Toyota LandCruiser launches new emergency network technology via Saatchi & Saatchi
Saatchi & Saatchi Australia has developed a way to deliver emergency communications to outback Australia via Toyota LandCruisers.
It’s a well-known fact that the Australian Outback is a vast, harsh and unforgiving place. 5 million square kilometres (over 65% of the country) receives no mobile signal. In times of emergency the lack of reception can be incredibly dangerous. However, while you might be far from a cell phone tower in the Outback you’re never far from a Toyota LandCruiser.
LandCruiser’s legendary toughness and ability to go anywhere has made them Rural Australia’s most popular 4×4. And in many places they’re the only vehicles you’ll see.
That’s why Saatchi & Saatchi, in partnership with Flinders University, is pioneering a new device that can be fitted in Toyota LandCruisers, enabling them to create a pop-up emergency network that will bring communications to the most remote parts of the Outback. The device has been engineered using a clever mix of WI-FI, UHF and Delay Tolerant Networking (DTN) technology, an area that lots of people are looking into – including NASA for interplanetary communications, to turn vehicles into communications hotspots each with up to a 25km range.
The technology is being piloted in a fleet of LandCruisers fitted with the device in the remote Flinders Ranges – one of the most harsh and dangerous parts of the Australian outback – where the Mars Society test their vehicles.
Says Brad Cramb, divisional manager – national marketing, Toyota: “The marrying of communications technology and the LandCruiser a vehicle that has a long history in the outback presents a huge opportunity for us to provide much-needed infrastructure to remote communities around Australia.”
Says Dr Paul Gardner-Stephen of Flinders University: “Humanitarian technologies aren’t just something nice to have, they all too often end up being the difference between life and death. It is hard to conceive of a more robust and extensive support network for Outback Australia than the collective LandCruiser drivers of this country.”
Says Mike Spirkovski, executive creative director, Saatchi & Saatchi Australia: “It’s amazing that in this day and age with such epic technology advances in mobile communications over 65% of Australia still receives no mobile signal.
“With this in mind and the fact that Toyota’s Land Cruiser is one of the toughest vehicles in the world and rural Australia’s most popular 4×4 we created the Land Cruiser Emergency Network.”
Following the formal announcement of the project at Toyota’s National Dealership Meeting on Thursday 28th April, Toyota is currently exploring the feasibility of a commercial vehicular rollout of the LEN devices.
54 Comments
5Million square kilometres of outback – 25 Km range. Might take a satellite phone just in case…
Hey Gold cannes 2016, nice to meet you.
Everyone wants a clever buoy.
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/maxis-network-the-emergency-sos-campaign/
It’s the bush telegraph made complicated
There is NO mobile reception in the outback, which is why people carry satellite phones in the first place. Locals and tourists carry them, they can be hired everywhere. Picking up a phone and dialling is far more effective than having a load of LandCruisers driving around, in the hope the person’s mobile will pick up a small hotspot radius. It’s not fixing a problem, it would get in the way of fixing one.
Pretty sure that’s just an emergency flare.
Hey @Just saying,
That Maxis idea.. anyone can buy that right now.. they bought it off the shelf and put a sticker on it. You can buy them since 2013 and is only wifi. They didn’t create something from ground up.
It was done first. And it would GENUINELY work. people in cities carry mobile phones and the area is relatively small and contained.
In the outback everyone has satellite phones, plus the area is too vast for small hotspot network range.
This is why their casestudy feels so much more sincere:
http://www.digitalbuzzblog.com/maxis-network-the-emergency-sos-campaign/
Very clever! Solid stuff.
A hugely expensive “solution” to something that’s already been solved.
Screams of inventing a problem to win awards.
But, this idea has been done before, better.
So, what’s the point of all this?
So it can be suction capped onto any car? Seems like a telco idea rather than something specific to Landcruisers, I mean can’t I just put in the glove box of my Pajero and save a few lives too? Seems like Clever Bouy two years too late.
A few people making comment have missed the point. Please don’t think this is a real idea or that it will ever be actually brought to life. Like other recent ‘prototype’ ideas, they are made for nothing else but award shows. We all know this. Let’s not pretend otherwise.
Makes it harder and harder to be taken seriously as an industry though, doesn’t it?
Missed it by a few weeks, deadline was April 30, but I’m sure you can sneak it in.
But the fact is it could be put in any brand of 4WD.
The actual device is the interesting thing, not the brand of car.
Feels like a tenuous idea, wrapped in an entry video.
Sorry.
@just saying…
From what I can see this uses WI-FI, UHF and DTN tech to provide roving emergency communications, not just WIFI fixed in a stationary location.
If you ask me, very clever stuff and a great idea.
Don’t hate the game.
This is proper, will clean up, and deserves to I say.
I love what they are trying to do but it seems like an overly complex way to apply simple tech
The node-to-node model already exists and doesn’t need mobile reception to work https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_mesh_network
Surely you could just get people to install http://opengarden.com/about-firechat and provide a signal booster?
This time last year Someone else was producing the same amazing tech, they did it for the good of people stuck in disaster struck countries not advertising award shows. How much money did you throw at this? It’ll never be as good as the tech that already exists but at least you’ll have something to enter at Cannes.
http://www.fastcoexist.com/3045723/in-a-disaster-this-device-lets-people-communicate-without-a-cell-signal-wi-fi-or-power/1
The claws come out when they don’t have anything to enter in Cannes 2016.
Geez you guys are a hating bunch. I love this and I’m sure lots of people love it too.
Hats off guys, this is the big, smart and necessary in Australia.
I love it how everyone tries to break down great ideas…so Australian.
