Welcome to the Construction Disruption Podcast, where we
Intro:uncover the future of design, building, and remodeling.
Ryan Bell:I'm Ryan Bell of Isaiah Industries, manufacturer
Ryan Bell:of specialty metal roofing and other building materials.
Ryan Bell:And today my co host is Todd Miller.
Ryan Bell:Todd, how are you doing?
Todd Miller:I am doing really well and I'm excited about our guest today and
Todd Miller:our show today and see what we can learn.
Todd Miller:You know, that's what I always love about these is I always learn something.
Todd Miller:So it's good stuff.
Ryan Bell:I am excited too.
Ryan Bell:This is a technology focused episode.
Ryan Bell:Um, today our guest is Tony Nicolaidis, the chief commercial officer of origin
Ryan Bell:AI, a company that invented wifi sensing technology and is revolutionizing smart
Ryan Bell:homes, healthcare, and home security.
Ryan Bell:Wifi sensing will allow for non invasive and highly accurate monitoring
Ryan Bell:through the utilization of current IOT devices around your home or office.
Ryan Bell:By monitoring occupancy in real time, Origin AI's solutions enable
Ryan Bell:security intrusion detection, HVAC control, and patient monitoring.
Ryan Bell:Soon, Origin AI's Wi Fi monitoring system will be a staple in
Ryan Bell:all modern construction.
Ryan Bell:Tony, it's great to have you on the show today, and thank you for joining us.
Tony Nicolaidis:Ryan and Todd, thank you for having me.
Tony Nicolaidis:And it's a pleasure to be here.
Ryan Bell:Well, to get us started.
Ryan Bell:Um, can you explain a little bit about kind of what wifi sensing
Ryan Bell:technology is and how it works?
Tony Nicolaidis:Yeah, that, uh, that definition you just gave, that
Tony Nicolaidis:was, uh, that was, that was pretty good, very complex, but let's make it
Tony Nicolaidis:ephemeral and let's get right to the point of, of, of the easy explanation.
Tony Nicolaidis:Wifi is ubiquitous.
Tony Nicolaidis:In our lives, in our home, in our businesses, um, and what, what happens
Tony Nicolaidis:is our bodies walk through Wi Fi.
Tony Nicolaidis:We disrupt.
Tony Nicolaidis:The wifi waves, uh, actions that we do that are macro actions, macro doing
Tony Nicolaidis:jumping jacks, all the way to laying down and breathing, we disrupt those
Tony Nicolaidis:wifi waves and what origin, the origin AI technology does is it quantifies
Tony Nicolaidis:and contextualizes that disruption.
Tony Nicolaidis:So we know what type of disruption, uh, it is that has occurred to the wifi signal.
Tony Nicolaidis:And then we can give that back and whatever use case we're talking about.
Tony Nicolaidis:So basically disrupting wifi waves.
Tony Nicolaidis:And contextualizing and understanding that
Todd Miller:so if i'm if i'm eating a corn dog as an example
Todd Miller:would that disrupt the wi fi
Tony Nicolaidis:Yeah, if you're eating a corn dog and the corn dog's very good.
Tony Nicolaidis:So it's going to be an ephemeral meal.
Tony Nicolaidis:It's going to go fast Uh your your your fingers are moving your hands
Tony Nicolaidis:are moving everything like that We're going to know that you are moving.
Tony Nicolaidis:We're going to know that you're in that spot.
Ryan Bell:Cool.
Ryan Bell:I was going to say, so, so I can tell my kids when they're complaining
Ryan Bell:about the wifi not working, that it's because they're moving.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, you know, it's funny you ask.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, no, because we suck up no bandwidths.
Tony Nicolaidis:I, and we'll talk about that.
Tony Nicolaidis:I think today throughout the.
Tony Nicolaidis:The, the, uh, the discussion, but we will not, uh, we've been
Tony Nicolaidis:thoroughly tested in not doing that.
Ryan Bell:Okay.
Ryan Bell:Interesting.
Ryan Bell:Um, so what, what was it exactly that inspired the development of
Ryan Bell:this wifi sensing technology and how is it, uh, different maybe from
Ryan Bell:other wifi monitoring solutions?
Tony Nicolaidis:So Dr.
Tony Nicolaidis:Ray Liu, who was a university of Maryland digital signal processing Uh,
Tony Nicolaidis:professor, uh, also the IEEE president in the, in the world, in the global
Tony Nicolaidis:world of digital signal processing, Dr.
Tony Nicolaidis:Ray Liu's name is known globally.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, he was doing some work for the government through DARPA back in
Tony Nicolaidis:2011, 2010 on how to get signals and, and more knowledge of what's going
Tony Nicolaidis:on in various places in a submarine.
Tony Nicolaidis:And he stumbled across wifi sensing and he kind of put it together,
Tony Nicolaidis:invented it, it patented it, uh, and in the end left university of Maryland
Tony Nicolaidis:and knew that wifi sensing was going to have massive potential in our
Tony Nicolaidis:everyday life and changing millions of millions of lives for the better.
Tony Nicolaidis:And he started origin, uh, in, uh, 2011, 12.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, and, um, that's how the technology came about.
