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Everyone has security cameras and doorbells. They’re okay, but a new system keeps watch of your home from above.
It’s called Sunflower. It uses motion sensors and a fully autonomous drone to keep watch of your property from the sky.
“First are the sunflowers, that’s what we like to call them,” Dusan Zivkovic told me. He was operating the system from a rented home on the outskirts of Las Vegas during CES.
“They’re actually motion sensors that detect motion and vibration. They can distinguish between people, animals and vehicles.”
When one of the sunflowers detects motion or vibration, it sends an alert to the homeowner on his or her computer or mobile device. But rather than needing to go outside and check it out, the homeowner can tap an icon on the screen.
“Let’s say we want to see what’s going on, we can choose to deploy the drone”, Zivkovic told me before the drone, called The Bee, emerged from a plastic box in the backyard.
The bee launches out of its hive and flies to the motion or activity. Streaming live video of what it sees back to the homeowner.
“You can address the view of the camera, you can swipe right and left and zoom in and zoom out to have a better view of what you want to see.”
The homeowner does not need to control the drone manually, it flies automatically to the area where activity or motion has been detected. It can cover 4 acres.
I tried it out, climbing over a fence in the backyard. On his mobile device inside, Zivkovic immediately received a notification and deployed the drone which, in a matter of 3 seconds, had me in sight.
When the homeowner sees what’s happening in the live video they can quickly notify police, that is if the bad guy doesn’t get scared away by the drone moving in on him.
After the homeowner is satisfied that things are okay, the drone flies back to its hive or base station, lands inside and the hive closes, protecting it from the weather.
Once the drone is back in the hive, it is automatically recharged which, according to the Sunflower Labs website, takes 25 minutes.
When you order a Sunflower system, you find your home address on a map, choose your coverage area and where the drone and sensors will go. Sunflower Labs hopes to ship the first units later this year. The cost is just under $10,000.
website: www.sunflower-labs.com
