abode: Real Security & Home Automation system with no contracts
iCrowdNewswire -
Apr 6, 2015 6:20 PM ET
Home Security – Made Simple:
Made for everyone: abode is a powerful self-installable solution that was made for both Renters and Home Owners.
Real Security Technology: Our solution has been built using professional-grade technology. Other solutions use use light detection in their cameras which causes a lot of false-positives for motion detection. 3G and battery backup are also built in.
No Contracts: Traditional security requires you to signup for long-term contracts. You can turn on monitoring
No Monthly Fee Required: Every system includes a free plan that allows you to self monitor your home.
Professional Monitoring: Turn on professional monitoring when you want, year-round, or when you go away for vacation. It’s totally up to you.
Stop False Alarms: All of our kits include a motion camera that sends pictures to your phone (within 8 seconds of an event) to allow you to stop false alarms in their tracks.
Home Automation: We built an open platform that integrates with ZigBee, Z-Wave, and IP Connected Devices. We’ve covered all the basis, but if you need more, you can integrate with IFTTT as well!
We set out to completely reinvent home security with a very simple concept: Your life should be easier, not more complicated. To achieve this, we have disrupted the traditional security business model and designed a revolutionary new security system that integrates with cutting edge hardware powered by easy to use software. abode provides the world’s first operating system to automate and protect your home built with security at it’s core.
The world’s first true home security solution built in the age of the connected home:
The abode hardware solution consists of 5 devices for ultimate protection and flexibility:
Gateway – The abode gateway is the central component of the system that runs theabodeOS. It connects your home’s devices to our mobile/web applications and security monitoring center. The gateway was also engineered to be software upgradeable and supports multiple open-standard protocols to ensure compatibility with the devices of tomorrow.
Motion Camera – The motion camera is a wide-angle wireless camera that can take multiple color-photos when it detects motion using infrared technology. The camera operates night or day with a night-vision mode to ensure captured images are always viewable. It also offers infrared motion detection, which is much more accurate than other cameras available today. The motion camera minimizes false alarms as it is immune to pets under 60-lbs and usesabode’s unique visual verification system. Powered by 3-AA batteries, which lasts up to 5 years, the camera does not require any tools or wiring for installation.
Door / Window Contacts – Want to monitor your front door, wine cellar, gun case, or any other hinged mechanism? The contacts, with long range wireless, detect opening and closing of any door or window in your home. The contacts are powered by a single Lithium battery, which lasts up to 11 years. Additionally, supervised wireless monitors and detects jamming for maximum security available on the home security market today and the system will proactively warn you of a low battery.
Streaming Camera – The streaming camera is a WiFi / Ethernet connected camera with full night-vision and wide angle support to provide a live view into your home, regardless of where you are. The camera can take a video of an event and even show you what happened in the seconds prior to an alarm event.
Key Fob / Remote – While the abode system can use the location of your phone to automatically arm/disarm the system, we also provide a long-range remote to enable / disable your abode alarm system.
Have a larger home? No problem, our system supports over 150 connected devices allowing you to protect your entire home.
— UPDATE — 3 Simple Steps to Cover Your Entire Home w/ abode
1.) Simply select your base kit you’d like to purchase.
2.) Review the image below and multiply the quantity by the price of the additional devices you’d like to purchase. Add the Base Kit Price to the additional devices, and increase your pledge amount
3.) Message us the additional devices you’d like us to include and we’ll make sure to ship those devices.
Real security and data protection are built into our gateway to ensure maximum reliability. We’ve performed extensive engineering to maximize the protection the abode system offers. We’ve designed every aspect to contain backup options to ensure your home is always connected.
We’ve also built our hardware to be completely interoperable with many different protocols to interface with devices you already have in your home.
We’ve thought through redundancy and full stack security to ensure the system is always available. The abode gateway will report to two different data centers based on the east and west coasts. We also offer full stack security to encrypt transmissions from devices to the gateway, gateway to our data center, and then from our data center to your mobile device. Finally, we offer 24×7 monitoring to ensure that your home is always protected.
abode’s Visual Verification Technology provides images to you in less than 10 seconds of an event allowing you to stop false alarms.
Intuitive Software
We create abode applications for iOS, Android, and a web-based application to allow you to monitor and control your home from anywhere in the world. Additionally, we’ve built an extensible platform that provides free software updates for your abode gateway, allowing you to realize the benefits of new applications that are created for abodeOS.
Our software includes:
Gateway setup and configuration
Timeline of events
Push notifications for alarms and events
False alarm prevention
Easy device setup / learning
Automation rule creation / execution
View pictures / videos recorded by system
Ability to view live streams from the IP Camera
On-demand professional monitoring (as you need it without long term contracts)
Lock / Unlock doors
Turn on/off power outlets & lights
Thermostat control
Integrate with popular internet enabled devices
Automated Learning capabilities to let your abode system work for you
And much more…
Today, there are two other types of security solutions:
Traditional security systems – offer a sub-optimal user experience, have long term & inflexible contracts, require professional installation, and are not upgradeable when new innovative technologies become available.
New consumer-grade devices – while offering easy to use software and beautiful devices, these new entrants typically utilize consumer grade hardware/technologies that generate false-positives, offer no professional monitoring, and don’t offer true security due to lack of backup options.
Why abode? The foundational drivers for every decision we make:
FREE: Every abode system includes free self-monitoring by using our notification service and mobile applications. Our free plan also includes everything you need for home automation and control.
