP

There are two ways to start with the PANION app:

1. If not advised differently you will be invited by PANION via email, wait for this email or request an invite from your fleet manager if the mail was supposed to reach you already.

2. Your fleet manager will share a sign-up link or QR code with you upfront. In this case you are asked to sign up yourself with your email address which is accessible on your smartphone. You will then receive the invite email mentioned above.

Make sure you are opening the email on your smartphone because it contains your unique invite link and as well links to the PANION app in the Apple and Google Play Store.

Download the app with the device that you will use to record your trips.

STEP 2: LOG IN

Get back to your email again and click the invite link to PANION.

You will be forwarded directly to the prior installed PANION app on your smartphone and it should automatically authorize you.

STEP 3: TURN ON PERMISSIONS

The app requires your permission to track your position. When prompted, please allow “Location Services” and “While in Use” to be turned on. The app doesn’t work without these permissions. Don’t worry; you can always set them manually if you reject them by accident in the settings on the upper right.

STEP 4: SELECT YOUR CAR

The Fleet manager of your organization has already set up the available cars so you should be able to find the car belonging to you by typing in the license plate into the search field. If you can’t find your car, please contact your fleet manager so he can add it and try again at a later point in time.

STEP 5: GIVE LOCATION ACCESS PERMISSION

To record your trip we are using the GPS data from your smartphone. To enable this,
we need permissions from you in the Settings. If those are not given already please klick on “Open
Settings” and enable auto-tracking.

STEP 6: CONNECT A iBEACON DEVICE

Make sure you have the right iBeacon which was given to you personally. Open the cap and press the button until a blue light flashes. Now the beacon is active. Push “setup a beacon” under the chosen vehicle and perform the setup process until the beacon is successfully identified. This beacon now belongs to your car and should not be exchanged during the usage of PANION. Place the beacon in the glovebox or anywhere center in the car where it can’t be easily moved.

The PANION app set up is now complete

If you have a sending beacon placed in your car which is matched to your car, the app will be triggered
to start a trip automatically once you are close to it and the car is moving. It will also stop automatically
the trip when the car is not moving anymore for a longer period.

You still have the option to manually start the trip in the app.

You can explore PANION app for additional informations:

get more information on your Co2 emissions created with your trips
trip duration and length
historical trips
look up public charging spots near your parking location (if you are uncertain to drive this trip
with an EV later on)

Frequently Asked Questions

You can leave us feedback via the settings menu in the app. Any feedback is appreciated!

Restart. We get a bug report. Let us know if it happens frequently.

A trip could be missing from your trip history for two reasons: It hasn’t been uploaded yet. The tracking data is calculated and uploaded at the end of your recorded trip. Depending on the duration of your trip, this might take a while. Check again later. If the trip is still missing the next day, something is amiss. Please get in touch and let us know.

Yes. This is the only way to determine if a future EV could cover all of your activities and provide an accurate recommendation. The app doesn’t differentiate between private and business trips, so please start recording every time you drive.

Other persons can also download the app. If they want to use the same car they have to select it. If they do so the car will be unselected in your app, so once you take the car over again, you would need to select the car in your app again before driving.

If the other person is connected to the beacon, this person is also able to track trips with their app. Those trips won’t be visible for you and also your taken trips are not visible for other drivers.

Your company representative only receives information about trip length: mileage and duration.

We only use the collected data to calculate the trip length and CO2 emissions. We store this information to complete the analysis and visualize the accumulated information.

MOBILE APP The PANION app collects GPS coordinates and gyroscope and accelerometer data, which it uses to calculate the distance and duration of your trip. The app can only collect data when you turn it on and start recording a trip.