Tony Nicolaidis:Dr.
Tony Nicolaidis:Ray Liu is still chairman of our board.
Tony Nicolaidis:He's still our chief technology officer, very involved, very
Tony Nicolaidis:involved in the day to day business.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that's where we came from.
Tony Nicolaidis:Now, uh, he let the technology bake.
Tony Nicolaidis:Until 2019, so about seven years, seven, eight years to thoroughly understand
Tony Nicolaidis:it, hired all the, uh, engineering, uh, staff that needed to be hired to
Tony Nicolaidis:really develop it and shore it up, make sure the science was sound, uh,
Tony Nicolaidis:file for the IP, all that good stuff.
Tony Nicolaidis:And then you started bringing a few of us in to start commercializing
Tony Nicolaidis:the technology and that's where Spencer made our CEO came in.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, that's where I came in.
Tony Nicolaidis:So the technology was really being developed over, let's call it a seven year
Tony Nicolaidis:period until we started commercializing.
Tony Nicolaidis:Now, how is it different?
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, certainly when you compare it to other kinds of cousin technologies,
Tony Nicolaidis:like radar, uh, radar technology has been around a long time.
Tony Nicolaidis:A lot of great companies like Vyar out there that do do radar.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, radar is very, very accurate and can sense a person or people, but radar
Tony Nicolaidis:is expensive and radar has a lot of hardware you have to set up throughout
Tony Nicolaidis:a location to get a full picture.
Tony Nicolaidis:Okay, of what's going on contextually in that environment, whereas with Wi Fi, all
Tony Nicolaidis:you need is a Wi Fi signals, connected devices, and we'll know what's going on
Tony Nicolaidis:in that contextualize that environment in a much, much, much lighter way.
Tony Nicolaidis:Way than radar gives you an example of a, of a, of a
Tony Nicolaidis:comparison to another technology.
Ryan Bell:I, I'm not quite sure to be honest that I under really understood what
Ryan Bell:it was until you explained it like that.
Ryan Bell:Um, can you give us some examples of maybe some real world examples
Ryan Bell:of how this is being used and smart homes throughout healthcare?
Tony Nicolaidis:Absolutely.
Tony Nicolaidis:So we've launched.
Tony Nicolaidis:With Verizon, um, in Northeast here, Verizon, Fios.
Tony Nicolaidis:You know your, I ha I live in Baltimore, Maryland.
Tony Nicolaidis:Here I've got a Fios router.
Tony Nicolaidis:That's how I get my wifi to my home.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, Verizon has a service called Home Aware, and, uh, and home awareness.
Tony Nicolaidis:Basically, uh, you can, we have our firmware, our technology sitting on
Tony Nicolaidis:the router right on in the router.
Ryan Bell:Okay?
Tony Nicolaidis:So when somebody signs up for home awareness, um, you, that
Tony Nicolaidis:the router wakes up and starts pinging all the connected devices to your house.
Tony Nicolaidis:Now in the U S there's an average of 17 connected devices.
Tony Nicolaidis:What's a connected device.
Tony Nicolaidis:Anything on your wifi from I'm, I'm staring right here at a Sono speaker.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, a printer, uh, Alexa, Google home, your TV, any kitchen
Tony Nicolaidis:appliances, a PlayStation on and on.
Tony Nicolaidis:We have connected devices throughout the home and it pings all those
Tony Nicolaidis:stationary devices and from that router, Ryan and Todd to each of those
Tony Nicolaidis:connected devices, you have this.
Tony Nicolaidis:elliptical kind of zone that is connected.
Tony Nicolaidis:And when somebody enters that zone, right, we know they're there.
Tony Nicolaidis:We know there's verified human presence in that zone.
Tony Nicolaidis:So, uh, that is how they, uh, Verizon is selling home awareness.
Tony Nicolaidis:And basically, uh, they're starting out with who's, you know, basically
Tony Nicolaidis:understanding Not who identified who, but are there not a lot of people, nobody in
Tony Nicolaidis:your home or many people in your home?
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, you know, depending on how many zones are being disrupted all at once.
Tony Nicolaidis:So imagine this blue orb, it'll get big, big, big when there's a lot
Tony Nicolaidis:of people in it, small or nothing when there's, when there's nothing.
Tony Nicolaidis:That is how Verizon, It's doing it right.
Tony Nicolaidis:And they have a whole product road to use that technology.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, and then from there, we have other, um, customers right now.
Tony Nicolaidis:You may have not heard of a company called very short.
Tony Nicolaidis:Very
Tony Nicolaidis:sure is the largest security company in Europe.
Tony Nicolaidis:Number two to ADT globally, very big company.
Tony Nicolaidis:We are launching with Verisure in Europe right now.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, and literally in the process of launching, uh, where they have
Tony Nicolaidis:their normal security system.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, and what happens is they're going to have, let's say a camera
Tony Nicolaidis:or a motion, motion sensors tripped.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, as soon as that happens, we wake up, ping all the connected devices and see
Tony Nicolaidis:if there's verified human presence in the house to avoid the biggest problem in the
Tony Nicolaidis:security industry, which is false alarms.
