Xandem Reinventing Home Security

At the time a Ph.D. student at the U, Joey Wilson remembers Dr. Neal Patwari present on an experiment he had done in the at-the-time unfinished Warnock Engineering Building in 2007. “He was showing how he’d used wireless devices only outside of a room to show where a person was inside the room,” Wilson said. “I saw a new sensing technology with lots of applications, and I was hooked.” Within months, Joey had quit his job at L-3 Communications and was working full time on the technology with Patwari. “I told him I didn’t have any funding for it yet, but he wanted to work on it anyway,” Patwari said.

Patwari did, soon after, receive a National Science Foundation grant on the topic, which funded Wilson as a graduate researcher. By 2010, Wilson had received his PhD and had started XANDEM. Over the next five years, XANDEM has made a name for itself in the security industry by having its “TMD” sensor system, made up of a network of wireless devices called “nodes” that form a mesh of through-wall connections across a building, protect commercial buildings, warehouses and high-end residences.Wilson explained, “TMD is an amazing commercial security product, but we wanted to bring this technology into everyday homes.”

XANDEM HOME ships with 10-15 sensors that plug into power outlets around a home, and a gateway that connects to the internet.  “You can set it up in 15 minutes,” Wilson said. Compared to other security systems, you don’t need a contract, and you can be notified directly if someone is in your home.  You can then see on your phone where they are in real time.  It integrates with other “smart home” products, so you can use it to turn on your lights or thermostat automatically, or to sound an alarm siren if there is a break-in.  “It doesn’t false alarm like traditional sensors,” Wilson said. “All around, it is more secure and less expensive than the traditional security services.”

XANDEM HOME opened a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo last week; it hopes to raise $100,000 through pre-sales of its security system and developer kits.  The money will go to manufacturing and finalizing the cloud services that go with the security system.  By summer 2016, consumers will be able to run in their home the technology first demonstrated in the Warnock Engineering Building.

Learn more at xandem.com.