💥 Impact Detection

Zubie's impact detection (part of Zubie Sense) alerts you when a vehicle experiences a collision or significant physical force. The system provides detailed reports on each event, allowing you to assess severity and identify likely damage areas.

NOTE Impact detected events indicate that the device has detected physical force consistent with an impact. While highly accurate, the device cannot definitively confirm visual damage.

NOTE Impact events are only available for vehicles equipped with Zubie Sense devices.

🔎 Use Cases For Impact Detection

🛡️ Asset Protection & Recovery: Receive immediate notification of impacts to secure the vehicle, assess damage early, and document incidents for insurance claims.

🆘 Driver Safety: Detect major collisions in real-time to potentially dispatch assistance or contact the driver to ensure their safety.

🔧 Maintenance & Operations Monitoring: Detect unauthorized maintenance or towing. Events with 0 MPH speed could indicate a vehicle being lifted for service or towed, particularly if the impact area is the "underbody."

🚨 Retrieving events

You can retrieve impact detection events in two ways:

1. Webhooks (Recommended): Receive real-time event notifications by enabling the vehicle_impact webhook. This is the preferred method for critical safety alerting and operational efficiency. See our Webhooks Guide for setup instructions.

2. Events API: Poll the API for historical events. This is best for on-demand lookups or retrieving the details for a single event.

• A list of historical impact detection events can be retrieved using the /events?event=vehicle_impact API endpoint.
• Specific events can be retrieved using the /event/{event_key} API endpoint.

IMPORTANT The events API should only be used to access on-demand historical events or the details of a single event. For real-time/continuous alerts, always use webhooks.

🧩 Sample Webhook Payload

vehicle_impact

{
    "event": "vehicle_impact",
    "key": "agpzfnF1YmllY2FyciELEgVFdmVudCIWUTdXcjlCa3hmRHlUd1ZlcnB5QnJTYww",
    "timestamp": "2025-12-04T18:16:44-08:00",
    "id": "J4Xy8BmrfPzQtYZs1uHdLp",
    "trip": null,
    "car": {
        "odometer": 660.934581692626,
        "fuel_level_timestamp": null,
        "speed": 10.267537580529705,
        "id": "7kPUuRGTVbq",
        "longitude": -118.442817,
        "vin": "1HGCM82633A123456",
        "motion_status": "moving",
        "battery_charge_level": null,
        "range_remaining_miles": 16,
        "fuel_level": null,
        "latitude": 34.052235,
        "odometer_timestamp": "2025-12-05T02:04:51.150000+00:00",
        "key": "agpzfnF1YmllY2FycjcLEgdBY2NvdW50IhY3WVRUOUo3Q1BGY3daQTloUG9aZHpqDAsSA0NhciILN2tQVXVSR1RWYnEM",
        "heading": null,
        "nickname": "15965165",
        "battery_level": null,
    },
    "trip": {
        "distance": null,
        "rapid_accels": 0,
        "key": "agpffnp1YmllLXFhckILEgZEZXZpY2UiFmFDODJGb0drQ2ttRXFIMkNFS3NQdnEMCxIEVHJpcCIWVG1CRkhedkoyUPsyNldjNPNqTmLSbgc",
        "speeding_city_major_count": null,
        "fuel_cost_currency_code": "USD",
        "fuel_cost": null,
        "started_timestamp": "2026-01-01T02:36:13+00:00",
        "id": "TmBFHkpJ2QK29Wc4spNbTb",
        "started_latitude": 34.052235,
        "hard_brakes": 0,
        "address": {
            "city": "Bloomington",
            "state": "MN",
            "street": "8120 Penn Ave S",
            "zipcode": "55431"
        },
        "ended_address": null,
        "idle_time": null,
        "ended_latitude": null,
        "speeding_city_minor_count": null,
        "points_hwy_count": null,
        "speeding_hwy_major_count": null,
        "max_speed": 10.491231209735146,
        "speeding_hwy_minor_count": null,
        "started_longitude": -118.442817,
        "ended_longitude": null,
        "points_city_count": null,
        "ended_timestamp": null
    },
    "details": {
        "impact_severity": "SIGNIFICANT",
        "impact_sensor": null,
        "impact_region": [
            {
                "zone": "FRONT",
                "confidence_level": 0.2
            },
            {
                "zone": "REAR",
                "confidence_level": 0.2
            }
        ],
        "confidence_level": null,
        "point": {
            "lat": 34.052235,
            "lon": -118.442817
        },
        "speed_mph": null
    },
    "user_id": null,
    "user_key": null,
    "account_id": "7YXT2K9DPFcwTA7lQoZfdm",
    "account_key": "agpzfnF1YmllY2FyciMLEgdBY2NvdW50IhY3WVRUOUo3Q1BGY3daQTloUC9aZHpyDA"
}

🎬 Accessing Event Media

🔑 Get The Event Media Key

A media key is required to call the event media API endpoint. To obtain the media key, call the /event/{event_key} API endpoint using the event key provided in the vehicle_impact webhook.

The API response will include a media: [] property, which is an array of media objects.

"media": [
    {
        "key": "agpzfnf1YmllY2FyciELEgVNZWRpYSIWaHFZRlZtc3o1YUJ3RHlieXFmdm9Tbgw",
        "labels": ["event:vehicle-impact"],
        "media_type": "application/pdf",
        "status": "ready"
    },
],

Extract the key from the media object where the label is event:vehicle-impact.

📷 Call The Event Media API Endpoint

IMPORTANT To retrieve event media, the media.read scope must be added to the Zinc app. This must be approved by Zubie. You can request access by emailing support@zubie.com.

Once the media key has been obtained, a call can be made to the /media/{media_key}/fetch API endpoint, which will return a temporary, signed URL that contains the corresponding event media.

GET

https://api.zubiecar.com/api/v2/zinc/media/{media_key}/fetch

More information on the /media API endpoint can be found at https://developer.zubie.com/reference/media.

📄 Sample Media

A sample report can be downloaded here.