About Fiat

Fiat is the leading car manufacturer in sales in Brazil and, since 2012, decided to lead a movement for better roads in the country.

Challenge

More than 31,000 people lose their lives each year in accidents caused by drunk drivers in Brazil (source: Ministry of Health). And despite awareness campaigns, this number continues to grow worldwide. Our challenge is to change the strategy, since the awareness campaigns alone have proven to be ineffective.

Idea

Rather than just an awareness campaign, we created an innovative accessory in order to cause an effective habit change in drivers: Fiat Safe Key, the first car key designed to save lives.

How it works

You will only be able to turn on the car if you prove to the Fiat Safe Key that you have not ingested alcohol. Simply blow into the Safe Key where indicated. And in less than 1 second, it analyzes the alcohol level in your body.

If the driver has consumed alcohol, it will not work. If the driver has not consumed alcohol, then done! Just use the key to start the car and drive normally.

Despite it being a simple idea, the mechanism is quite ingenious. Since blowing into the key always leaves behind residues, the solution was to have an automatic self-sterilizing sensor, so as not to compromise subsequent uses.

And to ensure battery life lasts over a year, we created something simple: the actual blowing into the device switches on the Fiat Safe Key.

Our challenge was to reinvent the object keeping it small and durable as a conventional key, but making it accurate and reliable as an industrial meter.

To meet the needs of our day-to-day scenarios, the response time between the breath, and the key release had to be very fast. Much higher than industrial market devices.

To achieve this quickly and accurately with energy efficiency and size restrictions, we had to, literally, reinvent the engineering behind such a system, especially in the detection sensor that works in conjunction with an air vibration sensor to optimize the reading and the system drive time.

The result is an extremely ergonomic object with an unprecedented response time and yet with a battery life of more than one year.

Technology Solution

Tech Specs

Processor: MCU Cortex M0 (NXP LPC1114)

Microphone: Low Power SMD with built-in pre-amp + low power Amp Circuit

Plunger for key liberation: Linear Digital Servo.

The production of the functional prototype is 100% complete. The test-proofing of the concept shows that the product will work as planned.

We are now in the planning phase for the industrial production of the device. The plan is that - in the coming months - it will be sold like any other Fiat optional item.