We detect if people are present (from sound, so not if they're perfectly quiet) and notice broken windows. If you see a broken window alert followed by people present in your home timeline when you're not expecting them, I would draw the conclusion that it's an intruder.
We're combining data from different sensors, so if Point hears broken glass, and then notices the temperature changing or street noise being louder than usual we can more accurately detect broken windows.
OK, this is actually a really cool approach to what I gather is a common problem!
Does Point try to learn a baseline for temperature/acoustics/etc., and trigger when a deviation occurs? Or do you just say "when glass breaks + these other thresholds are tripped, ..."
Because the latter would probably solve the problem fairly well, but the former would be outstanding.
It does come with a humidity sensor, so if the leak leads to elevated humidity levels you could spot that something was off, but it's going to depend on a lot of factors in your room. Finding water leaks is our radar, but we don't dare to make promises right now.
We do have an API, but it might not be public from day one. There will be a beta-tier on Kickstarter that will get immediate access, and when we consider it solid we'll open it up.
Form finance and 1/5 of the engineering department here. :)
1. The Kickstarter price will be $79, with early-bird options for less. Retail will be more expensive.
2. No.
3. There is a small metal plate with double-sided tape that you attach to your wall or ceiling. Point then attached with magnets.
4. This summer! Beta units earlier if you are OK with a rough experience.
5. We might look larger than we are. Right now, we're basically self-funded engineers. Kickstarter allows us to validate our prototype without committing serious cash to manufacturing deposits. Like several others have remarked, it also helps with marketing and early customer interaction. Win-win really.
If you want to make sure to get one of the early-birds, sign up to the newsletter. Since it's mostly friends of ours on there we'll send a reminder before the launch so you can be ready.
The launch mailing list will only get one email once the project is already live.
When talking to people who had run successful campaigns before us, we found that having an audience and a mailing list beforehand was the key driving success factor. Prior to yesterday we had about 200 people, mostly consisting of friends and family. This is the real thing. No one has committed to buying Point, but we hope that some will!
Yup, even though KS will take a cut, it's worth getting those people who will pay to do it through KS. It's a very strong signal on your KS campaign page if by the time the buzz hits that you have 25% of your money already there, you'll convert way more than if you only had say 5%. Social proof is a huge factor in sales. The KS campaigns that are are successful and haven't use this technique are generally outliers.
Yes, they have a system with design and utility patents that is ~similar to the west. When you talk to local lawyers they always emphasise the importance of trademarks as the most effective way to protect your IP, but if you are have the budget getting patents could be good as well. The one thing to note is that you have to file a Chinese patent within a year of any other application worldwide. (I don't know nearly as much about this subject as I've learnt about trademarks, so caveat emptor.)
