Garrick Pohl, left, and Kevin Virta are preparing for a nationwide launch in November of their cell phone-enabled technology.

Cell Phones Are The Key

Daniel Schoonmaker

HOLLAND — If a Holland startup has its way, the mobile phone will quickly become the means by which consumers lock doors, turn up the heat and monitor the use of their vehicles and homes.

Crayon Interface launched 11 months ago in the Lakeshore Business Garden, the three-year-old business incubator of Holland economic group Lakeshore Advantage. Ripe with out-of-state venture capital and a major industry distribution partner, the firm has since moved from the incubator to a new Eighth Street office downtown, with plans for a nationwide launch in November.

Founded by Johnson Controls alumni Garrick Pohl and Kevin Virta, Crayon develops embedded software for mobile phones. Its software backbone, Moshi, has virtually unlimited functionality, with the potential to fill almost any need for monitoring, remote control or alert notification.

“We’ve already seen the convergence of the phone with multiple things,” said Pohl, Crayon CEO, referring to the adoption of Internet, music and other applications to the phone environment. “It seems like we spend half our lives on the phone these days — text messaging people, talking to friends or family. We’re following that trend to the next level.”

Current Moshi products in development involve applications linking one’s vehicle and home to the cellular phone, as well as a package tracking service, trackages.com. Further down the pipeline are offerings for banking solutions, industrial controls, social networking and event notification.

Its first major launch, CellSTART, is gearing up for a national debut in November under the brand of JBS Technologies, an Ohio-based manufacturer of vehicle security and remote starter systems.

Crayon’s software places all of the functionality of the key fobs commonly used in such systems onto the cell phone. Operating on the cellular network, the system’s range is limited only by phone coverage. It’s secured by personal identification number and network encryption, and can be used for multiple vehicles. If the phone is lost or destroyed, the service can be turned off from any computer, and the entire package can be loaded onto a new phone by text message. Replacing the Lexus Smart Key, by contrast, could cost the user upwards of $1,000.

“Instead of carrying around your key fob and your wife’s, you can just put an access point on the phone,” Pohl said.

From his second floor office, he demonstrated CellSTART’s connection to his Nissan Maxima parked on the opposite side of Eighth Street below. After he entered his PIN, the screen displayed a pair of icons — a car, labeled Maxima, and another for his wife’s vehicle, represented by a tank. Below, he directed the Maxima’s lights to switch on and off. Although not visible, he locked and unlocked the doors, to the bewilderment of passersby, and then started the engine.

If the car alarm is triggered, an alert would be sent by text message to his phone.

The service will be introduced to the market at an annual cost of $99.

“That’s slightly less than satellite radio for your car,” said Virta, vice president of business development. “And significantly less than current GPS type systems or OnStar. If you think about locking your keys in your car, why call OnStar when you can just open up your phone and do it yourself?”

OnStar, the GM-backed vehicle monitoring standard, is a product with much greater functionality, Virta noted, with more attention to emergency response. CellSTART has no immediate plans to compete in that category (as a phone, such features might even be redundant), but will soon challenge existing vehicle global positioning systems. The 2.0 version will likely integrate a global positioning system and accompanying functionality.

“Today, the target market of most GPS systems is spouses that don’t trust each other,” said Pohl. “We’re looking for more of a daily use type of application.”

One such use would involve teenage drivers. CellSTART could be programmed to send a message to parents every time the vehicle exceeds a certain speed or leaves a defined area.

Also in the coming year, Crayon will bring accompanying programs to market that apply similar functionality for the home. A distribution partner has not yet been identified for this service, but the software is largely complete. Similar to CellSTART, the yet-unnamed service uses a graphical interface on the phone to control various household applications linked via a home’s Wi-Fi network. Door locks, lighting, heating and cooling, smoke detectors, blinds, garage doors, security systems and many other household functions can be controlled and monitored by the phone.

Pohl again demonstrated this with his phone, using it to control a lamp and electric thermostat set up in the Crayon office for demonstration purposes.

Setting up such a system can be done inexpensively with hardware available at most larger home appliance and hardware stores such as Best Buy or Home Depot. The primary benefit in the home would be to route all of these applications through the PC to a remote control. Crayon does not currently intend to compete with the PC as the platform for these functions.

“What is important is the mobility; for the next couple years, at least, a cell phone will be as portable as you can get,” Pohl said. “But who knows what is going to be the platform in the next five or 10 years? This technology is device agnostic. Maybe it will be a flexible screen you unfold, or a projection on the wall, or a tiny little handheld — all that matters is it’s portable.”

Crayon is currently in discussions with cellular carriers concerning the possible distribution of CellSTART and future products. The founders believe their product could be to carriers what broadband Internet and digital television has been to cable companies — a chance to significantly raise the average revenue per user. Only six years ago, the ARPU was well over $100, but was recently as low as $40. Even the advent of the BlackBerry service failed to raise it much higher than $50.

“In the short term, they’re focused on different things, but we’d prefer they market this product for us,” Virta said. “We hope to see it evolve as an added line item on your cell phone bill.”

CellSTART is not the first cell phone remote car starter product. There have been other products featuring a hotline service, but the multi-step process proved cumbersome to users and failed to gain traction in the marketplace.

Crayon Interface grew to six employees this summer with an influx of capital from a Tennessee investment group. Virta worked in Memphis prior to Johnson Controls.

Moshi’s Web portal was created through a partnership with local technology firm, NuSoft Solutions.     BJX