Uber launched a new feature Thursday called SPOT that uses colored LED lights to distinguish one Uber car from another. Thefeature that will be particularly useful in areas where the car service is picking up multiple people like outside concerts or at the airport.
Riders won’t have to walk down a line of cars trying to distinguish the make and model to find their correct Uber driver. The new SPOT feature uses a light affixed to the windshield that can be turned into a specific color (yellow, orange, pink, purple, blue, or green), as chosen by the rider, to make it easier to find the right car. A rider can even hit a button in the app that would transform the screen of her phone into the matching color so the driver could also spot her.
“SPOT is the latest experiment in our ongoing effort to make Uber pickups as seamless as possible,” the company said in a posting. “When riders and drivers can easily find each other, we’re able to trim down wait times, which is a win for everyone.”
The new feature will launch initially in Seattle. If it works and is popular with riders and drivers, SPOT could be rolled out to more cities.