If you ever rented an apartment, you might have thought about installing an alarm to prevent break-ins and theft of your valuable possessions. Your landlord probably cringed at the thought of installing tons of electronics and making a couple of holes in the wall. Maybe, just maybe, you managed to convince him to set up the alarm… And after a year, when moving to a new apartment, you had to fight the same battle all over again. Your life would’ve been easier if you had a small portable device produced by a Polish startup Elephant: a smart door alarm that looks like a stylish high-tech loudspeaker.
“It all started with a break-in,” said Radek Pallach, the CEO of Elephant. “One of our friends came back home after work to find her apartment looted. All valuable items, including family heirlooms, were gone. Nobody heard the burglar, as the apartment had no alarm system installed. This is not a solitary case – every year, thefts and break-ins affect 100 thousand apartments in Poland.”
With the Elephant Door system, protecting your apartment is really simple. You place the device on your door, and it attaches automatically using a magnetic fixing system. After just one minute, the alarm is up and running. You can turn it on and off with an accompanying smartphone app every time you leave the house. And when you move out, you can just take it with you to your next apartment.
If a burglar tries to get into your apartment through the front door (what is the case in 80% of all break-in attempts), Elephant’s accelerometer and gyroscope will detect the vibration and movement of the door. The device switches on an 110 dB loud siren for full three minutes to scare the burglar off and sends a notification to your phone. This way, you can quickly inform your neighbors and the police about a break-in attempt.
Elephant has two founders. Radek Pallach, the CEO, has a profound experience in strategy, innovation, and marketing. Bogdan Fabiański, the other co-founder, is a skilled engineer and the author of the Elephant system. Even though their system has not officially entered the market yet, they have gathered preorders from interested customers from 22 countries.
“We focus on simple, effective and easy-to-use solutions. Our products are designed to solve a specific problem; they should be helpful, not burdensome,” said Pallach. “We aspire to provide these products to every person who needs them, whether they live in Warsaw, London, Dubai, or Tokyo.”
The team plans to sell a few thousand devices until the end of the year. At the moment, they focus on marketing and PR to build a strong brand image across the whole Europe. They are also developing a second innovative product that will be released in January 2018.