Tony Nicolaidis:Right?
Tony Nicolaidis:So those are two examples in the ISP space, in the security space, where
Tony Nicolaidis:occupancy and verified human presence is being used to make systems much,
Tony Nicolaidis:much better than they are today.
Ryan Bell:Is there a visual representation of what
Ryan Bell:is present in the space?
Ryan Bell:Or is it more just like a notification, like a, like an alert type thing?
Tony Nicolaidis:Depends with Verizon.
Tony Nicolaidis:There is a visualization of this blue orb.
Tony Nicolaidis:If you go to your Verizon app and you go to home awareness, uh, you'll see a
Tony Nicolaidis:blue or big or small or nothing at all.
Tony Nicolaidis:If there's depending on what's going on in your house, uh, in the
Tony Nicolaidis:security use case, it's all about, you know, it's all about notification.
Tony Nicolaidis:Hey.
Tony Nicolaidis:Your motion sensor on the door tripped.
Tony Nicolaidis:Oh, by the way, we have that piece of data.
Tony Nicolaidis:And now we know that there's human presence in your house.
Tony Nicolaidis:Right.
Tony Nicolaidis:Cause so wifi sensing will, will reconfirm the door sensor tripped and now there's
Tony Nicolaidis:somebody in the house before all you knew was the door sensor tripped.
Tony Nicolaidis:You're going to get a call from them saying, what do you want us to do?
Tony Nicolaidis:I don't know.
Tony Nicolaidis:I'm not home.
Tony Nicolaidis:I don't know what's going on.
Tony Nicolaidis:You don't know if it's a real alarm or not.
Tony Nicolaidis:Now we'll know if there's somebody in the house and that's a, an alert based.
Tony Nicolaidis:kind of system.
Tony Nicolaidis:So it depends on the use case, Ryan.
Todd Miller:Oh, I was wondering how, I think I can imagine, but how
Todd Miller:is this being used in healthcare then and patient monitoring?
Tony Nicolaidis:So in Todd, so in healthcare, what we're doing is we
Tony Nicolaidis:have various use cases in healthcare.
Tony Nicolaidis:Let's just start with Alzheimer's.
Tony Nicolaidis:And occupancy is the person there or not.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, I have many friends, uh, unfortunately that are caring for aging parents that
Tony Nicolaidis:now have Alzheimer's and dementia, and they've got all of these cameras and all
Tony Nicolaidis:this crazy stuff all over the place and cameras have a very limited field of view.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, and they're always looking to see if their parents are home.
Tony Nicolaidis:We will be able to know.
Tony Nicolaidis:Does a person is supposed to be home or they're not right?
Tony Nicolaidis:That's one use case.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, the other use cases, um, their tendencies around
Tony Nicolaidis:the house trends over time.
Tony Nicolaidis:They're spending a lot more time in bed this month than they were last
Tony Nicolaidis:month, or they're spending a lot more time in the bathroom this month.
Tony Nicolaidis:Then last time, the last month, these are all, this is all data that doesn't exist
Tony Nicolaidis:today because in the health industry, all you have are, are purrs or, um, you know,
Tony Nicolaidis:rechargeable kind of wearables that, you know, many, many, uh, uh, uh, elderly,
Tony Nicolaidis:uh, people don't charge and don't wear.
Tony Nicolaidis:Now you don't need any of that.
Tony Nicolaidis:All you need is a wifi signal and we can kind of do trends around the house.
Tony Nicolaidis:And then the holy grail of it all.
Tony Nicolaidis:is fall detection.
Tony Nicolaidis:If somebody has fallen and they're still down there and what to do.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that's a very complex use case.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, and it's one that we are most definitely, we can demo it, but as you
Tony Nicolaidis:try to scale, uh, fall detection, there's a lot more hardware and things that need
Tony Nicolaidis:to happen that we're working through.
Tony Nicolaidis:So those are kind of some simple use cases for, for what we call
Tony Nicolaidis:health tech that can be used.
Todd Miller:So for my aging mother, I'd actually have to convince her
Todd Miller:she needs internet in her house first, but I like the idea of this.
Todd Miller:It makes a lot of sense.
Tony Nicolaidis:Yeah.
Tony Nicolaidis:All you need is wifi and we're there.
Ryan Bell:So how does it, uh, is there like an initial setup process
Ryan Bell:or something where it maps walls and like, uh, if there's a concrete wall
Ryan Bell:or column or something, like, does it take like a, a print of that to know
Ryan Bell:the, this location, the space it's in?
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, our engines.
Tony Nicolaidis:Come out so far already taught.
Tony Nicolaidis:There's no learning needs to happen with the engines, right?
Tony Nicolaidis:So when you say the occupancy engine, as long as there's wifi, we're going
Tony Nicolaidis:to detect verified human presence in terms of coverage, which is
Tony Nicolaidis:really what you're talking about.
Ryan Bell:Yeah.
