Brivo Labs is an Internet of Things company, always enthusiastic to integrate the latest tech with their own devices. Estimote Beacons were no exception.
In Nick Castillo's own words: "Our General Manager, Lee Odess, one day placed a 3-pack of Estimote beacons on my desk and simply said ‘Do something with this,’ Lee is a very helpful chap in the sense that he provides the latest and greatest things and wants me to find creative ways to apply them to our API. I took that challenge and did some research on what Estimote Beacons were and how they were being marketed. At first it seemed like a product that was focused on retail businesses, but I refused to believe that and began to think of ways we could merge the idea of BLE beacons and access control.”
“After some brainstorms with our Director of Digital Strategy and Innovation, Mike Martoccia, we figured that it was feasible to create a solution that uses Estimote Beacons and our SAM API to allow entry to a door based on someone's social identity simply by walking up to a door. I then proceeded to TopCoder and set up a competition to get this product developed. The competitors had to study Estimote's API documentation and, once they became familiar with it, they were able to start developing. From start to finish the product took a month and a half to build.”
The product was a big hit at SXSW. People were mesmerized by the idea of being able to unlock a door by simply standing in front of it. “There was also a lot of wonder about the purple rock that was attached!”
Brivo Labs (@brivolabs) is a business unit of Brivo Systems LLC. Brivo Systems LLC is a SaaS-based company that links hundreds of thousands of remote devices to millions of users. Brivo is a wholly owned subsidiary of The Duchossois Group, a privately held company, headquartered in Elmhurst, Illinois, which also owns a number of diversified businesses, including AMX, The Chamberlain Group.
Brivo Labs roots started in July 2013 and has since created four public-facing products (Rändivoo, Rändivoo Mobile, OKDoor, and the SAM API). The physically tangible products are all utilizing and showcasing use of the recently released SAM API. Brivo Labs is able to develop and move quickly through crowdsourcing and use TopCoder as a platform.