Interview with Sergio, Controllocasa CEO
December 16, 2021
Interview with Sergio, Controllocasa CEO, Innovative Start-Up for the design and marketing of products and services in the field of home automation and video surveillance
ControlloCasa is a start-up born from the passion for IoT (Internet of things) of its founders and the need to make our homes more efficient and safe for the people who live there. ControlloCasa is a real platform that offers a range of 360° Solutions in the field of remote assistance for the most fragile people, video surveillance, energy efficiency, sensors, and home automation. Each proposed solution is customizable, integrable and above all manageable through your smartphone in a clear, intuitive and secure way.
What services does ControlloCasa offer?
Protection for loved ones and for 4-legged friends
ControlloCasa offers a video surveillance service that is always connected, manageable entirely from your smartphone. In this way, it will always be possible to “enter the house”even while being at a distance. The advantage of focusing on the video surveillance service of ControlloCasa, besides offering protection from criminal acts, is to be able to keep an eye on our elderly loved ones, at any time, from any place. For the protection of our elderly loved ones, ControlloCasa has also designed HEFLY, a wearable life-saving device that can send SOS calls to our smartphone, in case of danger. The device looks like an ordinary wrist bracelet, but you just have to press the button above it to immediately send a distress call to the saved number.
Home Protection
Video surveillance and alarm service for the protection of your home. The main features of the alarm system are:
- high definition cameras
- audio and video in real-time through smartphones, PCs, tablets
- recording images to iCloud
- viewing both real-time and recorded images
- manage camera via remote management
- anti-intrusion notifications by email and telephone alert without SIM or GSM switch
Condo Protection
With the service Fukurò, Controlhouse also takes care of condos. In this case, the video surveillance system is composed of 3 wireless cameras with high definition vision even at night; a 4G router for the WIFI network and Internet connection with dedicated SIM; UPS system that guarantees the normal operation of the video system even in case of absence of power (autonomy 3 hours). The service is both purchasable and rentable
Usby, home automation like you’ve never seen
Usby is a smart device that allows you to:
– manage remote switching of the devices connected to it
– receive alerts in case of power failure
– monitor ambient temperature remote
Lastly, ControlloCasa has recently launched a new project: Call Me. By activating the service, at a cost of 18 euros a year, the ControlloCasa team will take care of notifying you by phone whenever there will be an abnormal absence of power in the house.
If you are curious to know more closely all the services of ControlloCasa, do not miss the interview with Sergio, ControlloCasa CEO
Hello Sergio, nice to meet you, and thank you for the time you are dedicating to us. ControlloCasa: what is it?
Hello Germana, thank you for the opportunity you offered us to introduce our company. ControlloCasa srl is an innovative Start-up, born in September 2018, whose object is the design and development of innovative products and services with high technological value. We have two licenses approved and a third filed pending issuance by the UIBM. All our products, apart from the off-the-shelf video surveillance cameras, have been manufactured in a prototype phase and some have reached the commercialization phase. The Associated services are all managed on an SW priority platform that allows us maximum flexibility for the management of possible different needs of the customers.
How and when was the Controllocasa idea born?
ControlloCasa srl was born from the passion of the founding members for the world of IOT (Internet Of Things), and from the experience gained over the years in the search for solutions to practical needs in the field of long-distance assistance to the elderly, alarm systems, and video surveillance, energy efficiency, sensors, and home automation. The ControlloCasa platform allows customization and integration services offered in the different application areas that are managed directly on your smartphone in a clear and simple way.
The first applications were created to solve personal needs, then expanding the use to the circle of friends and acquaintances who had come to know. Positive feedback and growing interest convinced us to found the start-up.
What service are you most attached to?
HELFY is the project to which we are definitely most attached. HELFY (the acronym stands for HELP for you) was born with the aim of helping elderly people in difficulty within their homes. In fact, it is not uncommon for the elderly to remain on the ground, after a fall, for a long time before they return home of some relative or acquaintance. If they fall or are in difficulty in their home, HELFY asks for help for you and informs you as soon as someone has taken care of your distress call
It is a system consisting of a bracelet, a video surveillance system, and a cloud platform. The bracelet is equipped with a warning light and a simple button that must be pressed in case the affected person is in difficulties within their home (for example, due to a slip in the shower or in the bathtub with the inability to get up).
