NECN BeOn smarthome security lightbulb deters burglars

Thank you, Tim. You've heard of a smartphone, but how about a smart light bulb? A Cambridge company has developed one designed to help homeowners make their homes more secure and to help out in case of a power outage. Alexei Erchak is the CEO and co-founder of the company Beyond, and Robert Siciliano is the company's security expert. Thank you both for joining us.

Thank you.

Thank you. I know there are other companies that have these smart light bulbs. How is yours different?

It's a great question. What we wanted to do was go beyond just turning your light on and off with your phone or changing We want to solve a real problem in the home. And in your home, the first thing you think of is security, protection of your loved ones. And so what we did was we started getting really deep into understanding how security works. We talked to people like Robert and realized that this is this whole unloved category of security deterrence. Most security systems are reactive. They let you know after something has happened. What about preventing things from happening in the first place?

That's great. Yeah, so Robert, talk about how this is a security asset because you It deals with sounds and patterns that people have in their homes.

Yes, burglars are looking for the path of least resistance. They're looking for houses that are unoccupied, and what this does is it gives the impression that you are there 24/7, 365. This models everything that you do as far as turning your lights on and off at various times of the day, giving your house that lived-in look, so burglars are less likely to target your home.

So it even recognizes doorbell sounds and also recognizes at what times you usually turn on the lights and turn off the lights. So how does this work? You just stick it into like a lamp like normally?

You got it, and that's our vision, is that we believe home technology should be that simple. It shouldn't be about walking into a room and getting out your phone and putting the code in and trying to turn things on and off and trying to program things. It's way, way too complicated. Our vision of smart home is Use the stuff you already have. There's a reason the light switch has been there that long. It actually works pretty well, right? You don't need to reinvent the light switch. Use your existing patterns and your existing lifestyle and just fit into that. So what we did was we took a light bulb and we put a giant hole in the center of it, right? And then this is where the intelligence is. This is what we call the module. And you pop the module in and the light turns on. It turns on because the battery is in there. There's a battery, a microphone that listens to your doorbell like Robert was just talking about, and the battery makes it so it even works during a power outage.

Yeah, that's kind of key, right?

It's key because most security systems fail during a power outage. This will stay on. This has your back at all times.

Yeah, so when I hear the word smart, like with smartphones and everything else, I'm thinking this has got to be pretty expensive.

Yeah, well, it's— yeah, it is, it is a— it is a high-priced item, but for— it's low for a security system, right? There's no contracts, there's no monthly fees.

So if you're interested— someone's interested in getting it, how do they do it?

You go on to Kickstarter and you can preorder it now, and we're actually raising money to go do our first build right now. We're at $60,000, our target is $100,000. Go on there. It's a really, really good value because there's also a lot of safety features. So how about when the power goes out, your lights are the only ones in the neighborhood that stays on?

So a packet of 3, how much? What do you say?

$199.

$199. All right. Alexey Erchak, co-founder of Beyond, and security expert Robert Siciliano, thank you both for joining us and talking about this invention.

Thank you so much.

Thanks a lot.