Coming home after a ten-day vacation with his family, Adam Sager suddenly got the sense that something was terribly wrong. “As I approached the house, I was about a block away, I got this feeling of trepidation, almost a feeling of vulnerability, because I had no idea what had happened in my house while I’d been gone,” says Sager, who formerly worked as a corporate security advisor to Fortune 500 companies. “I’ve been thinking about security for a really long time, but never really thought about it for my own house.”
As it turned out, Sager’s house was unharmed, but he resolved to get a security system. As a renter, he didn’t want to install sensors all over the house, which eliminated the normal options provided by stalwarts like ADT. Unsatisfied by various DIY systems sold at Best Buy and elsewhere, he finally decided to found a company and build his own device.
In the U.S., one home is burglarized nearly every 15 seconds. Even so, few Americans don’t install security systems. Of those who do, many never turn them on because false alarms are common and can result in steep fines. And, aware that the majority of home alarms end up being nothing at all (see above), police can be slow to respond — too bad if it really is a burglar.
Together with two partners, Sager created what he says is a smarter home alarm system. Called Canary (which is also the name of their company), it has a wide angle lens, an HD camera with night vision, a motion detector, an accelerometer, a microphone, as well as sensors that track temperature, humidity and air quality. When Canary picks up on an irregularity — a fire, intruder, or something else — it alerts customers via text message and sends them on-the-scene video footage, so they can see for themselves if something is amiss.
The device, which Sager and his co-founders built mostly on their own dime for an undisclosed amount, requires a few weeks to learn what’s regular and what’s not. “If you have a pet, for instance, it’ll learn that and it won’t notify you every time the pet walks in front of the camera,” says Sager. Canary learns these patterns by sending questions via text, that you can either confirm or deny.
If Canary can’t get through to a customer via text, it can be programmed to alert a second tier of users, such as friends and neighbors. The company is also working on setting up a call center option. The device can be switched on manually, or programmed to go on whenever it detects, via geolocation, that you’ve left your home, and customers can coordinate as many as four of the devices to work in concert.
On July 22, Canary launched a campaign to raise $100,000 for manufacturing on the crowd funding platform Indiegogo. It met its goal in a day; to date, the campaign has raised more than $1 million. The device, roughly the size and shape of a 24-ounce beer can, can be preordered on the site for $199, with an estimated delivery date of May 2014 — a timeline, Sager says, that includesthird-party testing and bringing the device into compliance in U.S., European and other markets. So far, the company has built more than 24 prototypes.
Canary, obviously, isn’t great for everyone, including anyone with a huge house with multiple entrance points. Scott Alswang, a retired secret service agent and vice president of an international full-service security agency, says it still has a lot of promise: “It incorporates a lot of remedies for a lot of different security needs, and it requires very little installation. It’s almost idiot proof.”
As for the creepiness factor of having a smart device like Canary tracking your home environment, Alswang says most people are willing to sacrifice a lot for security. ”For most people safety and security outweigh the negatives,” Alswang says, but then adds, “I don’t know if Anthony Weiner would have been okay with this.”
