Chui: Intelligent Doorbell
Intelligent doorbell that uses facial recognition and proprietary tech to make the front door a gateway to a connected home.
| Date | Investors | Amount | Round |
|---|---|---|---|
N/A | Seed | ||
| Total Funding | 000k | ||
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Chui was a startup that developed an intelligent doorbell leveraging facial recognition technology for home security and automation. The company was founded by Shaun Moore and Nezare Chafni. The idea for the device originated in a hotel room in Casablanca, Morocco, in March 2012, born from a conversation about the emerging Internet of Things trend. The founders aimed to move beyond simple motion alerts to specifically identify individuals at the door.
The core of Chui's business was a smart doorbell designed for the consumer market. The device used facial recognition to identify visitors, allowing homeowners to receive notifications and communicate with guests remotely via a web and mobile application. A key feature was its ability to create a database of known visitors, enabling customized interactions, such as playing pre-recorded messages for specific friends or unrecognized individuals. The business model was based on the direct sale of the hardware, which was available for pre-order at $199 following a successful crowdfunding campaign that raised over $45,000, surpassing its $30,000 goal.
The Chui doorbell was engineered to serve as a central hub for the connected home. Upon recognizing a person, it could trigger a variety of actions by integrating with other Wi-Fi-enabled devices. This functionality allowed for personalized home automation, such as adjusting smart lights to a preferred setting, unlocking compatible smart locks, or even activating a connected fireplace for recognized individuals. The system was designed with security in mind, incorporating computer vision techniques to perform a "liveness check" by detecting micro-movements on a person's face to prevent spoofing with a photograph. For unknown visitors or failed recognitions, the homeowner would still receive a notification and could manually grant access. Despite a planned release in the fall of 2014, the company appears to have ceased operations, as there is no information available beyond its initial launch and crowdfunding phase.
Keywords: Chui, smart doorbell, facial recognition, home security, home automation, Shaun Moore, Nezare Chafni, connected home, IoT device, video doorbell, keyless entry, visitor management, smart lock integration, crowdfunding, access control, smart home hub, computer vision, pre-order, residential security, Wi-Fi doorbell