IoT Industry Competitive, but Opportunity Knocks

Houston, Texas, July 29, 2015 (Newswire.com) - ​The proliferation of IoT technology has spawned a turf-war in the consumer market.   Big industry players are joining the battleground, from Apple with their recently announced HomeKit to Amazon’s foray into the smart home with the “Echo” - a voice-activated smart home speaker. 

Companies must exhibit unprecedented nimbleness to maneuver in step with these dynamic trends, rapidly developing and bringing to market an array of smart devices and connected accessories that differentiate from, yet simultaneously integrate with, existing solutions.

Internet of Things is still an evolving trend - the market is in its infancy and opportunities are everywhere.

Jake Boshernitzan, President

One start-up, Knocki, aims to disrupt the industry with a non-traditional approach.  By challenging the existing control-interface and hardware paradigm, Knocki believes it can carve out its share of the market.  Rather than creating a library of accessories and hardware tailored to IoT hubs and platforms,  Knocki seeks to transform the “internet of things” into the “internet of everything”.  

More specifically, Knocki empowers end-users to control connected devices using any existing surface in their environment – even the drywall surrounding every room of the house, or the wood of table-tops.

Knocki’s novel approach is best illustrated by example.  Take the humble door bell – a fixture of the home that’s seemingly saturated with IoT innovations, from smartphone-connected ringers to ones that even stream video.  Knocki, instead, turns the entire door into a virtual door bell, challenging the very notion of needing a dedicated physical user-interface.  With a Knocki attached to the interior side of a door, a person knocking from outside could trigger a text message or push an alert to a smartphone.

Similarly, the traditional light switch, a logical interface for IoT innovation is addressed by the industry through switches and buttons, all of them requiring the user to dedicate a part of their walls, tables, or other physical area.  Remote access via mobile applications has provided some added flexibility, but smartphones are still ultimately an additional interface and an added step in the control process.

Knocki can hide under tables, behind walls, or anywhere on a surface.  Using proprietary non-acoustic accelerometer algorithms, Knocki can detect and interpret very specific tap and knock patterns applied to surfaces, and trigger a collection of user specified actions ranging from turning lights on to activating home security.

Knocki is an accelerator backed start-up with several pending patents, a show-room in Bryan, Texas and is now accepting pre-orders on their website.