HackSantiago‘s 2nd place winner, home automation start up ‘Proyecto-X‘, now officially named E-Box, is looking to take a cut of the 2012 $6 billion projected wireless/smart home market (Source: On World). Based out of Santiago, Chile ‘E-Box’ is currently in the rapid prototyping stage of developing a smart home technology service (SaaS). The software allows you to use your handheld mobile device (or the web) to manage and control, automatically or manually, electronics in the home or office spaces, and gain information and metrics through sensors.
Currently the team at E-Box are testing the user interface and the ‘electronics stuff’, such as connecting the sensors with electronic circuits and finally they will tweak all the coding for the web based communication system.
Team: Arturo Vildósola (speaker on video), Jose Almenarez and Bayro Monsalve
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAXujYIPD9g[/youtube]
Q&A
Who are your customers?
- Consumers (Homeowners): our tool helps them to increase their security by measuring levels of potential signals of danger(gas, fire, and after leaving home, now they have remote control of what’s happening under the radar.
- Businesses: same features than homeowners plus statistics reports and alerts regarding to measure temperature, humidity and climate on industrial scales (e.g. wineyards, seed fields, fruit trees, etc).
Why hasn’t this problem been solved yet?
- Due to high fees in South America for automatization, because the current model of sales, is to develop customized automatization projects and there’s no standard solution (that’s what E-Box aims to provide).
- Infrastructure destruction (currently there are too many wire connections)
How does it work?
It’s a time saving tool, which aims to provide security & comfort through a network of wireless devices (module box and main box) that can communicate between them, to reach defined tasks or goals; receiving instructions through a website or a mobile application.
Next steps
After being discovered at HackSantiago, E-Box received an invitation to apply faster than ever to ACTI’s MBA Contest and also to Corfo’s Global Connection Program, which supports Chilean based start ups with internationalizing their business. Next Monday (Dec 12th) they will know if they win or not MBA Contest competition, which can provide them seed funding to get started from the scratch.