The bracelet is connected via WiFi to the Internet. This allows the ControlloCasa server to receive the request for help and immediately inform the relatives. The request for help is sent both in the form of an e-mail and by phone call. The system calls all the numbers that have been registered in the ControlloCasa portal. The relatives, once alerted, will be able to see what really happened through the video surveillance system, to which they can have access from the ControlloCasa portal. Thanks to video surveillance, relatives will not only be able to check what is happening in real time but will also be able to access the images recorded on the Cloud of the moments before the rescue request.
The elderly person will be informed through the indicator light that the request for help has been correctly forwarded, received and taken care of by his / her relatives. This feature allows the person in difficulty to calm down knowing that his loved ones are intervening in his help.
Here are the features that distinguish HELFY from similar devices currently on the market :
– Sending an email and phone call in case of request for help. The phone call is managed by the platform and therefore does not require a SIM or additional phone inside the home.
– Indication that the request for help has been received and that aid is about to arrive.
– Immediate visualization of the person in difficulty, through the surveillance system, which allows the assessment of the severity of the request (for example for intervention of the ambulance and Fire Brigade)
– The battery life is 1 year and then the system informs you when it is time to change it (device always ready to function without worries)
– A WIFI network is sufficient for its operation
HELFY is a patent-covered project. We are looking for interested partners for industrialization and diffusion.
Who is the target audience of ControlloCasa? How is the market responding?
The target audience changes depending on the product/service we consider.
Take for example USBy who is giving us good rewards. We started by addressing the user “Consumer” for home applications. The most common need is to be notified when the electric current goes away in the house so as not to have to throw away all the contents of the fridge/freezer on the way home, especially when you leave for a few days.
In time, however, customers have used ours service for different purposes: from the tropical aquaria (which do not withstand prolonged power failure), people living in the Po valley where the absence of electricity does not allow the operation of the bilge pumps for wine cellars, a veterinary studies, which are stored in the refrigerator medicinal products must have a controlled temperature, to those who grow crops in a greenhouse using lamps etc. We are finding interest from companies for the control of the continuity of operation of machinery and lately, with the introduction of the temperature sensor, also for the control of the operating temperature of the servers giving the possibility to receive alarms when the threshold is exceeded on the detected temperature. We see USBy as a valid aid for the control and monitoring of the temperature in cold rooms with possible uses in the HACCP field. For video surveillance applications, considering the fierce competition, we turn essentially to business applications where the possibility of customization of services is most necessary.
There are many companies that deal with video surveillance and home protection. If you were to indicate three added values of ControlloCasa, which ones would you choose?
Yes, of course, in the field of video surveillance there are giants that monopolize the market. For this reason, we take care of those applications where flexibility and possibility of customization (thanks to our proprietary platform) can give added value, and also where the video surveillance is integrated with other services (think for example of the application of a HELFY for the relief requested and the sending of alarm in case of robbery, which allows the rescuer to live view it through the camera system managed from the same platform and that also allows you to send phone calls of alarm).
Among the added values of the ControlloCasa solution I would definitely indicate: maximum flexibility, customization of solutions, 360 degree assistance
How did you launch your project? Have you used crowdfunding campaigns?
Let’s talk about USBy: it is a project that has developed entirely on the web thanks to awareness and knowledge campaigns on the major platforms. Now being USBy a mature project/product, it is time to launch more extensive information campaigns to make known to the general public (and to professionals with a possible interest) its characteristics, potential, and possibilities of use.
So far we have used other funding channels and we think HELFY is the right project for an upcoming crowdfunding campaign, given the strong social value of the project.
Do you also use Control loCasa to protect your homes and loved ones?
Yes, certainly we all use our projects/products of home automation and for the protection of the house and our loved ones (In my holiday home I use a camera of the system only to watch the sun setting at sea). We clearly combine the usefulness of the service received with the continuous live verification of their functionality and performance. For example, through the temperature sensor of USBy, we know if the heating system turns on at the scheduled time. In mountainside houses, we use it to adjust the automatic ignition of equipment that is “scared” by frost.
Before saying goodbye I want to remember the case of a friend who had his dad forced to stay in bed because of a serious illness and could see how the day had gone only in the evening by checking audio and video, recorded on Cloud, of the cam he had installed in his dad’s bedroom. A small gesture proved to be of great help. Bye Germana, It was a pleasure. See you soon
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