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Sensera Systems |
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August 18, 2014 Issue |
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The Most Powerful Name In Corporate News and Information |
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Integrated Remote Sensing and Imaging for Vertical Applications |
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About Sensera Systems Sensera Systems designs and manufactures products and solutions for integrated remote sensing and imaging in construction, security, industrial automation, agriculture, and law enforcement. Sensera Systems' patent-pending MultiSensetm Platform and solar powered and wireless camera products are significantly simpler to use and more affordable than existing systems and are expected to drive broader adoption of remote sensing/M2M/Internet of Things applications across a range of markets. The flagship MC-30 Camera is the first camera to incorporate IP connectivity, cellular and WiFi, high resolution still and video imaging, data logging and control, 802.15.4 wireless sensor interface, with an integrated solar power system for no-wires operation. The Web Application provided with the MultiSensetm Cloud Service provides a 100% web-based graphical interface for viewing data and controlling cameras from any desktop or mobile platform, with no programming, and no software to install or maintain. The MC-30 time-lapse and site security camera provides the industry’s first fully integrated multi-function solar powered site camera and cloud service.
CEO David Gaw is an entrepreneur with 25 years of experience in founding, running, and growing companies in software, embedded systems, robotics and communications. He most recently served as VP Business Development for FLIR Systems. FLIR Systems acquired Directed Perception where David grew revenues over 10x introducing several new products and selling to major aerospace and government customers world-wide. David was founder and CEO of Coactive Networks one of the pioneers in “M2M / Internet of Things”. Starting in 2000 the company deployed thousands of in-home telemetry gateways to a major Swedish utility for home automation and demand side energy management.
David began his career at Advanced Decision Systems and then Booz Allen & Hamilton as a Senior Computer Scientist developing AI software for a variety of applications. David holds a B.S. and M.S. in Computer Science.
David founded Sensera Systems with a focus on disrupting remote sensing markets by delivering products that are significantly simpler to use and more affordable. The Sensera team believed that the path to achieve this included 100% wireless operation including solar powered, and wireless communications. The Sensera MultiSense Platform tm is based on a number of innovations in low power system design in order to deliver powerful capabilities in a fully integrated, low-cost system.
Interview conducted by: Lynn Fosse, Senior Editor, CEOCFO Magazine, Published – August 15, 2014
CEOCFO: Mr. Gaw, would you tell us the concept at Sensera Systems? Mr. Gaw: We are focused on delivering a next generation in remote sensing - products that are extremely simple to use and cost effective. This includes hardware and software that integrate imaging with traditional machine-to-machine or remote IO capabilities. We believe customers are looking for simplicity and lower cost in the markets we address and we believe that that is best achieved by having an integrated solution. We serve markets in construction, industrial automation, agriculture, law enforcement and security.
CEOCFO: What are the ways your products are used? Mr. Gaw: There are a few vertical applications. The first product we have released, the MC-30, is aimed primarily at construction site time-lapse and security. As construction sites are developed, the managers and property owners of those sites want to have imaging capabilities for project documentation, security, and to save trips to the site. Our camera provides them a very easy-to-deploy solution for those functions at construction sites. One of the issues at construction sites is that they often do not have power at certain areas of the site, and at the beginning of the project. Our system is 100% solar powered and wireless so it is very simple to deploy, can be moved around during the project and does not require any wiring. We also will be addressing some of the more traditional security operations such as perimeter security, parking lots and things like that. In industrial automation markets like oil & gas, our products can provide site security while also serving as a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) solution.
CEOCFO: Why have you chosen construction first? Mr. Gaw: There is an underserved market there. In interviewing construction companies, we found that they had found a good value proposition in using cameras and that they wanted to do that and the solutions out there were still complex, cumbersome and expensive. We thought that our multi-sense platform could make a big difference in that market. Also many sites use one vendor for time-lapse cameras and another solution for security. Our platform provides a single vendor solution, again making it simpler for the construction contractor.
CEOCFO: What physically are you putting in place? Mr. Gaw: We make the MC-30 camera which is a self-contained camera with a solar panel and that camera is mounted at the site on an existing light pole or telephone pole or fence post. We also provide a cloud service which means that we take care of all the communications from that camera to our secure website. A customer deploys the camera at their site and they go to our website and there they can access, configure and manage the camera, view and share images, annotate them and so forth. The camera can be installed and online in 20 minutes by the end customer.
CEOCFO: If someone has put up a wall, could the camera detect flaws? Mr. Gaw: Yes! What we are shipping today with the MC-30 is a five megapixel camera, so it is actually quite high-resolution and that will grow over time, and you will see higher resolution options from us. You can see a ton of detail. For example, we have had customers tell us that it is typical for projects to be financed that it is typical for projects to be financed in stages and banks and financing institutions would like to have a first-hand understanding of the stage of the project; has the foundation been poured, are they beginning walls and so forth. This gives contractors a simple and quick way to document the stage of the project for financing institutions.
CEOCFO: What have people been using or have they been using a solution like this? Mr. Gaw: There are some solutions out there for construction cameras. They are quite expensive and in most cases, they are multi-part solutions so you have to buy a camera, buy a solar system and a battery and figure out software to access that camera. It can be done and some of the companies that have been a little bit more forward leaning on this have put those solutions together themselves. They see the value but to make this used in a more widespread way we felt it had to be easier to deploy and it has to be lower cost so that is what we have done with the MC-30. A complete, low-cost solution that contractors can deploy themselves in 20 minutes.
