San Diego NEW PRODUCTS : Device Combines Auto-Theft Alarm and Cellular Telephone
TrackMobile, a San Diego company started up less than a year ago with $200,000 in local venture capital, will introduce its first product this Saturday, a combination cellular telephone and car alarm system.
Any unauthorized opening of a car with TrackMobile’s Hawk 3000 cellular phone-alarm activates a 120-decibel alarm, kills the ignition and sends a recorded phone message to a monitoring company over the cellular network. The message describes the location of the car to the monitor, who then relays the news to the police.
A limited number of the Hawk 3000 phone-alarms go on sale this weekend for $890 each at Leo’s Stereo outlets in Kearny Mesa and Oceanside. Future production will depend, however, on the company finding additional venture capital financing of “less than $1 million.” Seed capital was provided through Morgan Roberts & Co. investment bankers of La Jolla.
Each phone has eight prerecorded location messages, one of which is punched into the alarm system by the car owner upon leaving the car. Seven of the locations are so-called “cliche” addresses or locations where the car owner is most likely to be at a given time, such as work, office, recreation, etc.
The eighth button is for a “non-cliche” location that the owner records through voice mail before leaving the car.
President Terry Rowan, 48, said the company plans to introduce an upgrade of the system within six months that would enable alarm monitoring companies and police to locate stolen vehicles with Hawk 3000 systems.
Rowan said the product was received enthusiastically at the August convention of the International Assn. of Auto Theft Investigators, a group made up largely of police and insurance industry officials, in August at the U.S. Grant Hotel. According to IAATI statistics, car thefts total 40,000 each year in San Diego and 1.9 million nationwide.
TrackMobile now has only one full-time employee in addition to Rowan. Eli Sheffer of New York designed the unit’s software. The products are manufactured under a contract with DiBar Electronics of Palm Coast, Fla.
Rowan has spent most of his career working in the security industry and has held executive positions with Brink’s Home Security in Dallas and with Ademco in New York.
