obvıous.

New products, consumable products, replacements and accessories are what drive consumer hardware companies to generate revenue. By decreasing the Lifetime Value(LVT) of a product, manufacturers continue to profit at the expense of the consumer. What manufacturers need is a way to extend the life of hardware while making a profit.

The answer is Obvious, the device management platform, allowing users to add additional features to existing devices. By empowering manufacturers to offer firmware features for profit, we are incentivizing continued development on existing hardware while diminishing planned obsolescence. We are creating a paradigm shift towards a new and better solution.

Although e-waste consists of only 2% of the total waste in a landfill, it accounts for 70% of all hazardous waste. 2% may not appear like much, nevertheless, that equates to 40 million tons or, for perspective, 5479 Eiffel towers. This problems' growth directly correlates to the market feeding it. In 2018 the number of connected IoT devices surpassed 11 billion irrespective of phones or computers. The IoT market is predicted to reach a valuation of $520 billion by 2021; more than double 2017's market value. Concurrently, e-waste generation is a direct result of consumer upgrades unknowingly being driven by manufacturers. From a marketing perspective where device upkeep costs money, creating new products generates revenue. However, e-waste is generated as a result and it’s up to the user to dispose of it properly. Unfortunately, only 15-20% of e-waste is recycled properly contributing to a growing global problem with no real tangible solution.

We work directly with manufacturers to help address the problems created by Lifetime value products. By allowing for the monetization of firmware, we create a second source of income. This, in turn, allows the focus to shift from developing hardware to creating more and better firmware updates for the consumer. Firmware monetizations will provide a more sustainable income for the manufacturer which leads to better user experience. This will entice the customer to keep their devices as the hardware will be properly leveraged over its extended lifecycle. Obvious takes care of financial management of firmware features which will allow companies to do what they do best; innovate.

Our solution is Obvious. Our company allows you to do something special; add new features that were NOT part of the original design to existing devices. For example, our partnership with Chipolo will allow users to have the option to have a "crowd-find” feature on their embedded device.

Obvious is doing for wearables, and IoT devices, what the App Store did for mobile phones: providing a software platform designed to earn manufacturers untapped revenue, separate from hardware sales. We believe in creating great connected devices once, and then using them as platforms for additional features and additional earnings.

We provide software libraries for the embedded device that takes care of installation of new firmware features over all devices as well as future device updates. This is done via bluetooth with AES encryption to make sure all private information stays private. In addition to all of this, Obvious is able to provide easy over the air (OTA) updates, streamlined device management and a great platform for all devices.

Obvious gives you the incentive to continue improving existing devices. You can connect to your device and add a variety of new, revenue earning features. All while extending the life of that device.

Embedded devices are usually created with a specific set of constraints in mind, meaning that they are not made to function outside of their design parameters. A prime example of this is cell phones. What was initially a simple design became more complicated as hardware was added to enhance the functionality. Apps were then introduced, which have since  revolutionized the way phones are used. 

Obvious takes what is now the norm with phones and applies it to the embedded world. As more embedded devices are being equipped with extra hardware functionality allowing for IoT services, the rest of the system is not being used to its full potential. By embedding the Obvious platform, we can now make use of the internal hardware to its full extent without the need for replacement. 

This, in turn, affects the business model being used by companies. Internet services are now moving to subscription-based revenue as opposed to a one time cost and as IoT devices become more prevalent, their pricing models will follow suit as well. Through Obvious, it is now possible to do so, turning a crucial leaf of innovation to make hardware last longer.

The core technology that Obvious uses is a deep understanding of embedded systems architecture. In both the consumer and industrial sector, ‘smart’ controllers are becoming more prevalent. Which, as a byproduct, usually includes the addition of an internet connection, whether directly or through a local network such as Bluetooth. Over the air, Obvious is able to toggle features allowing for greater flexibility, device longevity and device management. This information is relayed back to the servers allowing the manufacturers to have full vision and control over all products in the field through the portal. The Obvious Web Portal is an all-encompassing management system for your devices providing a streamlined experience. From here you can maintain each devices’ product features, groups and firmware. The portal goes beyond to provide insightful data as to where devices are being used, such as firmware versions and battery levels. With this data, we offer a comprehensive way to keep track of and improve current and future devices.

Hardware business models usually revolve around a lifetime value (LTV). This means there is no recurring revenue stream and consumers pay for the product once. For manufacturers using this model, it's important to release new products in a timely fashion to continue revenue generation. Unfortunately, the hardware that is currently in the device is perfectly capable of lasting much longer. At its core, the IoT device market is built on a foundation of planned obsolescence.

Software development is much cheaper and quicker than hardware development. With Obvious enabling feature monetization, manufacturers with now have a platform that helps generate an alternative source of revenue. Through the use of our platform device longevity will be maximized which will directly impact the amount of e-waste in our landfills.

Currently close to one hundred thousand devices are a part of the Obvious platform. Obvious is looking to target both the industrial and consumers markets. Hardware employed the medical, building IoT, aerospace, wearables and other sectors are all able to utilize the platform. By being able to integrate into so many devices, Obvious can have a positive widespread effect on devices around the world. Obvious is looking to expand that to 5 million devices in one year and 500 million in 5 years. Our platform is designed in a way that exponential growth will occur easily.