Professional monitoring without the hassles: We also offer on-demand professional security monitoring 24x7x365 as an optional monthly service without long term contracts (yes, you read that right). Say goodbye to inflexible plans with our simple $30 per month professional monitoring plan. Automation is already included in our free plan, unlike traditional security services.
Security for everyone: New consumer devices don’t offer true security and traditional security providers require long-term contracts due to their lengthy installation process. This We believe everyone should have access to security, regardless of where you live.
Experience the benefits right out of the box…
Homeowners Insurance Discount: abode’s solution can help you maximize a discount on your home owners insurance. We can protect against smoke, fire, water leak, and theft.
Make your home smarter: abodeOS learns as you use your system. Leave home and forget to enable your alarm? No problem, abode will remind you. Curious about your power consumption compared to other comparable homes? We’ll send you opt-in reports automatically. abodeOS has been built to allow you to leverage the data however you’d like.
abodeOS:
Install apps and use them in conjunction with your system. For example, install the weather app to prevent your water sprinklers turning on if the weather is forecasting rain.
Integrate to other devices using IFTTT
Enable powerful recipes / automations for any Z-Wave, Zigbee, or abode device.
Security is built at its core with encryption at every level of the system.
Help us reinvent an entire industry!
We’ve been working hard the past 18 months to build our solution and have created working prototypes of our hardware and software. Our working hardware and software prototypes are complete, and now we need your support to build the tooling for our production run of the most powerful home security & automation gateway available in the market. Your support will also enable us to finalize the tooling for the motion camera, door contacts, and streaming camera. We also need your feedback on the features that you need to provide a great connected home experience.
With your support, we will be able to:
Finalize our mobile apps (iOS & Android)
Create packaging
Procure raw materials for production
Integrate with other ecosystems
Continue to build our open platform
Build Tooling – Steel tools must be created in order for our high quality plastic molds to be created.
Why support abode?
Be the first to receive an abode kit
Receive access to our pre-launch portal to submit ideas / questions
Participate in polls / surveys for our product
Stay in the loop on home security, reinvented.
Prototypes Complete
Timeline
Team
Chris Carney (LinkedIn) is the co-founder and chief executive officer and brings more than 15 years of experience in software and security technology.
Before co-founding Abode Systems, Chris served as the chief operating officer at Proximex Corporation, which was acquired by Tyco Security. Prior to joining Proximex, Chris held a number of roles and led the Mergers and Acquisitions team at ADT.
Chris is a leader in the Physical Security Industry Management (PSIM) industry, which provides active policy management and a rules based workflow for the security industry to ensure that companies follow corporate safety and security policies.
Chris earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Rhode Island.
Brent Franks (LinkedIn) is the co-founder and chief customer experience officer with a vast background in software development and sales. Brent also has extensive entrepreneurial experience, having previously co-founded TerraSmart, a leading turn-key solar ground mount provider. Brent has also previously held the role of account executive of enterprise corporate sales at Salesforce.com, covering Fortune 50 accounts. Brent earned his bachelor’s degree in business administration and information systems from Susquehanna University.
Max Burton (LinkedIn) serves as abode’s Chief Creative Officer. Max has 20 years experience in product design. He previously served as Executive Creative Director for Product Design at frog and was Creative Director at Nike’s TechLab. Max is Founder/CEO of MatterGlobal, a San Francisco-based industrial design firm.
Key Partners
Matter– abode partnered with Matter, an industrial design firm based in San Francisco, to assist in abode’s hardware development design process and corporate branding. With a strong track record in high quality consumer electronic device design, abode worked with the Matter team on various hardware prototype designs.
Amphibian– abode has partnered with amphibian, a team of manufacturing and supply chain experts with a proven track record of getting consumer electronic products into mass production, ensuring product quality – and working with suppliers to meet delivery goals.
Ashley Gutierrez is an independent filmmaker and photographer. She uses visual storytelling to generate awareness around complex international issues and is driven by a deep pursuit to use media to explore the commonalities that connect people across cultures.
Weinberg Clark Photography is a commercial studio, focused on photography of products and people for the high tech and medical high tech industries. Their services include high quality digital photography, Photoshop retouching and color correction, and 3D rendering and assisted abode with product shots found on this Kickstarter page.
Vendus Product Labs – abode worked with Vendus on ideation, user interface, and user experience projects across both web and mobile applications. Additionally, Vendus performed testing and user feedback for the abode core software development team.
Zigron – abode worked with Zigron on core technology, architecture, and security analysis. Zigron is a trusted partner and continues to provide development support as we work to scale abode to general release.
Risks and challenges
abode has spent extensive time on our designs and design-for-manufacture process. We need your support to build the tooling for our high precision designs, but could face delays to perfect the tooling as abode wishes to launch an extremely high quality solution.
All devices shown on this page are currently in prototype stage and are working with our software platform. We are ramping up at our plastic case manufacturer and need the support to finalize the tooling and manufacturing process for all of the abode devices.
abode strives to provide a great customer experience. We do not want to rush any product to market, and if new bugs are identified, it could lengthen the timeframe to get our software completed. We are confident in our schedule, however, based on our currently working prototype and beta versions.
Our Internal Forecast
We’ve worked with our partners to forecast demand in this industry. If we exceed our fundraising goals, there could be a delay in shipping all units to all backers.
All backers should be located in the United States. We are unable to ship internationally at this time.
Watch full campaign video here: https://d2pq0u4uni88oo.cloudfront.net/projects/1570207/video-483364-h264_high.mp4
Contact Information:
Chris Carney - https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=23274926
Max Burton - https://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=14725195
Brent Franks - https://www.linkedin.com/in/brentdfranks