iomando 1.0

ℹ️ This post was originally published on February 2012 on the official iomando blog and it announced the release of the first version of the product.

Nowadays we use smartphones for almost everything: email, photos, music, alarms, notes… so why not also use them to open our doors and accesses?

This is what iomando is about: a new way to open doors and all kind of accesses right from the smartphone. Same way we use keys and remotes, iomando offers a whole new experience to access your spaces, specifically designed for mobile devices.

The Problem?

Keys, remotes and every other type of access systems belong to those kind of things nobody is in love with. Despite they offer a poor user experience, they also inexplicably stick around, patiently awaiting for somebody to come up with a better idea.

We are convinced we can deliver a better solution leveraging mobile technologies and great product design.

Among all the problems we’ve detected, here’s a quick list you might relate to:

• Expensive: most of them cost more than 30€.
• Unclear distribution: because door manufacturers don’t have the direct relationship with the end customer, you never know where to buy them.
• Poor security: it is not only that they are easily copied or hacked, but if we lose a key or remote, anyone can make use of it. Oh, and we do lose them, all the time.
• Not traceable: there’s no way to know who might be using them.
• One per place: seems rather obvious, but we need different keys for different places and it gets way worse if there are multiple vehicles, like a car and a bike.

For these and many other reasons we are introducing iomando, our vision for an access system, designed for the mobile era.

What’s iomando?

iomando is a solution aimed to house owners and people living in community buildings to easily manage and open garage doors or communal accesses with the smartphone.

The solution is composed of three pieces:

• Electronic device: we install a device next to the door, so the smartphones can easily communicate with it.
• Server: managed directly by iomando, it provides an extra layer of security and checks the that permissions for each user are up to date.
• Mobile app: the app is the “tool” to open the door¹. You can download it for free directly from your iPhone, BlackBerry or Android (coming soon).

Why is it Better?

The most important thing to consider is that iomando is a software based product. This has several fundamental implications:

• Lower price: the marginal cost of creating an additional permission (the equivalent of “making” a key) is zero. Because of that we can bring the costs way down in comparison with traditional mechanisms, that have to deal with manufacturing and distribution costs.
• Higher security: our mobile app never communicates directly to the door, it has to go through the server first. The server double checks the permissions, and only after it has verified the request, it securely communicates back to the door.
• Revoke permissions: you can always revoke a permission in real time. If for whatever reason your phone gets lost or stolen, iomando has you immediately covered.
• Multiple spaces: you have several places you want to manage? Great! With iomando you can easily open as many places as you want right from the mobile app through a unified interface, no need for “different” keys anymore.

How Much is it Going to Cost?

You can have iomando up and running for a fraction of what your old keys and remotes used to cost. The only difference is that iomando works as a subscription, not as a one time purchase.

Why is that? The short answer is because we want all of our customers to get the best access experience, regardless of what device they might want to use.

But we encourage you to read the long one below.

We strongly believe the subscription based model creates a more truthful relationship between the customer and the service. Since we will be paid in a recurrent basis, we will always be under the customer evaluation.

Subscription based revenue forces us to always deliver the best possible service, because if you are not fully satisfied with our service you can easily opt out whenever you feel like it.

One-shot payments might seem more appealing for some: “because I own the product”, “because I’m not locked in”, we have heard them all.

But we couldn’t disagree more.

One-shot pricing frees companies of further improvement upon existing customers, because no additional revenue is generated from them. So all the efforts are placed in acquiring new customers, not in taking care of the existing ones.

The subscription based model forces us to place the same or even more resources to existing, paying customers, generating a long term commitment and a healthier relationship in the long run.

But for iomando in particular, there are even more reasons that led us to start as a subscription based service.

• Technology evolves fast, and so do we: when you get a remote, you acquire a piece of plastic that’s not going to change any time. iomando changes that and instead, it gets better with time. We will release new versions periodically with new functionalities and improvements. We want every customer on the same page, enjoying the latest version of our service.
• OS releases: every year there are major OS updates to mobile platforms. We’ll also update our app in order to get the most of the new APIs, resources and capabilities available to developers. We want you running on the latest technology, but we don’t want you to pay extra for that.
• New devices: think what five years ago looked like. Just five years. A service like iomando would not be possible. There were another kind of devices that don’t look like anything of what we have today. So now imagine five years from now. Maybe we use some kind of wearable technology or a new set of devices… who knows. Unfortunately we don’t know either. But we know that we will support whatever technological trend that comes next.

In short, because of the subscription model we are committed to offer the best experience at any given time, and that means creating and supporting new tools for whatever platform emerges in the future.

iomando will cost 99€ / year with a 30-day trial period². That includes the device installed in the door, the installation of the device led by an authorized iomando professional and a license for up to 100 active users.

We are rolling out the service in the Barcelona area the 1st of March 2012 and we’d love to have you on board, so sign up at iomando.com.

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