smart home

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Visual One smartens up home security cameras with object and action recognition

Published March 11, 2020

“Smart” cameras are to be found in millions of homes, but the truth is they’re not all that smart. Facial recognition and motion detection are their main tricks… but what if you want to know if the dog jumped on the couch, or if your toddler is playing with the stove? Visual One equips cameras with the intellect to understand a bit more of the world and give you more granular — and important — information.

Founder Mohammad Rafiee said that the idea came to him after he got a puppy (Zula) and was dissatisfied with the options he had for monitoring her activities while he was away. Here she is doing what dogs do best:

There are no bad dogs, but chairs are for people

“There were specific things I wanted to know were happening, like I wanted to check if the dog got picked up by the dog walker. The cameras’ motion detection is useless — she’s always moving,” he lamented. “In fact, with a lot of these cameras, just a change in the lighting or wind or rain can trigger the motion alert, so it’s completely impractical.”

“My background is in machine learning. I was thinking about it, and realized we’re at a stage where this problem is starting to become solvable,” he continued.

Some tasks in computer vision, indeed, are as good as solved — detecting faces and common objects such as cars and bikes can be done quickly and efficiently. But that’s not always useful — what’s the point of knowing someone rode their bike past your house? In order for this to have value, the objects need to be understood as part of a greater context, and that’s what Rafiee and Visual One are undertaking.

Unfortunately, it’s far from easy — or else everyone would be doing it already. Identifying a cat is simple, and identifying a table is simple, but identifying a cat on a table is surprisingly hard.

“It’s a very difficult problem. So we’re breaking it down to things we can solve right now, then building on that,” Rafiee explained. “With deep learning techniques we can identify different objects, and we build models on top of those to specify different interactions, or specific objects being in specific locations. Like a car in the wrong spot, or a dog getting on a couch. We can recognize that with high accuracy right now — we have a list of supported objects and models that we’re expanding.”

In case you’re not convinced that the capabilities are that much advanced from the usual “activity in the living room” or “Kendra is at the front door” notifications, here are a few situations that Visual One is set up to detect:

Kid playing with the stove
Toddler climbing furniture
Kid holding a knife
Baby left alone for too long
Raccoon getting into garbage
Elderly person taking her medications
Elderly person in bed for too long
Car parked in the wrong spot
Garage door left open
Dog chewing on a shoe
Cat scratching the furniture

The process for creating these triggers is pretty straightforward

If one of those doesn’t make you think “actually… that would be really good to know,” then perhaps a basic security camera is enough for your purposes after all. Not everyone has a knife-curious toddler. But those of you who do are probably scrolling furiously past this paragraph looking for where to buy one of these things.

Unfortunately Visual One isn’t something you can just install on any old existing system — with the prominent exception of Nest, into which it can plug. Camera workflows are generally too locked down for security and privacy purposes to allow for third-party apps and services to be slipped in. But the company isn’t trying to bankrupt everyone with an ultra-luxury offering. It’s using off-the-shelf cameras from Wyze and loading them with its own software stack.

Rafiee said he pictures Visual One as a mid-tier option for people who want to have more than a basic camera setup but aren’t convinced by the more expensive plays. That way the company avoids going head-on with commodity hardware’s race to the bottom or the brand warfare taking place between Google and Amazon’s Nest and Ring. Cameras cost $30-$40, and the service is $7 per month currently.

Ultimately the low-end companies may want to license from Visual One, while the high-end companies will be developing their own full stack at great cost, making it difficult for them to go downmarket. “Hardware is hard, and AI is specialized — unless you’re a giant company it’s hard to do both. I think we can fill the gap in the market for mid-market companies without those resources,” he said.

Of course privacy is paramount as well, and Rafiee said that because of the way their system works, although the AI lives in the cloud and therefore requires the cameras to be online (like most others), no important user data needs to be or will be stored on Visual One servers. “We do inference in the cloud so we can be hardware agnostic, but we don’t need to store any data. So we don’t add any risk,” he said.

Visual One is launching today (after a stint in YC’s latest cohort) with an initial set of objects and interactions, and will continue developing more as it observes which use cases prove popular and effective.

Awair raises $10M to help customers like WeWork monitor their office environments

Published May 2, 2019

Monitoring a space is about a lot more than security cameras. Awair is trying to help businesses and consumers more deeply understand the environments in which they live and work.

Awair has raised a $10 million Series B led by The Westly Group with participation from iRobot, Altos Ventures, Emerson Electric and Nuovo Capital. The company has raised more than $21 million to date.

The company has been plugging along with air-quality monitors that look like they belong in the MoMa. Awair’s $199 monitor senses things like particulate matter, temperature, humidity, and CO² levels. They’ve built out their product line with a couple other devices, but they’re largely targeting air-conscious consumers that might have allergies of another ailments and “design moms” who are looking to get some well-designed tech into their home.