Tony Nicolaidis:Ryan.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, we also have visualizations where you can walk around, call a tribe before you
Tony Nicolaidis:buy, and you can walk around your house and you can see this graph going crazy
Tony Nicolaidis:as you're walking around and you can get to spots where it's whoop, it's dead.
Tony Nicolaidis:And you can say, okay, in this spot, either I'm going to need an Alexa.
Tony Nicolaidis:Or an extender from Verizon or whatever, either a connected or a
Tony Nicolaidis:connected light bulb, uh, whatever.
Tony Nicolaidis:And now all of a sudden that spot will be live.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that's all you really need to do.
Tony Nicolaidis:Nothing else to teach it.
Tony Nicolaidis:But what we find here, Ryan, in the U S is it's a bigger problem in Europe.
Tony Nicolaidis:Concrete, steel, the constructionism in the U S primarily were drywall and wood.
Tony Nicolaidis:So wifi permeates everywhere.
Tony Nicolaidis:We don't tend to have that problem as much in the U S
Ryan Bell:are you able to extend it outside your home?
Tony Nicolaidis:You can, if you have connected devices outside of your home,
Tony Nicolaidis:you have to be very careful though.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, if you have connected devices out there, you don't
Tony Nicolaidis:want to have false positives.
Tony Nicolaidis:You know what I mean?
Ryan Bell:Sure.
Tony Nicolaidis:Yeah.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, so you want to tend to keep it inside the home.
Tony Nicolaidis:We suggest you have it inside.
Ryan Bell:That makes sense.
Ryan Bell:I can't tell you how many alerts I get at night for the cat on
Ryan Bell:my porch from our, our level.
Tony Nicolaidis:Exactly.
Tony Nicolaidis:And that's the other thing with us.
Tony Nicolaidis:We have human versus non human, uh, notification.
Tony Nicolaidis:Okay.
Tony Nicolaidis:Pets are a massive false alarm issue in security.
Tony Nicolaidis:Sure.
Tony Nicolaidis:And so we, we are able to distinguish human versus a big bucket called
Tony Nicolaidis:non human, which could be pets.
Tony Nicolaidis:Rumba vacs in Europe are very popular, oscillating fans, moving curtains in
Tony Nicolaidis:the With the air conditioning, that all that stuff will set off alarms.
Tony Nicolaidis:We can do human versus non human.
Ryan Bell:Very cool.
Ryan Bell:Um, so origin AI, uh, aims to be a staple in modern construction.
Ryan Bell:How do you foresee the integration of this wifi sensing technology
Ryan Bell:and future building designs?
Tony Nicolaidis:That is an excellent question.
Tony Nicolaidis:And one we feel is an absolute vector for us as we move along in the
Tony Nicolaidis:future, because it's a little more of a slow burn for new construction.
Tony Nicolaidis:Imagine if we work with the builders and we say, whether it's a home builder or,
Tony Nicolaidis:or a commercial building, and we say, you know what, we're going to automatically
Tony Nicolaidis:put these sensors in the walls.
Tony Nicolaidis:We'll have, uh, uh, wifi, um, uh, sensors in the wall and, and, and connect the
Tony Nicolaidis:sensors in the walls already designed in the building that you no longer have to
Tony Nicolaidis:put anything else around the building.
Tony Nicolaidis:You can, if you want to increase coverage, if you want, but if you
Tony Nicolaidis:design it into, uh, as a building and the home is being built.
Tony Nicolaidis:You are ready to go.
Tony Nicolaidis:All you need to do is turn it on.
Tony Nicolaidis:Right.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that's for new construction.
Tony Nicolaidis:So we need to partner with builders, which we're doing, but it's a little bit more
Tony Nicolaidis:of a slow burn, um, with construction that already exists, especially in the
Tony Nicolaidis:commercial space, guys, where we're really focusing on energy efficiency.
Tony Nicolaidis:And turning thermostats off, air conditioning, heating.
Tony Nicolaidis:We have smart plugs.
Tony Nicolaidis:You can, you can, we can give you that.
Tony Nicolaidis:You can plug in each smart plug.
Tony Nicolaidis:We'll do 500 to 750 square feet, plug them in.
Tony Nicolaidis:They're out of the way.
Tony Nicolaidis:You don't see them and they will be your wifi sensing network.
Tony Nicolaidis:They will connect to all the connected devices and they will be able to do a
Tony Nicolaidis:bill and they will be able to manage a building that is already built.
Tony Nicolaidis:So we have ways to do it with.
Tony Nicolaidis:Already built buildings or working with builders in the future.
Tony Nicolaidis:That's a very passionate topic for us.
Tony Nicolaidis:Me and Spencer made, uh, or Spencer made and I spent 30 years of Stanley
Tony Nicolaidis:Black and Decker in the DeWalt business.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that's where we both came from.
Tony Nicolaidis:That's where we know each other.
Tony Nicolaidis:So our, as kids, we were on job sites every day.
Tony Nicolaidis:So we have a passion for builders.
Tony Nicolaidis:So.
Tony Nicolaidis:Most definitely an area we want to, we want to move on in the future.
Ryan Bell:So there's a, there's a huge push for, you know, privacy and, and data.