CEOCFO: How do you reach your potential customers? Mr. Gaw: Our focus is on extreme ease of use and that includes the purchasing. Different construction companies operate differently and different projects have different constraints so we try to make that flexible. We have a direct sales team as well as direct sales via our website. We sell the product on Amazon and we are building out channel partners in vertical markets like construction that can help us reach those customers.
CEOCFO: What has been the earlier response? Mr. Gaw: It has been good. For several months, we tested the product with local firms and collected time lapse of projects that are going up. We have strong initial sales right now. We are just getting started but so far, the response has been very good.
CEOCFO: Are there typical sizes of companies or types that are more apt to pay attention? Mr. Gaw: It tends to be multi-family from the ten or twenty units up and then larger buildings. One of the things we have done with the ease of use and price point is to bring this capability from what used to be only huge skyscraper projects down to typical everyday small strip-mall or small multi-family dwelling. We offer rentals, and the low cost of our solution makes it affordable for projects of almost any size. The system can be easily moved and reused on project after project. So you can think of it like a tool.
CEOCFO: What were some of the challenges in putting together the package and the technology? Mr. Gaw: We are integrating many pieces so we have a piece of hardware that has to be extremely reliable and it runs 24/7 typically for a year or two at a time unattended. It is solar powered and it connects to the internet. We had to make all that hardware reliable and low cost and that is a challenge. Secondly, on the internet side, we have full featured web application hosted on Amazon web services. We had to build that web application and secure database. There is a ton of complexity underneath and all designed to give the user a very simple experience.
CEOCFO: How do you ensure ease of use on the website? Mr. Gaw: For us, ease of use means not only the application but it also means the entire system. On the hardware side it means that we have already integrated the solar battery system and we have integrated the solar panel so you do not have to think about how much sun and how many days and how big a panel you need. That is a huge step to making the system simple. There are no buttons or switches on our product; you plug-in the power and everything else is automatic, so that is a big piece of the customer experience. On the web application side it means good user interface design so really thinking about how customers use the product including functions they want to use and use all the time but not including a function just because it is possible.
CEOCFO: Are you funded for the growth or will you be seeking funding or partnerships? Mr. Gaw: We will evaluate that as we go. We are funded now, and we will look at that as we approach different markets. This first product is in the construction market and we have a pipeline of things behind that. If we see opportunities to accelerate that, we will. I have built venture-funded companies in the past, so I am familiar with that model, so if that makes sense at some point we can consider it.
CEOCFO: What have you learned from previous experiences about how to bring a product to market successfully? Mr. Gaw: The key thing is to have an understanding of the market you are targeting and the customers because everything flows from that. Being very clear on your value proposition to those customers – cost and ease-of-use in our case. In terms of execution, it is a critical thing for startups which means you have to do many things on a timeline and in my experience that means not letting small or medium obstacles slow you down from the bigger objectives.
CEOCFO: Why pay attention to Sensera Systems? Mr. Gaw: Sensera Systems is rethinking both machine-to- machine and video surveillance. Traditionally the machine- to-machine market has ignored imaging and video and has focused on so-called low bandwidth IO. Likewise, the security & surveillance market has not taken full advantage of wireless sensing. We have taken a more integrated approach that allows us to achieve ease-of-use, lower cost, and provide imaging and sensing in a single platform. I think you are seeing Solar power increasingly be the norm for any kind of remote sensing. Wireless communications is predominant, but if you have to run a wire for power, then it defeats a lot of the purpose and convenience of wireless communications, so we think solar powered is here to stay. We think that traditional camera or security or surveillance applications will benefit from machine to machine and incorporate other sensors for alarm verification and improved sensing capabilities. We are at the forefront of bringing these areas together and making compelling easy-to-use solutions.
CEOCFO: What have you been able to understand that has resulted in a superior offering? Mr. Gaw: If you look at the pieces required to integrate cameras and sensors with power systems and communications on the web, there is a lot to that and it can be a lot to take on for one company. It is convenient for a company to focus on just one piece of that puzzle, but it does not reduce the complexity for users of the system because they have to put those other pieces together. Customers that want to deploy solutions cannot really take advantage of one piece of the puzzle; they need to have an end-to-end solution. That is a conundrum for the industry to deploy solutions but still have companies focused on one piece or the other. We have just taken the approach of doing a smart integration of those pieces so that we can give customers an end-to-end solution - now. It is just a different approach in terms of how to approach solving the problem. The pieces are needed but it is a question of do you take a modular approach or do you take an integrated approach and there are arguments for both; the modular approach is more flexible at the end of the day but have higher cost as you pay for modularity. We have understood that solar and wireless are critical – not for their own sake, but to achieve extreme ease of use for the customer. |
“Sensera Systems is rethinking both machine-to- machine and video surveillance. Traditionally the machine- to-machine market has ignored imaging and video and has focused on so-called low bandwidth IO. Likewise, the security & surveillance market has not taken full advantage of wireless sensing. We have taken a more integrated approach that allows us to achieve ease-of-use, lower cost, and provide imaging and sensing in a single platform.” - David Gaw
Sensera Systems 1212 Arapahoe Street Golden, CO 80401
800-657-0437
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David
Gaw