The information all plugs into an app that helps consumers understand what’s happening in their home and get tips for how they can improve air quality.

As the company looks to make venture-worthy returns, it’s been scaling beyond the consumer IoT space into the world of enterprise IoT with its Omni product that Await has been selling to large real estate firms, offices and hospitals, aiming to give companies more insight into what life is like in every corner of their physical spaces.

The devices measure the same things their consumer products do, but also can track ambient light and noise in space, and pipe all of that data into a dashboard that can help businesses automate how they push their existing building infrastructure like their HVAC systems to respond to changes in the environment.

While Awair has been selling consumer IoT devices since 2015, its business product is about 18 months old, and a big part of this fundraise is to bring a sales staff onboard to keep the pace of enterprise expansion, which has been faster growing than the consumer business.

The company says they have more than 300 enterprise customers on the platform, including WeWork, Airbnb, Harvard and The Crown Estate.

Rent tech-focused RET closes first fund; pours $5M into management platform SmartRent

Published November 13, 2018

Today, Real Estate Technology Ventures (RET Ventures) announced the final close of $108 million for its first fund. RET focuses on early-stage investments in companies that are primarily looking to disrupt the North American multifamily rental industry, with the firm boasting a roster of LPs made up of some of the largest property owners and operators in the multifamily space.

RET is one of the latest in a rising number of venture firms focused on the real estate sector, which by many accounts has yet to experience significant innovation or technological disruption.

The firm was founded in 2017 by managing director John Helm, who possesses an extensive background as an operator and investor in both real estate and real estate technology. Helm’s real estate journey began with a position right out of college and eventually led him to the commercial brokerage giant Marcus & Millichap, where he worked as CFO before leaving to build two venture-backed real estate technology companies. After successfully selling both companies, Helm worked as a venture partner at Germany-based DN Capital, where he invested in companies such as PurpleBricks and Auto1.

Speaking with investors and past customers, John realized there was a need for a venture fund specifically focused on the multifamily rental sector. RET points out that while multifamily properties have traditionally fallen under the commercial real estate umbrella, operators are forced to deal with a wide set of idiosyncratic dynamics unique to the vertical. In fact, outside of a select group, most of the companies and real estate investment trusts that invest in multifamily tend to invest strictly within the sector.

Now, RET has partnered with leading multifamily owners to help identify innovative startups that can help the LPs better run their portfolios, which account for nearly a million units across the country in aggregate. With its deep sector expertise and its impressive LP list, RET believes it can bring tremendous value to entrepreneurs by providing access to some of the largest property owners in the U.S., effectively shortening a notoriously lengthy sales cycle and making it much easier to scale.

Photo: Alexander Kirch/Shutterstock

One of the first companies reaping the benefits of RET’s deep ties to the real estate industry is SmartRent, the startup providing a property analytics and automation platform for multifamily property managers and renters. Today, SmartRent announced it had closed $5 million in series A financing, with seed investor RET providing the entire round.

SmartRent essentially provides property managers with many of the smart home capabilities that have primarily been offered to consumers to date, making it easier for them to monitor units remotely, avoid costly damages and streamline operations, all while hopefully enhancing the resident experience through all-in-one home controls.

By combining connected devices with its web and mobile platform, SmartRent hopes to provide tools that can help identify leaks or faulty equipment, eliminate energy waste and provide remote access control for door locks. The functions provided by SmartRent are particularly valuable when managing vacant units, in which leaks or unnecessary energy consumption can often go unnoticed, leading to multimillion-dollar damage claims or inflated utility bills. SmartRent also attempts to enhance the leasing process for vacant units by pre-screening potential renters that apply online and allowing qualified applicants to view the unit on their own without a third-party sales agent.

Just like RET, SmartRent is the brainchild of accomplished real estate industry vets. Founder and CEO Lucas Haldeman was still the CTO of Colony Starwood’s single-family portfolio when he first rolled out an early version of the platform in around 26,000 homes. Haldeman quickly realized how powerful the software was for property managers and decided to leave his C-suite position at the publicly traded REIT to found SmartRent.

According to RET, the strong industry pedigree of the founding team was one of the main drivers behind its initial investment in SmartRent and is one of the main differentiators between the company and its competitors.

With RET providing access to its leading multifamily owner LPs, SmartRent has been able to execute on a strong growth trajectory so far, with the company on pace to complete 15,000 installations by the end of the year and an additional 35,000 apartments committed for 2019. And SmartRent seems to have a long runway ahead. The platform can be implemented in any type of rental property, from retrofit homes to high rises, and has only penetrated a small portion of the nearly one million units owned by RET’s LPs alone.

SmartRent has now raised $10 million to date and hopes to use this latest round of funding to ramp growth by broadening its sales and marketing efforts. Longer-term, SmartRent hopes to permeate throughout the entire multifamily industry while continuing to improve and iterate on its platform.

