Fail Faster: What it Takes to be an Inventor

It has been almost a year since ENGINEERING.com talked to co-founder of Unified Computer Intelligence Corp. (UCIC) Leor Grebler. It is about time we catch up with UCIC for a look to see what it takes to quit your day job and become an entrepreneurial inventor. The answer: if you want things to take off, you have to fail faster.

At the time of our last interview , the creators of the voice commanded computer Ubi had yet to ship their product. Though the company has not yet reached full commercialization, they have shipped about 2,000 units and are getting constant signals from over 500 units participating in the Beta testing.

“The Ubi is a Wi-Fi connected voice operated computer. It plugs into a wall outlet and can access the internet through Wi-Fi. You can send quick messages, dictate emails, set alarms, listen to music, look up quick facts, and monitor the local temperature, humidity, pressure, and light level. In a few weeks it will even be able to alert you if something unusual happens,” said Grebler.

Fail Faster Product Development

The idea came to the team while working at their previous dream job at Quanser. “It was an amazing job,” mentions Grebler. “We were going out to universities around North America selling haptics, unmanned vehicles and autonomous systems to labs. It was incredible and that is where our inspiration started. We would sit around and ask what will the future look like 5 to 10 years from now. We had all sorts of interesting ideas but they all led to the Ubi .”

The fledging company then started to post their idea on Kickstarer – where it quickly resonated with others. “We were like, oh no! We have to build this thing… and not just one or two. At that time it was 1400 or so,” remarked Grebler.

The original plan was to collect a few components, put them together, and use Google Now; however, the components and software were not always as reliable as UCIC needed.

Things got complicated fast, “but we were committed. We set out to find a small scale engineering company in the Toronto area (Canada). We actually work out of their office. They designed our boards, firmware, manufacturing, and assembly,” said Grebler.

This provided them with an alpha prototype, but it still needed a lot of work. The first alpha was in the hands of a Kickstarter backer by May. It only worked for a few days, but it DID work. By August there were 15 units out.

“It was in people’s homes! We were getting feedback, they were having their first interactions with it. Sure it still crashed a lot, resets were needed, and eventually many alphas stopped running. But, we got excellent feedback. We even joked that we wanted the Alphas to purposely fail,” said Grebler, a testament to the fail faster mentality of product development.

For engineers who want to live the dream of developing their own product, Grebler shared some sobering budget numbers, “We worked with a local industrial design firm just as we did with the engineering of the board. Expect to pay up to $20,000 for the industrial design. You then need the injection molds. That can be $20,000-$30,000 as well. The computer we have running it is fairly inexpensive but the other components were expensive. Truth be told, the individual Kickstarter pricing didn’t even cover the BOM. Thankfully, we have made it through an angel financing round now,” admitted Grebler.

By November the main beta shipments started and UCIC has almost completed all of their Kickstarter and pre-orders. Better yet, all the betas that have been plugged in are still working.

“We were working to the point where we could reliably push updates remotely. We have gone through 8 remote updates and they all work. That was the issue with the alpha that stopped working as licences expired. The pushed updates run locally on the device but on our server side we are also constantly running updates. That is where most of the changes are migrating too, less updates in the field and more on our server,” clarified Grebler.

How the Ubi Works

The Ubi has two main components; the board complete with speakers, microphone, LEDs, ARM processor, as well as various sensors. “The onboard processors control most of the sensors and handles some of the digital signal processing of the microphones. This is a hard thing to work on; how to reliably pick up voice from a distance. This is where our updates come into play on the device.”

The next major component is a small mini android PC working on Jellybean OS. “Worse comes to worst, if you hate the Ubi, you can tear it apart and use it as a home entertainment system… it has Bluetooth and WiFi capabilities,” joked Grebler.

These components run a variety of androids app at one time. Therefore, UCIC didn’t need to design firmware, they just used their java and android design skills.

One such program is the trigger software. It constantly listens for the phrase, ‘Okay Ubi’ which turns on Google’s speech to text service. This then sends the central Ubi servers a text string that uses natural language understanding. The servers then make the determination of what information service is needed. The information is then pulled and sent back to the Ubi. The Ubi then reads back the response using text to speech software.

Ubi Portal: What Sets Ubi Apart from Siri and Google Now

This may sound familiar to anyone that has a modern cellphone capable of Google Now or Siri. To that Grebler says, “Google Now does a great job, but there is no API (application programming interface) for that. We had to build that type of interaction. A major component of the Ubi is the Ubi Portal. This is where you can design a lot of the interesting interactions with the Ubi. Here you can also make connections to home automation devices. I can set up any word to send an HTTP request to any internet service. Now I can connect my Ubi to almost any device that is connected online.”

The Ubi portal also allows users to look at their sensor data logs. They can also set up behaviours to activate in certain conditions such as an instruction to turn on a coffee maker, greetings when users walk by with a presence detector (say a cell phone), or power on a light and use the light sensor as feedback to slowly make it brighter over time. Essentially, you are making this Siri competitor smarter over time.

“You would typically use the Ubi over other devices when you are at home, and are disconnected from your phone. The kitchen one I use every day. The Ubi takes less steps to get it to do things than its competitors. It doesn’t ask you if you are sure, to press here, or to enter a password,” said Grebler.

He adds that “you tend to only use your phone when you are alone, it is a personal device. But the form factor of the Ubi makes it more like an entity than a personal device. I see people interacting with it in a group. This will really change once the Ubi starts being more active. When it is able to run the software on other products we will really hit it off,” said Grebler.

The Ubi’s Demo

During the demo, the Ubi kept reading temperatures in Fahrenheit when we asked for Celsius. Also, when asked who the Prime Minister of Canada was it gave the literal meaning of the word instead of the name, Steven Harper. The machine was impressive nonetheless: it sent near perfect emails, called out alarms and even played Nirvana off Ubi’s cloud network when asked.

“There were people that thought they were going to get the Star Trek computer out of the box. We are not there yet. Even if we get the machine to pick up your voice perfectly there is still the AI side that must come into play. Consumer expectation can be damaging if you release too early. Many customers are still waiting to unpack their Ubis,” admitted Grebler. “But we do have a large supportive customer base. They are posting on our support website… We even have people programming code to interact with their Ubi.”

“We went the route of launching Project Ubi Oydssey rather than going to traditional brick and mortar sales.  We want to find people who are interested in the technology. We have the caveat that this is still a work in progress, but we promise that you will be a part in improving the Ubi and designing interactions that make the technology smarter.”

The Ubi’s Future

The hopes for UBI is to move to VOIP, and have the Ubi apps move to other Android devices. The developers also hope to integrate calendars and emails from your computer or phone. Ubis will soon be able to talk to each other, sending messages around the house.

Most interestingly, UCIC hopes to move Ubi from a passive device which waits for your instructions to something more active and interactive. They want Ubi to guide you. “We want the Ubi to say ‘hey before you leave, remember to take an umbrella. It’s going to rain.’ We want you to be able to build a personality for your Ubi,” said Grebler.

I wouldn’t be asking for my ‘tea, earl grey, hot’ or to accompany my computer to the beach just yet. But maybe it’s just a matter of time?