PrivateChief Departure Alerts: Know When to Leave, With Traffic Already Counted
Departure Alerts is the PrivateChief tool that tells you when to leave. Your Chief watches the next 24 hours of your calendar, times the drive from home with live traffic, adds your buffer for getting ready and parking, and sends a heads-up, a leave-now alert, and a message if traffic moves your leave time earlier. The household in this walkthrough, the Ashfords, is invented for the demonstration.
Chapters
What Departure Alerts does
- Off until you turn it on; watches the next 24 hours of your calendar for timed events with a destination.
- Times each drive from home with traffic-aware routing, then subtracts your preparation and parking buffer.
- Sends a heads-up at the time you choose before leaving, a leave-now alert, and a message when traffic moves your leave time five minutes or more earlier.
- Checks traffic more often as an event gets closer: hourly, then every 30 minutes within four hours, then every 5 minutes in the last 90.
- Delivers by notification, email or text message; Automatic sends a notification.
- Sends Google Routes the trip from home to the destination only, never the event's title or notes, and never changes your calendar.
- Shows the same plans in your Morning Briefing, and answers "when should I leave?" in chat.
- Keeps traffic checks under a monthly safety cap, shown on the screen.
What the narrator says
0:00Know when to leave
The appointment is at nine. The real question is when to walk out the door, and that depends on traffic. Departure Alerts works it out for you.
0:10Off until you turn it on
This is Laura Ashford's screen, from a family invented for this demonstration. Savannah, the family's Chief, watches the next twenty-four hours of her calendar. It stays off until Laura turns it on, and only timed events with a destination count.
0:29What is sent to Google Routes
To time each drive, PrivateChief sends Google Routes the trip from home to the destination. Not the event's title, and not its notes. And it never changes her calendar.
0:42Buffer, heads-up and delivery
She chooses a buffer for getting ready and parking, and how long before leaving she wants a heads-up. Alerts come as a notification, an email or a text message. Automatic sends a notification.
0:57Working out the leave time
Sam's hockey practice is at six. The drive is twenty-two minutes, four of them traffic. Add her fifteen-minute buffer, and she should leave at five twenty-three. Every leave time is worked out from home.
1:12The next 24 hours
Tomorrow brings the parent-teacher conference and coffee across town, each with its own leave time. As an event gets closer, traffic is checked more often, every five minutes in the last ninety. The same plans appear in her Morning Briefing.
1:30Three kinds of alert, or just ask
Three kinds of alert follow. A heads-up before it is time to go. A leave-now alert. And if traffic moves her leave time five minutes or more earlier, a message saying so. She can also just ask Savannah, who answers from the same plan.
1:48Find out more
Departure Alerts. Know when to leave, with the traffic already counted. PrivateChief. Find out more at privatechief.com.