In the next year Obvious plans to partner with multiple hardware manufacturers as well as SaaS companies to have a greater global outreach. From a technical standpoint, Obvious has released compatibility with ZephyrOS, a real-time operating system backed by the Linux Foundation and other major enterprise software providers. This will allow us to rapidly expand our capabilities to other Nordic Semiconductor chips as well as looking to support other chip manufacturers as well.

In 5 years, we look to make Obvious into the all-encompassing cross-platform ecosystem for embedded systems. This will allow devices to leverage even more features that the native manufacturer may not ever support. By doing so, every device that gets into consumer or industry experts hands will be able to utilize the maximum hardware capabilities preventing capable devices from being thrown away early.

There are two predominant barriers for Obvious. The first is the technical barrier. To be able to create an infrastructure that is easily integrated over multiple chipsets with an easy set of API’s to standardize feature creation will be difficult. Obvious wants to become the App Store for embedded systems and will have to build and maintain a large infrastructure to take on this task.

The second barrier is the market. Manufacturers want simplicity when transitioning to different platforms to keep overhead costs down. Convincing manufacturers that they should adopt the Obvious “App Store” will be harder than the current transition to our already existing platform. However widespread adoption will play a big role to ensure Obvious is used at its full potential.

Obvious has an experienced team of engineers and developers which have worked closely with the Nordic Semiconductor chips, and protocols for BLE and Bluetooth. In addition, adding more people to the team will help distribute the workload more evenly allowing for quicker development of Obvious.

To overcome the market barrier, Obvious will employ a few strategies. To entice manufacturers to use Obvious, we are offering incredibly competitive pricing on our service for $0.01 per device per month. In addition, Obvious is networking at different conferences and events to get the name out in the industry.

Obvious is a subsidiary of the private incubator 4iiii’s innovations. There are currently 3 other companies under the 4iiii’s innovations umbrella as well. Funding is distributed between the companies to help these subsidiary companies get off their feet until they become self-sufficient. Once this happens, revenue is re-invested into the other companies. By having companies in many different industries, it helps prevent big revenue changes due to market fluctuation.

Currently, we have a total of 7 total in our team. Developing Obvious has been a huge undertaking as it requires the embedded platform, mobile app, web portal and server backend to work seamlessly together. A managing director, field applications engineer, 2 firmware engineers, a back end developer, front end developer, and application developer. Between everyone, there is roughly 50 years of experience being brought to the table.

Through conferences, the feedback has been all positive giving us the confirmation that Obvious is on the right track. Each person on our team has contributed greatly to this progress and continues to drive us towards success. The roles of each of the team members is outlined below:

• A managing director, who organizes and guides the team towards the final vision of the company.
• Two firmware engineers, who ensure that Obvious is written in such a way that integration can be done seamlessly.
• A backend developer, making sure that our infrastructure is able to host millions of devices in a stable and quick environment.
• A web developer, who upkeeps the web portal for device hosting while offering a great end-user experience.
• An application developer, creating a boilerplate iOS app and SDK for ease of use and integration for whoever needs it.
• A field applications engineer, who helps integrate Obvious into new and already existing products to make the transition easier.

Currently we are partnered with Chipolo, the european based version of Tile. Chipolo is directly integrated into Obvious, allowing for the finding feature to be added to any device that can support Obvious. Since Chipolo is less known than Tile in North America, this partnership will help create more presence for them while making Obvious more appealing to potential customers.

Obvious has a two-tiered business model, aligned with the value we provide to our partners. The first is the platform's management capability, for which we charge a simple per-device fee. On top of that, when a device manufacturer decides to sell a feature on one of their product lines through our app store functionality, we charge a flat percentage of the transaction amount.

Our short-term path to sustainability is three-fold: we will continue to pursue grants and development contracts for projects relating to our core development, we will very soon be generating revenue from existing clients as our platform leaves beta, and we will be pursuing a Series A fundraise to fund rapid expansion of our development and sales/support efforts.

Longer-term, we expect to be cashflow positive by the end of 2020, with revenues reaching a MRR of $100-200k USD at that time.

The main goal of Obvious currently is to partner with hardware manufacturers to get devices on our platform. With this technology being new, manufacturers aren’t currently aware that it exists. Obvious is looking to gain exposure and connections with the right people. With the MIT-backed network, Obvious would benefit greatly in terms of accelerating growth.

From a financial perspective, Obvious is always looking to grow their team. The end goal of having a fully-featured app store for embedded systems will take a lot of work and planning to execute it properly. All the money received will be funding R&D to achieve our goal.

Not applicable.

We are looking to partner with the chip manufacturers that supply IoT device creators, such as Silicon Labs, Dialog, Samsung Semiconductor, Toshiba Semiconductor, and Qualcomm.

We are also always looking to onboard enterprise hardware and consumer electronics partners such as Fitbit, Withings, Garmin, Nest, and others.

Finally, we are looking to include service companies into our ecosystem, such as insurance companies, algorithm makers, and other digital services.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.