SAN DIEGO – Smart Home Protection LLC, made its CES debut this month with the San Diego startup’s flagship product Timeli – a personal safety device inspired by a father’s concern for his 13-year-old daughter.
“She wanted to go out in the world, go to UTC and spend time with her friends – and I was nervous,” said Smart Home Protection founder David Szekeres. “I looked on Amazon for available products and there really wasn’t anything out there that I felt comfortable with. There was really only pepper spray, tasers and alarms.”
That was the moment Szekeres, a biotech and pharmaceutical executive who currently serves as president of Connect Biopharma, said he reached out to longtime friend Jeromy Stallings about forming a company to develop a device “to make people feel safe in a portable environment, not just a home security environment.”
Co-founder Stallings, who now runs most of the day-to-day at Smart Home Protection, also had a personal reason for interest in creating what he calls a “smart personal safety system.”
Stallings had previously witnessed his wife go into cardiac arrest and remembers how he “scrambled” with his phone to contact emergency services and gather needed information at the same time.
“I was performing CPR and there was a lot of miscommunications happening, a lot of disconnect with just the profiling aspect of an emergency situation,” he said.
Touch-of-Button Solution
The aptly named Timeli device is the culmination of the two founders’ goal in condensing the information and time that goes into emergency situations.
“What we really solved for here is all of that time intermittent that happens when seconds matter and minutes are ticking away,” Stallings said. “A lot of stuff is missed along the way in that 911 protocol.”
In the touch of a button, Timeli connects its user to emergency services while simultaneously gathering needed information. The device is equipped with live GPS tracking, two-way emergency communication over cellular service and an HD video camera lit by bright LED lights. Together, the features light up emergency situations, record video and send it and the user’s location, along with a call, to emergency services.
Szekeres said that one of the most important features of the Timeli device is its video recording and sending capabilities.
“When you talk to law enforcement officers, they will tell you that video verification is absolutely critical in determining if it is an emergency situation or not,” he said, adding that there are already some departments, like the Seattle Police Department, that are now requiring video verification for emergency calls. “And that is going to happen across the country. Why is that? Because there are too many emergencies.”
Beyond law enforcement, the founders also consulted with its dispatch partner RapidSOS – the service that companies like Apple and Amazon use for their 911 calls. “They are certain that video verification is the wave of the future,” Stallings said, adding that the video also works as a deterrent to would-be attackers. “You’re holding it in your hand, your walking in a dark parking lot and it deters folks, similar to how some are deterred if you have your phone out and it’s videoing.”
A 12-month subscription to the RapidSOS emergency dispatch service is included in the $299.95 price for a Timeli device, which switches to a $9.95 monthly subscription after that.
Close Circle of Funders, Advisors
Timeli is now commercially available directly to consumers through the timeli.com website.
Stallings said Smart Home Protection is initially focused on D2C sales, although the company has had discussions with “a lot of different strategic alliances on the commercial side for distribution – various connected home and security companies.”
Szekeres added that the company is initially marketing Timeli to college students.
“The campus opportunity is a massive opportunity. The data [for campus safety] is pretty bad,” he said, adding that other potential markets include delivery drivers, dog walkers, seniors at assisted living facilities, security guards and ride-share drivers.
Funding the marketing push is money from a close circle of high-net-worth investor friends of the founders, as well as a sizeable investment from Szekeres that got Smart Home Protection started.
“I wanted to make sure this project got off the ground and had some legs before I got outside funding,” he said. “We haven’t gone to VCs yet – not sure if we’ll ever go to VCs – but we have plenty of funding to move this project forward into production and commercial.”
In addition to tapping friends and family investors, Smart Home Protection also enlisted IoT expert and BlueConnect Managing Partner Avi Rosenthal as a strategic partner.
BlueConnect is a full-service agency that provides a wide range of services to companies in the consumer products industry.
“We’ve been really fortunate to land ourselves with top people,” Stallings said.
Smart Home Protection
FOUNDED: 2024
FOUNDER: David Szekeres
CO-FOUNDER: Jeromy Stallings
HEADQUARTERS: San Diego
BUSINESS: personal security devices
WEBSITE: www.timeli.com
NOTABLE: Founder David Szekeres is an experienced biotech executive who currently serves as president of Connect Biopharma and sits on or leads the boards of Sanford Burnham Prebys, GRI Bio, CureMatch and Animantis. He is also a minority owner of UK-based soccer team Ipswitch Town FC.