Ryan Bell:Is there anything that you all are keeping in mind or any hurdles you've
Ryan Bell:had to overcome, you know, with people that are worried about their
Ryan Bell:privacy and data being respected?
Tony Nicolaidis:Tell you what, and that is not an ephemeral question
Tony Nicolaidis:because that question comes up so often.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, it's ephemerally long.
Tony Nicolaidis:So, um, you know, I think I'm going to give it to you with two customers,
Tony Nicolaidis:Verizon, which we've already launched and Deutsche Telekom in Europe,
Tony Nicolaidis:which we're going to be launching here at the end of this year.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, both with similar use cases are both ISPs.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, we were thoroughly tested by both of them and by thoroughly, I mean, almost
Tony Nicolaidis:years of testing to make sure that we did not eat up the bandwidth of their signal.
Tony Nicolaidis:Which I talked about earlier.
Tony Nicolaidis:And so that led us to a place where all our computation, all of our, uh,
Tony Nicolaidis:activity in terms of, uh, running our algorithms run completely 100 percent
Tony Nicolaidis:on the edge, nothing in the cloud, because in the end that you got to take
Tony Nicolaidis:data back and forth out of the cloud is when you really soak up bandwidth.
Tony Nicolaidis:So we're a hundred percent on the edge, completely private
Tony Nicolaidis:does not soak up any bandwidth.
Tony Nicolaidis:And we're also, now we can do, um.
Tony Nicolaidis:Over the air updates and that kind of stuff, uh, quickly.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that is how we protect private data privacy and, uh, make sure that our
Tony Nicolaidis:topology is, is, uh, is hack proof.
Ryan Bell:When my modem goes out or my internet goes out, I should say, but my
Ryan Bell:modem is still on, does this require the internet to be active and on to work,
Ryan Bell:or there's still a wifi signal being sent from my, my modem, correct, even
Ryan Bell:though the internet from the ISP is down.
Ryan Bell:Does that make sense?
Ryan Bell:I
Tony Nicolaidis:mean, if your wifi is on in the house, no matter
Tony Nicolaidis:what's going on connection back to your ISP, it's going to work.
Tony Nicolaidis:Right.
Tony Nicolaidis:And then we're looking at other scenarios, especially in the, it's important
Tony Nicolaidis:in the security vertical about what happens if I don't have wifi and there's
Tony Nicolaidis:cellular options and other things, but like our partners, like VeriShore,
Tony Nicolaidis:I don't know if you know, alarm.
Tony Nicolaidis:com here in the U S we're literally launching alarm.
Tony Nicolaidis:com and VeriShore on either side of the pond at the same time,
Tony Nicolaidis:which is a, a massive, uh, Uh, undergoing or, or, or, uh, uh,
Tony Nicolaidis:achievement on our, for our company.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, they have cellular backup and they kind of take care of that.
Tony Nicolaidis:So if your wifi goes down completely.
Tony Nicolaidis:You still got self connection.
Ryan Bell:So are there any particular challenges you've you've faced
Ryan Bell:and bringing this to the market?
Ryan Bell:Any, any huge hurdles that you've had to overcome?
Tony Nicolaidis:Yeah.
Tony Nicolaidis:You know, look, uh, we've had some very large customers that
Tony Nicolaidis:have done significant testing.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, significant testing means that it takes time to get the market and, you
Tony Nicolaidis:know, we're not a big company, so time to revenue for us in the past, uh,
Tony Nicolaidis:was a challenge, but as we're getting scale now, that's less of an issue.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, You know, so making sure we work because we're B2B, so that Verizon
Tony Nicolaidis:or that Verisure or that alarm.
Tony Nicolaidis:com or that Deutsche Telekom or T Mobile, all these companies, basically we're
Tony Nicolaidis:really depending on them to get to market.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that's the biggest challenge is working with them, uh, working with
Tony Nicolaidis:all their people, their marketing folks, their engineer, their
Tony Nicolaidis:engineering team and our engineering team to get our product embedded on
Tony Nicolaidis:a, on a router is not an easy task.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that's really the biggest challenge is execution and getting them going
Tony Nicolaidis:and getting time to value for revenue.
Tony Nicolaidis:And once we're there, which we are now, and we're scaling, um, you know,
Tony Nicolaidis:it's a little sweeter, so to speak.
Ryan Bell:With all the advancements in AI lately, um, anything kind of
Ryan Bell:going on in your neck of the woods and is that having an effect on anything,
Ryan Bell:or is that giving you some other ideas on how to connect with AI or use AI?
Tony Nicolaidis:Better believe it, especially ideas in the future.
Tony Nicolaidis:Like I said, are.
Tony Nicolaidis:Engines.
Tony Nicolaidis:When I say an engine right now, what I mean by that is macro motion is an engine.
Tony Nicolaidis:So it's an engine we have trained to, to look for gross motion, jumping jacks,
Tony Nicolaidis:running, walking, micro motion, just breathing, laying there is an engine.
Tony Nicolaidis:Fall detection is an engine.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, we train our engines.
Tony Nicolaidis:So they come out already trained.
