In a talk at Secutech 2014's International SMAhome Conference, Amaryllo Sales Manager Jacob Hanks spoke about the company's design philosophy, as well as its interesting approach to video surveillance. Although Amaryllo was originally founded in Amsterdam, the Netherlands, it designs, develops and manufacture its products in Taiwan, where it is now located.
Amaryllo's line of home security camera uses Skype to stream audio and video to smartphones, tablets and PC. Hanks said it took the company 2 years and multi-million dollars of R&D to finally get Skype certification. Other companies that wish to go the same route are out of luck—Microsoft killed the program when it acquired Skype in 2011. The licensing terms allow Amaryllo to use the Skype brand, as well as have full access to its APIs for the foreseeable future.
Aside from using the tried-and-tested Skype for video and audio transmission for quality and security, Amaryllo's cameras also use Google Drive to store recorded video in the cloud. Hanks said that the licensing terms allow Amaryllo to help its partners adopt the technology into their own products, but Microsoft requires all of these products to also show Amaryllo's logo. Since the Skype certification program no longer exists, that would mean that any Skype-enabled security camera will have at least some ties with Amaryllo.
Hanks also said that he wished he "knew there was a monster screen on the wall", so he could prepare some nice slides to go with his interesting talk.