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Korner is innovative home security system that anyone can use and everyone can afford. With its patent-pending sensor technology, the Korner Tag is the first-ever one-piece entry point sensor. Korner price will be $50 upfront, and $35/year, but for upcoming crowdfunding campaign (Indiegogo campaign in early April) Korner team will be offering a one-time price of $80, with no annual fee – Ever! Here is our interview with Steve Hollis, Founder and CEO of Kornersafe:
Q: Could you tell us your story and something more about Korner?
A: The concept really started from a conversation I was having with a couple that recently had a new baby and were considering home security. After pricing out the different options they concluded it was just too expensive and decided against a purchase. What really struck me about that conversation was that each of them was college educated and had a great job. I thought to myself, if they can’t afford home security, what about everybody else! So I did some research and, sure enough, I discovered the penetration of home security among more affluent homeowners was quite high, but it fell off dramatically for renters and regular homeowners. Current solutions have been designed and priced for affluent homeowners, with multi-year contracts and professional installation, while there was nothing available at a reasonable price point for renters and regular homeowners, even though they suffered higher rates of breakins! Even most DIY solutions cost at least $200, whereas I really believed that a truly affordable solution should be under $100. So I assembled a team and we set out to design Home Security in its Simplest Form, so anyone can use it and everyone can afford it.
Q: How long did it take to put together Korner?
A: We have been working on this concept for almost 2 years. We spent a lot of time refining the concept to both simplify it and make it as cheap as possible. It took some time as the team still had their day jobs, and were working on Korner during nights and weekends.
Q: How big your team is at the moment?
A: In addition to myself, we have 2 hardware engineers, 2 software engineers, and somebody helping me out with marketing.
Q: What was technologically the most challenging part of developing Korner?
Definitely the Tag, which is what we call our door and window sensors. To make this product as simple as possible to use, we were obsessed with designing a one piece tag, unlike the traditional two piece sensors that are used by the industry today. We wanted to make it as easy as humanly possible for users to stick our tag onto the corner of a door or window, with no need for aligning multiple pieces and having to deal with frame geometries that were difficult to apply something to. With our Tag, all the user has to do is walk up to a door or window and slap on one of our Tags – it takes seconds. The other advantage is that with a one piece sensor, we were able to be much more creative with the design of our product. We like to think that our Tags look a lot better than the traditional two piece sensors.
The technological challenge with the tag was twofold. First, we had to ensure that we could discern between strong vibrations and actual entry, to prevent false alarms. With our combination of sensors, we can tell the user that there are strong vibrations at a door or window, but that an intrusion has still not occurred. Or, when entry does occur, we can alert the user with certainty that the door or window has actually opened. The second challenge was to manage power consumption, so that we could use a nickel-sized battery and still support a 3 year Tag life. This was essential to keeping the Tag as small as possible, to support ease-of-use and an appealing design.
Over time we were able to come up with the right combination of sensors, along with the right algorithms, to support these objectives. Our innovation is patent-pending, but we can’t wait to share it with the world!
Q: What are your plans for the future?
A: We currently have a beta campaign on Grand Street. This is simply to provide potential users the opportunity to provide feedback on our concept. We are currently shooting a video and anticipate launching an Indiegogo campaign in early April. From there, we will take our product beyond the prototype stage and build a full solution that will be ready for a full market launch.
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