Tony Nicolaidis:You don't have to train them overall, but as we're moving into the future,
Tony Nicolaidis:all that data that comes in from a house that has, uh, home awareness.
Tony Nicolaidis:Or, or, or has origin in there, uh, we will be able to take that data and
Tony Nicolaidis:do a lot of AI with it, uh, and be able to have even more, uh, context
Tony Nicolaidis:and even more future opportunity to help the people in the home or the
Tony Nicolaidis:people in the building over time.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, so there is no doubt.
Tony Nicolaidis:AI is going to, it is.
Tony Nicolaidis:Cause it plays a big part as we train our engines now, right.
Tony Nicolaidis:And it's going to be in the future.
Tony Nicolaidis:And just look out for us as you, you hear, um, news flashes and see us in the news.
Tony Nicolaidis:You're going to hear more and more of what we're doing in AI.
Tony Nicolaidis:It's very exciting.
Ryan Bell:What's, uh, what does the scalability look like with this beyond,
Ryan Bell:um, Health, health care and security that we've kind of talked about already
Ryan Bell:is other, other sectors out there that you have plans to scale into, or maybe
Ryan Bell:right for this sort of technology.
Ryan Bell:Yeah,
Tony Nicolaidis:you know, there's one interesting one.
Tony Nicolaidis:I don't know if you guys know what the hot laws act is.
Tony Nicolaidis:Have you guys heard of that?
Ryan Bell:No.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, I'm sorry.
Tony Nicolaidis:The hot car law, hot cars law.
Tony Nicolaidis:Forgive me.
Ryan Bell:Okay.
Tony Nicolaidis:And NPAC in Europe.
Tony Nicolaidis:Basically, it's there are laws that are being passed during the pro they're
Tony Nicolaidis:already passed during the process of being passed, um, to have car set up.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, so that if, if an, if a, a, a, a, a baby or a child is left strapped into
Tony Nicolaidis:the car and it's hot, there's an, uh, some kind of notification that goes
Tony Nicolaidis:off, um, these things happen tragically.
Tony Nicolaidis:And, uh, right now there's laws being, uh, passed about that.
Tony Nicolaidis:So all of the automakers, uh, are looking for ways to be able to tell if there is.
Tony Nicolaidis:a baby in a car.
Tony Nicolaidis:Ironically enough, the first country that's going to really implement
Tony Nicolaidis:it, it's already said so, is China, uh, in all of their cars.
Tony Nicolaidis:So if you're shipping into China by 2026, you're going to need a solution.
Tony Nicolaidis:So we're working with, um, the automakers and other partners, uh, and what we
Tony Nicolaidis:call CPD, child protection detection.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, and, um, to, to do that.
Tony Nicolaidis:So that's another area that, because cars are going to have wifi now, right?
Tony Nicolaidis:It's another area where we're going to, we're looking to see
Tony Nicolaidis:how we can make an impact there.
Ryan Bell:Very neat.
Ryan Bell:That's, that's really cool.
Ryan Bell:Um, not something I have ever thought about before, but very cool.
Ryan Bell:So what, uh, any advice you would give to a young aspiring entrepreneur
Ryan Bell:that's kind of looking to get into this wifi tech industry?
Tony Nicolaidis:So wifi is all around us everywhere.
Tony Nicolaidis:Yeah.
Tony Nicolaidis:Right soon, Elon Musk is going to put it out on the streets where you're
Tony Nicolaidis:not going to need Verizon anymore.
Tony Nicolaidis:It's just going to come beaming down from the satellites.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, and so, you know, you're going to get into a, uh, a technology that
Tony Nicolaidis:is very mature, uh, if you're going to use wifi, find a very, if you want
Tony Nicolaidis:to build a business of wifi, find something unique, you can do with it.
Tony Nicolaidis:Because a lot of people are already doing as much as they can with it.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, so find a unique way to use it.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, and, um, what, how do you leverage wifi six, wifi seven, and all the
Tony Nicolaidis:advancements in wifi, we got two and a half gig, five gig, six gig is coming.
Tony Nicolaidis:All these bands are opening up, find and solve a problem, right?
Tony Nicolaidis:Don't be a technology looking for a solution.
Tony Nicolaidis:Be a solution to a problem.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, and then, um, just hunker down and, uh, and, uh, it ain't going to be easy.
Tony Nicolaidis:Just persevere, keep your head down and keep working and you'll get there.
Ryan Bell:Concrete advice.
Ryan Bell:Thank you.
Ryan Bell:Well, thanks so much, Tony.
Ryan Bell:This has been great.
Ryan Bell:Um, and we're thankful for the time we've had with you today and everything
Ryan Bell:you've shared with us and our listeners.
Ryan Bell:Um, we're close to wrapping up what we call the business end of things.
Ryan Bell:Is there anything that we haven't covered today that you'd like
Ryan Bell:to share with our audience?
Tony Nicolaidis:No, once again, I appreciate the time.
Tony Nicolaidis:It was ephemeral and I wish we could have had more time together.
Tony Nicolaidis:But thanks guys.
Ryan Bell:Great.
Ryan Bell:Well, before we close out, there's something we like to do at the end here.