“We’re so early on and we’ve made great progress, but we want to make deep penetration into this industry,” said Haldeman. “There are millions of apartment units and we want to be over 100,000 by year one, and over a million units by year three. At the same time, we’re continuing to enhance our offering and we’re focused on growing and expanding.”

As for RET Ventures, the firm hopes the compelling value proposition of its deep LP and industry network can help RET become the go-to venture firm startups looking to disrupt the real estate rental sector.

Amazon’s revamped Alexa app makes it easier to manage your smart home

Published October 5, 2018

Amazon’s Alexa app has just been given a major visual overhaul, largely focused on helping users set up and control their smart home. From the app’s new devices tab, users can view all their different Alexa-enabled devices and groups on one screen, as opposed to switching between tabs like before. And the app is much more colorful, too. Instead of a set of white icons on a dark background, Alexa’s device groups — like Living Room, Kitchen, Bedroom, etc. — now feature colorful backgrounds, so you can find the one you need with just a glance.

An overhaul of the devices section was needed, not only for aesthetic reasons, but because Alexa owners are stocking their house with more than one smart device.

According to a Nielsen report on smart speaker adoption released earlier this month, four out of 10 U.S. smart speaker owners today have more than one device, for example. Smart home device sales are also expected to reach nearly $96 billion in 2018 and grow to $155 billion by 2023, another report estimates.

Amazon itself sells a variety of smart devices, like Cloud Cam, Ring doorbells and Ring cameras. And it just introduced a whole mess of new Alexa-enabled devices at an event in Seattle last month, including everything from wall clocks to subwoofers to Alexa-powered microwaves.

It’s clear the retailer expects people to continue to build out their smart home, and its app needed to adapt accordingly.

In the new version of the app, the device types are displayed as icons across the top of the screen — starting with “Echo & Alexa” devices, then “Lights,” “Audio,” “Plugs” and others. Below this are the colorful groupings of devices by room, each with their own “On/Off” button.

A small “+” button at the top right of the screen allows you to easily add your newest device, too.

Adding Bluetooth speakers to multi-room music groups is also now supported, the app’s update text says.

The redesign also makes it simpler to call, message or “drop in” on your other Alexa devices — the latter being the feature that turns Echo speakers into a voice-controlled intercom system of sorts, triggered by saying “Alexa, drop in on…” followed by the device name. It’s especially handy for larger homes, where there is an upstairs and downstairs, for example, or for reaching family members in another part of the house. You can also drop in on trusted contacts, like grandma or grandpa.

Now, these communication options each have their own button at the top of the messaging screen in the app, so you can just push a button to call, message or drop in, as you prefer.

The new Alexa app is live on the iOS App Store. Amazon hasn’t made a formal announcement about the changes, as they still be rolling out to users following the update.

This is the ultimate Super Bowl smart home setup

Published February 2, 2018

Do you like to watch football? How about the biggest game of the year — which happens on February 4 (aka this Sunday)? If yes to either of these, then you’re in luck: I can tell you how to get the most out of the experience via connected smart home tech, gadgets and AV equipment. Set “indulge” mode to MAX. Read More

LifeDoor closes your home’s doors automatically to protect against fires

Published January 9, 2018

It turns out that in case of a fire in your home, a closed door is the best barrier against spreading smoke, heat and flames. But who’s going to run around the house shutting doors? LifeDoor is a simple gadget that sits on your doors’ hinges and closes them automatically (and gently) when smoke is detected. It’s kid safe and firefighter approved. Read More

Smart lock maker Otto suspends operations

Published January 1, 2018

Otto showed the world its digital lock in August. Four months later, the company has suspended operations. Hardware is hard. It’s a cliche for a reason.
The company made the decision just ahead of the holidays, a fact that founder and CEO Sam Jadallah recently made public with a lengthy Medium post now pinned to the top of the startup’s site. The extended survey of the Bay Area… Read More

Josh.ai raises $11 million for a premium home automation system with a smarter AI

Published July 7, 2017

One of the promises of voice-based computing is the ability to make home automation simpler – something that major tech companies, including Amazon, Apple and Google, are now tackling with their own voice assistants and smart speakers. But their solutions are still somewhat clunky, both in terms of the software interface for configuring your smart home and the voice commands you use to… Read More

How a tap could tame the smart home

Published May 9, 2017

Here’s a novel fix for the headache of interacting with all sorts of connected devices: researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have devised a system that lets smartphone users tap their phone against an IoT device in order to have a contextual menu automatically loaded on screen. Read More

Apple debuts a new Home app website to show how its devices work in a smart home

Published March 2, 2017

apple-home-app-website Apple is touting the home automation capabilities of iOS and Apple TV on a newly updated website for its HomeKit software and its related Home app. The page now includes a new 45-second video that demonstrates the Home app for iOS 10 in action, showing a woman operating a range of devices from her phone, including the Honeywell Lyric Round thermostat, Kwikset smart lock, and iHome smart plug.… Read More