This idea is a knockout punch for telecommunication networks.
Saatchi has a lot of haters out there.
Only a person in an ad agency would think that a satellite phone is better. Brilliant.
“It’s amazing that in this day and age with so many epic technology advances in mobile communications that over 65% Australian Cannes entries are about an invented product with no real world application, except fooling juries.”
I love this! well done Saatchi. Proud moment for rural Australia.
So the case study states that it has been in use since August 2015, so where are the pilot results? Has it been effective thus far?
great work guys…yellow must be the new red!
That’s a gold comment, but it’s just such a killer idea.
Wish I’d made this…assholes!
Big ups to you guys. Can I get one for my Jeep?
When I first saw Clever Buoy I thought what a great idea, even though it wasn’t operational it’s now gone in and received government funding.
I see the same genius in Landcruiser emergency Network. It has purpose and is completely relatable to this country and its needs in the outback.
Well done Saatchi and Toyota and it’s great to see a proper idea that will genuinely help people and hopefully become a standard in cars all over the world.
@Advertising – I’d much rather have a satellite iphone sleeve than rely on the off chance a bunch of LandCruisers were a) nearby and b) had one of these on board.
Nice use of tech, but a useless idea, and one hunting for a problem that doesn’t exist.
Ask someone broken down in the middle of nowhere which they’re prefer.
Well done for making it happen guys. Ignore the haters it’s an awesome project.
Brilliant just brilliant!
Satellite phones are super expensive and hardly anyone owns one.
Everyone owns a mobile phone but there is no cellular signal in the outback.
Toyota creates a new signal using the thousands of roaming land cruisers, effectively creating mobile cell towers on the move..
Now everyone with ordinary mobile phone near a Landcruiser can use.
But previously could not get any service at all.
Pretty bloody fucking amazing.
Roaming mobile cell towers as land cruisers.
Salute!
remember when you used to operate your vcr via a remote control on a cord? Look how infrared remote controls took off. I bet there were a lot of haters then too.
If you do a search for “Landcruiser Emergency Network Technology, you will only find results in a few ad-centric and tech sites etc.
There’s nothing from auto blogs or outback news etc.
There’s no mention of it on the Landcruiser website.
Hey, maybe it will pick up somewhere. We’ve seen worse (Landcruiser) ideas take home metal.
Things like this are killing our industry. A prototype at best, that’s clearly had a lot of money spent on a case study, timed perfectly for award season. I would respect the hell out of this project if it had been implemented a year ago and the case study were some ‘REAL’ testimonials about this thing in action. Show me how it can save a life not just a jazzed up concept presentation.
I just saw WIRED post an article about it.
But then again, it’s not like mainstream media get their news from those kinds of websites, right?
I’m being sarcastic.
@ Confused – they might be expensive, and you’re right, hardly anyone owns one, but let me assure you, only idiots go remote and don’t rent one for their trip, or at least one in the group. And if you live out that way, you own one.
Umm, wouldn’t a powerful 2-way radio be just as effective? And with a 25km range, the person you’re calling had better be close by. Over.
Nah, I like it.
Roaming ‘cell towers’ is a good idea.
It’s that simple.
@Cub, i agree with you and I think prototype ideas should be banned however I think these guys have proved it in real world application with a pilot. Not just a video (i.e clever buoy).
Clearly you guys got no idea about stats of satellite phone and their complexities. But instead you prefer to make hateful comments. It’s an incredible initiative
Anyone have any tech details on this? It seems to be kind of like FireChat but specialised. I am surprised they didn’t simplify it by just making an app for smartphones to allow someone to send distress messages incl gps locations via a mesh of phones that may be nearby, both displaying the distress message for the nearby phone, and storing the message allowing it to be passed on to other receivers or the mobile network. I still think EPIRBs are more reliable having satellite based receivers monitored by RCC Australia.
More likely to be utilised if it was an app rather than some specific hotspot unit.
it seems its a tech that provides a mobile signal for random people in range, not specialists or people deliberately downloading an app prior to crossing the outback. that’s why i think it’s pretty neat. probably requires a critical mass to be effective thou.
If you got to this comment I congratulate you.
Sorry. But it does seem like so many people are just being smelly dicks about this whole thing. Look at what Australia is producing as an industry – absolute vomit. So when something like this comes up it’s difficult to comprehend why people are being such smelly dicks.
So many agencies PR their garbage, but the comment section goes untouched.
Makes you think.
Sorry, but it does.
@Ben, it’s really sad to hear your argument as you clearly don’t get it. This whole satellite phone conversation is probably the reason why this has been developed. If you don’t have a Sat phone you won’t need one. And those that do have one can continue using it or just use their ordinary phone to make calls with this new network.
Pretty simple.
Beautiful idea.
I don’t get tech but I do get no service! and if this changes that without me having to buy a sat phone then thank you!
Great idea.
the idea is sweet on paper, but what it lacks is actual results… something that actually happened that used this device to help/save a life or get someone out of shit.
sat phones arent actually that expensive or rare, patricularly if you intend to really go into the deep bush, weather that be in aus or africa… if you do go deep bush, investing in a sat phone is actually not a big deal… particualry if you already invested in a landcruser which still isnt the cheapest 4×4 on the market. Infact the sort of landscruiser the film features like the 70 series v8 turbo diesel which is about 70K… so again the sort of people that buy crusiers and really go deep bush will always invest in a a simple sat phone… no doubt…
again, having personally travelled in very remote parts of the world, in aus/asia/africa… a fairly affordable sat phone has only ever been the realistic option…
this piece of tech, to actually rest your life on is not realistic…