Ryan Bell:It's called rapid fire where we give you 7 questions and your only commitment
Ryan Bell:is to give us a quick response.
Ryan Bell:Uh, to each question, some of them are a little silly.
Ryan Bell:Some are maybe serious.
Ryan Bell:Are you up for the challenge?
Ryan Bell:Let's go.
Ryan Bell:I'm there.
Ryan Bell:Let's go.
Ryan Bell:Uh, Todd and I will take turns asking questions.
Ryan Bell:You want to lead us off, Todd?
Todd Miller:Absolutely.
Todd Miller:So Tony, would you rather fight a swarm of angry bees with a giant fly swatter?
Todd Miller:Or have to herd, uh, stampeding cats armed with laser pointers,
Todd Miller:or would you rather fight those stampeding cats with laser pointers?
Tony Nicolaidis:Fight the stampeding cats with laser pointers.
Tony Nicolaidis:I hate bees.
Todd Miller:Yeah, I think I'd be right there with you.
Todd Miller:That's a pretty easy one.
Todd Miller:Me too.
Todd Miller:You need them
Tony Nicolaidis:in the environment,
Todd Miller:but I don't want swarms.
Todd Miller:Probably the likelihood of either one is slim, but.
Ryan Bell:Question number two.
Ryan Bell:If you were a cat, Could replace all the grass in the world with something else.
Ryan Bell:What would it be and why?
Tony Nicolaidis:Wow.
Tony Nicolaidis:All the grass in the world, what would it be?
Tony Nicolaidis:And why mattresses make it nice and soft.
Tony Nicolaidis:You can go out there and take a nap.
Tony Nicolaidis:I like that.
Todd Miller:I was thinking it might be something that wifi would detect.
Todd Miller:I don't know.
Todd Miller:Go
Tony Nicolaidis:out there, walk out to your front yard,
Tony Nicolaidis:lay down and go take a nap.
Todd Miller:Like it.
Todd Miller:Okay, question number three, uh, what's one book or movie that has profoundly
Todd Miller:impacted your perspective on life
Tony Nicolaidis:and why the road less traveled personally?
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, cause life is hard and, um, you just gotta be ready for it.
Tony Nicolaidis:And you gotta, you gotta, you gotta, uh, you gotta, you gotta be focused
Tony Nicolaidis:and, and work hard, uh, professionally crossing the chasm by Gregory Moore.
Todd Miller:I don't think I've come across that.
Todd Miller:You're in a
Tony Nicolaidis:startup.
Tony Nicolaidis:Read that book and read it twice
Todd Miller:to look that up crossing the chasm.
Todd Miller:Good deal.
Ryan Bell:Question number four, what motivates you to keep pushing forward?
Ryan Bell:Even when faced with obstacles or setbacks,
Tony Nicolaidis:the startup life is not for everyone.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, I'll tell you that right now, getting a business off the ground, you know, and
Tony Nicolaidis:having that big milestone of becoming a small business and crossing that revenue
Tony Nicolaidis:mark is not for the faint of heart.
Tony Nicolaidis:You have to have very clear belief and passion in what you're doing
Tony Nicolaidis:and have the end game in mind.
Tony Nicolaidis:We feel strongly and we live and breathe that Wi Fi sensing, um,
Tony Nicolaidis:will change millions of lives.
Tony Nicolaidis:In a positive way all over the world and you have to believe that and we believe
Tony Nicolaidis:it every day and that keeps us going Through all the even though you get
Tony Nicolaidis:down into them the value or the muck.
Tony Nicolaidis:You just gotta keep pushing through
Todd Miller:good stuff Good stuff Okay, next question If you had to pick one
Todd Miller:celebrity to be your personal assistant for a week Who would you choose and
Todd Miller:what task would you ask them to do?
Tony Nicolaidis:I would choose.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um You I would choose Elon Musk.
Tony Nicolaidis:There you go.
Tony Nicolaidis:Check that.
Tony Nicolaidis:Check that.
Tony Nicolaidis:Check that.
Tony Nicolaidis:I would choose Jeff Bezos.
Todd Miller:Okay.
Tony Nicolaidis:And I'd have him come in and, uh, you know, we beat up our
Tony Nicolaidis:go to market, uh, go to market motion and go to market strategy a lot.
Tony Nicolaidis:We feel very good about it as a scaling, but I'd want him
Tony Nicolaidis:to beat it up even further.
Tony Nicolaidis:Like, how do you scale even more?
Tony Nicolaidis:I say, Jeff, sit down and tell us.
Todd Miller:That's a great answer.
Todd Miller:Very good answer.
Todd Miller:Absolutely, man.
Todd Miller:You're good at this.
Tony Nicolaidis:Let's go.
Ryan Bell:We have two left.
Ryan Bell:Uh, would you rather have to sing everything you say or communicate only
Ryan Bell:through interpretive dance for a week?
Tony Nicolaidis:Well, I'm a musician, so I play guitars.
Tony Nicolaidis:I've been in bands all my life.
Tony Nicolaidis:So I'm going to sing interpretive dance.
