When San Francisco-area mobile app developer and security entrepreneur Yossi Atias noticed his daughter taping over the webcam on her laptop, he was struck by a moment of inspiration. Why, he wondered, is our best option for managing a high-tech problem like systems and security hacking a solution as low-tech as a piece of scotch tape? He set out to develop a solution, co-founding the mobile app startup Dojo-Labs. Their product: a device that monitors the IoT security devices and other networks that make up the home Internet and app ecosystem for abnormal activity. Effectively, protecting home security from itself.
If this sounds meta and superfluous, testing of the device and it’s impressively user-friendly mobile app interface has generated plenty of evidence to the contrary.
Dojo works by plugging into a user’s Wi-Fi router and delivering data to an app users can access via their smart devices. So far as installation and configuration go, Dojo-Labs presents the device to TechCrunch as being fully over-the-top, requiring little-to-now technical expertise on the part of the user:
It doesn’t require any software integration with any existing product. It’s a pure over-the-top solution, so it’s a network based solution. It’s not a host based solution. We don’t need to install anything on any existing device.”
What’s most intriguing about the Dojo-Labs security system though, from a mobile app developer’s perspective, is their use of chat-app UI standards for the mobile app. When the device picks up suspicious activity — data leaving a laptop to an unusual source, remote access activity, etc. — the system sends a notification message to the user asking them to confirm, block, or make exceptions for that activity. The interface looks almost exactly like the native iOS SMS window, using a red/green color coding system to cue the user about what’s happening. Using friendly language like a real person would use (“Your home is safe. I’ll keep monitoring.” “Someone is trying to hack your alarm system. Please select:”) the user can ask questions, make selections, and generally interact with the device in a streamlined and intuitive way.
Make no mistake, mobile app developers; there is much room for mobile app innovation within the IoT phenomenon. No matter how “smart” and abstracted a device becomes, users still want to talk to it. And what better way to talk than with the humble mobile smartphone?
The Dojo device is currently available for pre-order on Amazon.
