In the age of IoT, devices are considered a vehicle to collect data, but the real power may lie in data mining to generate intelligence. As such, smart camera maker Amaryllo International does not focus on selling its award-winning hardware, but video storage and intelligent analytics.
In the age of IoT, devices are considered a vehicle to collect data, but the real power may lie in data mining to generate intelligence. As such, smart camera maker Amaryllo International does not focus on selling its award-winning hardware, but video storage and intelligent analytics.
The company aims to be a “telecom operator in the IoT industry,” Amaryllo’s President CT Marcus Yang stressed. Just like how Chunghwa Telecom offers smartphones for free (with two-year service subscription), Amaryllo wants to give its cameras away for free or at very low prices.
“Chunghwa Telecom doesn’t care which brands your smartphones are, as long as you use their service,” Yang said. Amaryllo, in the same way, will focus on providing data service. It will charge for video storage, monetize database and turn data into useful information.
With 50 patents in its hand, the Netherland-based company has a strong technical background to help it develop smart cameras. High-power CPUs are embedded into its products to perform auto tracking, which is patented in 2015.
The cameras are given the ability to speak in 2016, the ability to recognize human faces in 2017, and the ability to identify all other objects including animals in 2018.
Many products in the market generate numerous false alerts from sound and motion detection. Amaryllo’s smart alert patent published last year by the U.S. government allows users to select what objects (like cat, dog or human) they want to see and be alerted accordingly, removing 99 percent of false alarms, Yang said.
Having rolled out its products for years in the consumer market, Amaryllo is now targeting the commercial market. And the intelligent recognition capability may be applied in many industries.
The first batch of business customers include Costco, Mos Burger and Taipei Metro. Retailers tend to have different demands, Yang said. In the case of electronics retailer Tsannkuen Co. in Taiwan, stores use cameras to conduct visitor head count, keep track of when customers enter stores, and check the customers’ age and gender. A store may even put customer headshots in a VIP list or a blacklist, for those who have placed big purchases and those who have stolen merchandise, respectively.
The company plans to launch a smart parking service in June, for which it has received US$5 million in funding from Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, according to Yang.