Chamberlain adopts Plumerai AI for smart-home cameras

  • October 9, 2024
  • Steve Rogerson

UK and Dutch AI specialist Plumerai’s Tiny AI technology is being used for smart-home cameras by intelligent access company Chamberlain Group, whose brands include MyQ and LiftMaster.

To achieve features such as people detection and familiar face identification, cloud-based AI and, in particular, large language models (LLMs) require vast remote data centres, consume increasing amounts of energy, pose privacy risks and incur rising costs.

Plumerai’s Tiny AI can do all this on the device itself, and is cost-effective, chip agnostic, capable of operating on battery-powered devices, doesn’t clog up bandwidth with huge video uploads and has small energy requirements. The firm claims to have the most accurate on-device Tiny AI on the market and offers end-to-end encryption.

Already running locally on millions of smart-home cameras, Plumerai’s Tiny AI is making communities safer and lives more convenient. Plumerai has gained strong backing from early investor Tony Fadell, principal at Build Collective, along with Hermann Hauser, founder of Arm, and LocalGlobe.

“Tiny AI is a paradigm shift in how we approach artificial intelligence,” said Roeland Nusselder, CEO of Plumerai. “This approach allows us to embed powerful AI capabilities directly into smart-home devices, enhancing security and privacy in ways that were once considered unfeasible. It’s not about making AI bigger, it’s about making it smarter, more accessible, and more aligned with people’s real-world needs.”

Features of Plumerai’s Tiny AI on the edge include:

  • Person, pet, vehicle and package detection notifications in 0.7s versus average smart cam of 2 to 10s.
  • Familiar face identification and stranger detection deliver accurate notifications while protecting privacy; up to 40 safe familiar individuals can be tagged.
  • Multi-cam person tracking for comprehensive surveillance.
  • Motion detection with rapid response time of, on average, 0.5s, which extends battery life.
  • Over-the-air updates.

Plumerai has built the accurate Tiny AI option for smart-home cameras, trained with more than 30 million images and videos.

“Plumerai’s technology gives companies a significant edge in a competitive market, proving that efficient, on-device AI is the future of smart-home security,” said Hauser. “It’s a perfect showcase for Tiny AI’s strengths – privacy, real-time processing and energy efficiency. I’m excited by Plumerai’s potential to expand into other IoT verticals and redefine edge computing.”

Providing a ready-to-integrate end-to-end option for AI on the edge, Plumerai is making AI more competitive and a reality for more companies. This provides consumers with more options outside the realm of big tech giants such as Google, Amazon, Microsoft and Apple. Unlike other battery powered smart cams that send their video feed to the cloud over power-hungry wifi, Plumerai enables the use of low-power mesh networks to send notifications.

“Integrating Plumerai’s Tiny AI into our smart camera line has allowed us to offer advanced AI features on affordable, low-power devices,” said Jishnu Kinwar, vice president at Chamberlain Group. “This enables us to provide our customers with smarter, more efficient products that deliver high performance without the need for cloud processing.”

More than11 million people rely on Chamberlain’s MyQ app daily to access and monitor their homes, communities and businesses, from anywhere.

“Plumerai’s Tiny AI isn’t just an incremental advance, it’s a massive market disruption,” said Tony Fadell, Nest founder and Build Collective principal. “While large language models capture headlines, Plumerai is getting commercial traction with its new smaller-is-smarter AI model. Their Tiny AI is faster, cheaper, more accurate, and doesn’t require armies of developers harnessing vast data centres.”

Plumerai (plumerai.com) is a specialist in embedded AI. It powers millions of devices worldwide and is expanding into video conferencing, smart retail, security and IoT sectors.

Build Collective (www.buildc.com) is an investment and advisory firm coaching engineers, scientists and entrepreneurs working on foundational deep technology. With more than 200 start-ups in its portfolio, it helps engineers and scientists bring technology out of the lab. Supporting companies beyond Silicon Valley, Build Collective’s portfolio is based mainly in the EU and USA with some companies in Asia and the Middle East.

Chamberlain Group (chamberlaingroup.com) specialises in intelligent access. Its products, combined with intuitive software, comprise a MyQ ecosystem that delivers seamless, secure access to people’s homes and businesses.