SouthStart Conference

So I had the pleasure of talking to the Xped representatives and had the ability to play with their tech a little. I recognised them from the list of top stocks here so decided to do some recon work.

Disclaimer: I will not mention the names of the people who I talked to to protect their identities. I do not hold and will not hold any stock. I work for a tech company that partners with solution providers. Part of my role is to perform due diligence on potential solutions/solution partners. For this reason, I hold no tech stocks as it is not safe for me to do so. What follows is accurate of my experience and discussions from memory, my thoughts and opinions are my own. A lot of this might not be new, happy to be corrected if my understanding of the technology is inaccurate.

Their booth had a number of devices, each connected to a single Umbo hub demonstrating different functions. They had a device controlling what resembled a night light, a couple of devices with LEDs which included a Shield device, humidity sensors, temperature sensors, and a polished NFC device for demonstrating their Xcert technology. They also had two Android phones with applications that were able to pair and control these devices. I was particularly impressed with the Umbo device, looked polished.

I was able to pick up a phone, tap on a device (by tapping I didn't have to physically make contact with a device) and the device was paired. It was incredibly easy. Both phones were paired to the same device, I was able to toggle the LED on/off through the phone and updates on one phone were graphically reflected on another in near real-time (network permitting). It was amazingly simple and easy to pair devices, control devices and switch between devices.

The night light demonstrated more physically what Xped could do. I could switch the light on/off and it also had a simple graphical toggle on the phone for dimming/brightening the light.

We discussed the hardware, I asked about the board manufacturing process and if everything was made in house which it was. I was shown how to disassemble a device and plug new pieces of hardware in to essentially build up a custom device. That was some crazy ass raspberry pi stuff. The only downside to manufacturing here in Australia was the competition with China which we talked about briefly. Their typical devices cost ~$3.50 (from memory) while devices manufactured in China are around the $1-$1.50 mark. But they are actively working on reducing costs to be more competitive in the manufacturing space.

I had a quick demo of the Xcert device, but wasn't too interested in it.

I then moved on to discussing potential applications and business opportunities. I talked briefly about RFID technology and how it is used by defence companies and aerospace companies to track pieces of military hardware, rockets, warheads, parts for aircraft and based on the information scanned and geolocation they can determine if (for instance) a warhead must be decommissioned and replaced due to total distance travelled or where rivets for a windshield are located. I suggested that this may be an opportunity for their technology to actively monitor temp, humidity and geolocation in real-time instead of using simple RFID technology. Cost per-unit is definitely on par with RFID tech. We also talked about monitoring server rooms in real-time and mentioned that the Adelaide city council are performing upgrades to the river front, they are looking to turn the area into a "smart" area, so we suggested they look at the potential opportunity. Local and State government is always happy to support and encourage local innovation. Could be a decent application and trial of their technology.

We talked briefly about security and how they are partnering with another local company to enhance the security of their devices through the use of digital identities. From memory, the technology is able to chunk up identities, distribute individual pieces of an identity to be stored at multiple locations before then piecing these chunks together to reform the identity. Basically a secure, distributed authentication and authorisation process. I was directed over to their booth, but didn't end up getting there unfortunately to find out more.

I have their business cards and would like to look into their technology a little deeper. I might try to get a couple of devices for myself (if I'm allowed to and time permitting) and their SDK to have a more in-depth play with the technology and see what RML is all about. Really impressive for a local company, I liked the technology. I think it's just about marketing it now and finding the right opportunities but it seems like they are ready to go. Nice representatives there too, were happy to listen to what I had to say and humble too. Presented themselves professionally and they even attended some of the presentations.

That was basically it, I have their business cards and information sheets. There was a steady flow of interested people to their booth. I didn't have time to talk to them again at the after party, I got side-tracked talking to other representatives and attendees.

(If you are reading this guys, thanks for the chat. Thoroughly enjoyed it.)