Alcohol testing equipment supplier Alcohol Breathalyser’s new iSober Breathalyser application (app) and cloud service will contribute to making alcohol testing solutions more affordable and accessible for remote workers and drivers.

The iSober app and cloud service is a Bluetooth breathalyser test management platform for the day-to-day capturing, sharing, tracking and storage of breathalyser tests.

“This solution is bringing down the cost of alcohol testing for drivers to use in their vehicles. Traditional alcohol-interlock breathalysers can be fitted to vehicles, but they often require a fitting fee, as well as other devices and fees, which drive up the cost,” says Alcohol Breathalysers director Angus MacArthur.

iSober is available for social users, drivers, business owners, fleet operators or anyone in charge of vehicles that need to test drivers of vehicles and employees remotely, he adds.

Fleet and business owners can prompt their drivers in remote locations to perform breathalyser tests on themselves, where the test data then becomes available in real time for sharing and analysis.

He stresses the importance of a watermark being embedded on the breathalyser test photograph, that includes the global positioning system coordinates, breathalyser unit serial number, date and time to ensure traceability of the test result for the individual tested.

Results are uploaded in real-time to the Cloud and full measurement history is saved securely for every driver or employee tested, and can be managed and recalled in the iSober Breathalyser app and cloud service.

In the Enterprise Version customised push notifications can be configured to alert business owners, fleet operators when a user records a positive measurement.

Enterprise access also allows for testing a user other than the currently signed-in user and allows for adding supporting notes and photos such as a licence disk or images of the vehicle or site entrance.

The app is available on the iOS and Android operating systems, as well as Huawei’s HarmonyOS operating system. Breath alcohol test results can be shared through WhatsApp, email, iMessage, Facebook and Google from the iSober app and cloud service.

Further, a unique aspect of the iSober app and cloud service is the capability of the enterprise access dashboard where test data can be viewed on maps and a custom list of employees or drivers can be captured and managed.

“If you subscribe and you have the paid-for version for your enterprise, you have access to the dashboard. This means that someone in Cape Town can monitor the test results of workers and drivers in Johannesburg in real-time and vice versa. You can also have the same subscription user accessing the solution across all three operating systems, so it’s not limited to only iOS, Android or HarmonyOS”.

“Remote work has created the need for remote alcohol testing, and industrial breathalyser equipment is costly, whereas the iSober app and cloud service is an affordable solution. There’s a free version with no subscription, similar to other apps. If you buy one of the three breathalysers that works with iSober being iSoberS Pro, Alcoscan AL8800BT or ALP-1 BT, you can use theiSober app free, and you can share the test rest results through WhatsApp, email, iMessage without needing to use the dashboard,” explains MacArthur.

“As a business owner and enterprise user of the cloud and app service, you can also take additional images, such as images of the vehicle and identity document of the driver and add them to the test results with other data. This makes the service a valuable combination of data.”

MacArthur also emphasises the importance of calibrating the breathalysing equipment that would be used with the cloud and app service, and that the company provides calibration services throughout Southern Africa.

“The only challenge that might arise is with data coverage, especially in more remote areas where there may be little to no access to data coverage and no transmission of information from a mobile phone to the cloud might occur.

“Therefore, access to cellular data, as well as calibration of equipment, is crucial. Users need to make sure that the breathalysers are calibrated at least once a year or upon reaching the breathalyser’s predefined test capability,” he concludes.