Todd Miller:Interpretive dance would be challenging.
Todd Miller:Yeah.
Todd Miller:I'd rather sing it.
Todd Miller:Doesn't mean you have to sing it.
Tony Nicolaidis:I'm saying.
Todd Miller:Okay, the last question, have you recently
Todd Miller:purchased a product or service that was a real game changer for you?
Todd Miller:Sort of a, you know, where have you been all my life moment?
Tony Nicolaidis:I would have to say it's not recently, but, um, good notes
Tony Nicolaidis:and being able to take notes on my iPad.
Tony Nicolaidis:That's not, that's not a new thing, but I was always a paper guy.
Tony Nicolaidis:And I'd say in the last few years, I've completely made the transition.
Tony Nicolaidis:So now I don't have gobs and gobs of paper everywhere.
Tony Nicolaidis:I got my iPad and everything is in there.
Tony Nicolaidis:Everything, every meeting I've been in, all the notes, this, that,
Tony Nicolaidis:and, uh, I would say that made me significantly more efficient in terms
Tony Nicolaidis:of just tracking what's going on.
Tony Nicolaidis:Not a new thing, but it definitely helped me here in the last few years.
Todd Miller:Yeah,
Ryan Bell:absolutely.
Ryan Bell:That's good.
Ryan Bell:That's, that's something I'm trying.
Ryan Bell:To get better at you.
Ryan Bell:Like I love I use the good notes app or yeah.
Ryan Bell:Yeah.
Ryan Bell:I think it's good notes.
Ryan Bell:And I love, I love it when I'm watching something or, or taking notes on
Ryan Bell:something and I can save screenshots, but I always forget to go back to it.
Ryan Bell:Yeah, I don't know why.
Tony Nicolaidis:Screenshots.
Tony Nicolaidis:I can bring in thoughts from somewhere on the side and I can still write with it.
Tony Nicolaidis:Um, I think that makes things so efficient.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, and man, we were plugging the hell out of good notes,
Tony Nicolaidis:but you know, it is what it is.
Ryan Bell:It's a good app.
Ryan Bell:It is.
Ryan Bell:Well, Tony, uh, thank you again for your time today.
Ryan Bell:This has been a lot of fun for anyone that wants to get in touch with you.
Ryan Bell:What's the best way for them to do that?
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, originwirelessai.
Tony Nicolaidis:com just visit our website.
Tony Nicolaidis:Uh, and I'm a Tony dot Nicolaidis at origin, wireless, AI.
Tony Nicolaidis:com.
Tony Nicolaidis:Reach out to me anytime.
Ryan Bell:Awesome.
Ryan Bell:And we will make sure to get that in the show notes.
Ryan Bell:Um, before we close out here, we need to recap our challenge words, which
Ryan Bell:we were all successful in working into the Tony, you were an overachiever.
Ryan Bell:I don't, I've, I lost count of how many times you got yours
Ryan Bell:in there, but your word was
Tony Nicolaidis:ephemeral,
Ryan Bell:ephemeral, six times, maybe five or six times.
Ryan Bell:Good job.
Ryan Bell:Good job.
Ryan Bell:Yeah.
Ryan Bell:Todd, your word was corn dog.
Ryan Bell:And I got to use it once right at the beginning there.
Ryan Bell:And my word was concrete.
Ryan Bell:Good job guys.
Ryan Bell:I say, Tony even used your word once.
Ryan Bell:Yeah.
Ryan Bell:Yes, he did.
Ryan Bell:Yes.
Todd Miller:Yeah.
Todd Miller:I didn't know if you do it or not, but yeah, you did.
Todd Miller:I didn't notice.
Todd Miller:I didn't notice it.
Todd Miller:I
Ryan Bell:thought you were just overachieving your
Ryan Bell:overachievement already.
Ryan Bell:You guys gave
Tony Nicolaidis:me a task, an objective and I went for it.
Ryan Bell:Well done.
Ryan Bell:Well done.
Ryan Bell:Well, thanks again, Tony.
Ryan Bell:Appreciate your time here with us.
Tony Nicolaidis:Thanks guys.
Tony Nicolaidis:Loved it.
Ryan Bell:Thanks so much for tuning into this episode of construction disruption
Ryan Bell:with Tony Nicolaidis of origin AI.
Ryan Bell:Please watch for future episodes of our podcast.
Ryan Bell:We are always blessed with great guests.
Ryan Bell:Don't forget to leave us a review on Apple podcast, or
Ryan Bell:give us a thumbs up on YouTube.
Ryan Bell:Until the next time we're together, keep on disrupting and challenging those in
Ryan Bell:your world to better ways of doing things.
Ryan Bell:And don't forget to have a positive impact on everyone you encounter,
Ryan Bell:make them smile and encourage them.
Ryan Bell:Two simple yet powerful things we can all do to change the world.
Ryan Bell:God bless and take care.
Ryan Bell:This is Isaiah Industries signing off until the next episode
Ryan Bell:of Construction Disruption.
Intro:This podcast is produced by Isaiah Industries, manufacturer of specialty
Intro:metal roofing and other building products.