What is Mobile Telematics?
Mobile telematics is the use of smartphone sensors — GPS, accelerometer, gyroscope, magnetometer — to continuously observe, record, and analyse driving behaviour. No additional hardware is required. The smartphone in a driver's pocket acts as a black box, collecting the same driving data that dedicated OBD devices and GPS trackers provide, at a fraction of the cost and with zero installation overhead.
The Damoov platform is built on mobile telematics. The SDK reads from these sensors in the background, the Damoov pipeline processes the raw stream into structured trip records, and your application consumes the enriched data through the API or DataHub.
What data is collected
The Damoov SDK reads from several sensor sources simultaneously:
| Source | Data captured | Frequency |
|---|---|---|
| GPS | Location, speed, route, altitude, course | 1 Hz |
| Accelerometer | Longitudinal and lateral g-force, braking intensity, cornering | 60 Hz |
| Gyroscope | Rotation rate, lane-change detection, phone-handling gestures | 60 Hz |
| Magnetometer | Heading and orientation reference | 60 Hz |
| Screen / lock state | Phone-in-hand detection, distracted-driving proxy | Event-driven |
| Bluetooth OBD (add-on) | Engine codes, RPM, fuel level, vehicle fault codes, in-vehicle diagnostics | Continuous |
Raw sensor data is pre-processed on-device before transmission, reducing bandwidth usage while preserving the full resolution needed for accurate event detection.
The processing pipeline
Raw sensor data travels through a multi-stage pipeline before it becomes an enriched, structured trip record in your application:
1. Raw sensor stream
GPS and IMU data are collected on-device at up to 60 Hz. The SDK handles calibration, axis normalisation, and local buffering.
2. Trip detection and segmentation
The platform identifies when a trip starts and ends — filtering out noise, stationary periods, and non-driving motion such as walking or cycling. Each trip is assigned a unique ID, start and end timestamps, and a distance.
3. Event detection
Driving events are classified directly from the sensor stream:
- Harsh acceleration
- Hard braking
- Sharp cornering
- Speeding (relative to posted speed limits)
- Phone use while driving
- Collision detection
4. Scoring
Per-trip and cumulative scores are computed using Damoov's proprietary models:
- Safety Score — overall driver risk rating, used in UBI and fleet programs
- Eco-Driving Score — fuel and cost efficiency based on driving behaviour
- Trust Score — aggregate driver reliability metric across multiple factors
- User Score — composite performance score for engagement programs
5. Enriched trip record
The final record includes GPS waypoints, detected events with timestamps and severity, trip statistics (distance, duration, average speed, night driving time), and all computed scores — accessible via the API or DataHub the moment the trip is processed.
Your application never handles raw sensor mathematics. Damoov's infrastructure does it entirely.
Use cases
| Vertical | How mobile telematics is applied |
|---|---|
| Usage-based insurance (UBI) | Score driving behaviour to price premiums dynamically, profile risk, and provide timestamped crash evidence |
| Fleet safety | Monitor driver behaviour across a fleet, generate per-driver reports, flag risky patterns, and intervene early |
| Driver coaching | Give drivers actionable, trip-by-trip feedback on speeding, harsh braking, and phone use |
| Eco-driving | Track fuel-impacting behaviours — unnecessary acceleration, aggressive braking, engine idling — and reduce TCO |
| Claims validation | Use timestamped trip data and crash-detection sensor readings as objective claims evidence |
| Driver rewards & engagement | Issue DriveCoins and run leaderboards based on safety and eco-driving performance to reward good behaviour |
| Driving schools | Track student progress lesson by lesson, score manoeuvres, and generate instructor-ready reports |
| Logistics & delivery | Log every delivery trip automatically, monitor speed compliance, and track live vehicle location |
Mobile telematics vs. hardware alternatives
One of the main advantages of mobile telematics is eliminating the device logistics and cost associated with hardware-based tracking.
| Mobile telematics | OBD dongle | Dedicated GPS tracker | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hardware required | None | Yes — one per vehicle | Yes — one per vehicle |
| Installation | None | Manual, per vehicle | Professional install |
| Global deployment | Instant, via app update | Logistics-heavy | Logistics-heavy |
| Total cost | Up to 70% lower than OBD | Baseline | Similar to OBD |
| Configuration updates | Hours, via software | Firmware rollout | Firmware rollout |
| Sensor richness | GPS + 3-axis IMU + phone sensors | Engine/OBD data only | GPS only |
| Driver behaviour data | Full: acceleration, braking, cornering, phone use | Partial | None |
| Crash detection | Yes | Partial | No |
Mobile telematics also scales globally without hardware logistics — no devices to ship, no SIM cards to manage, no import regulations to navigate. Any smartphone becomes a data collection point from day one.
Integration paths
Path A — SDK in your app (most common)
Embed the Telematics SDK in your iOS or Android app. Trip detection, data collection, and on-device pre-processing happen automatically in the background — drivers do not need to open the app to start a trip. Retrieve processed trips, events, scores, and analytics via the Platform API.
This is the standard path for consumer apps, driver coaching tools, UBI programs, and mobility platforms.
Path B — API-only
If you already have a tracking source or process device data independently, you can query the Damoov API directly to retrieve scores and analytics without deploying the SDK.
This path is common in fleet integrations where GPS hardware is already installed and the goal is to layer Damoov's scoring models on top of existing location data.
Most teams use Path A. Some fleet integrations combine both — SDK in the driver's mobile app, API in the back-office fleet management system.
Next steps
- High-Level Architecture Concept — how Company, Application, User Group, and SDK User are organised in the platform
- Quick Start — integrate the SDK and make your first API call in under 30 minutes
- Mobile SDK — iOS, Android, Flutter, and React Native integration details
- Data workflow and categories of data — the full picture of how data flows from device to your application
Updated about 1 hour ago