ROXIMITY is a new location-aware retail app that lets the users know of the surrounding deals and specials. This new app is compatible with Ford SYNC AppLink. The developers of ROXIMITY won the SYNC App Developer Challenge at the 2011 TechCrunch Disrupt Hackathon. “The launch of ROXIMITY is truly exciting for us, since it was the SYNC in-car experience that sparked the team to go from idea to reality,” said Doug VanDagens, global director of Ford Connected Services. “Finding and supporting startups like ROXIMITY is what will keep Ford at the forefront of in-car connectivity innovations. With ROXIMITY we become the first automaker to offer a personalized daily deal location service.” This new app enables users registered users to put individual preferences and interests. Then, as users drive, walk or bike past a restaurant or store that might have a deal or special they would find appealing, a push notification is sent to their phone informing them about it.

With SYNC AppLink compatibility, ROXIMITY provides a convenient way to improve a consumer’s time behind the wheel while running errands. When drivers connect their phone to SYNC via USB and activate AppLink, they can simply use their voice to ask ROXIMITY for any special deals nearby within designated retail categories, including restaurants, home services, spas and salons, and men’s or women’s clothing. Since it was a winner of the SYNC Developer Challenge, ROXIMITY was given access by Ford to the company’s SYNC AppLink application programming interface so the team could integrate its new idea to be compatible with the in-vehicle connectivity system.

ROXIMITY is a free app and service that lets users choose from multiple settings to indicate the type of deal notifications they would like to receive. Users can then set text or push notification preferences for their deal alerts on a smartphone or even a “feature” phone.  As users interact with the app over time, the ROXIMITY platform learns their interests and patterns and becomes more aware of the offers the user will find appealing. Users have the ability to limit the number of deals ROXIMITY reports per day or week. When connected through SYNC AppLink, drivers can activate ROXIMITY to verbally relay deals at their request while driving. SYNC AppLink integration enables drivers to use simple voice commands to access a list of deals nearby or in specific retail categories. The voice commands and features include ‘Find nearby deals’ and ‘List deal categories’.