This Perth company's smart light switches will spot airborne disease

Two former high-ranking Cisco execs are supporting the public float plan of Quantify Technology, an Australian company promoting advanced technology for smart buildings.

Quantify wants to replace standard light switches and power outlets with face plates connected to various sensors and automation systems.

The system could be used to automatically turn on and off air conditioning when people aren’t present. Power policies could determine how much power certain rooms can use, for example, and lights could be automatically dimmed to save power when window blinds are opened.

These sensors – similar to those used in rain-detecting windscreen wipers – could even detect disease and other airborne dangers in offices.

Quantify’s managing director, Mark Lapins, said the company will partner with network integrators for deployments, enablement and support.

“The only way we’ll be able to successfully integrate into the corporate space is with a good channel partnering arrangement,” Lapins said.

Connected to the company are two former high-ranking Cisco Australia figures: Terry Walsh, who spent approximately five years as managing director of Cisco Australia & New Zealand from 1998, and then five years as CEO of Cisco Canada; and former Cisco Australia southern region sales manager Aidan Montague, who was a key figure in Cisco’s local operation in the early 1990s, and who later went on to various roles at Cisco in London, Johannesburg and Singapore.

Walsh is now managing director of Perth-based Panorama Synergy, which this month signed a deal to supply Quantify with sensor technology.

Lighting control will be a stepping stone to the use of sensors for cutting-edge applications, such like detecting pathogens in the air, said Montague, who is Panorama’s chairman as well as being on the advisory board of Quantify.

MEMS the word

Panorama has been working on this using microscopic micro-electromechanical (MEMS) sensors.

While MEMS sensors are not new, Panorama has its LumiMEMS optical readout system, which was developed at the University of Western Australia. A successful test of a prototype LumiMEMS sensor was announced by Panorama in December 2014.

Hospitals could one day use the technology to detect airborne viruses. “Almost anything chemical or biological, we can measure it with extreme accuracy,” Montague claimed.

The system could eventually detect if a building’s occupants were “suffering from a variety of health conditions”, according to a press release.

The two companies are banking on Quantify being able to get its product installed in buildings, which Montague said would provide the opportunity to add more sensors at a later date. “As they replace [the light fittings] those effectively become a Trojan horse for sensors,” Montague explained.

Quantify has secured forward orders worth approximately $2 million. Panorama will supply air quality sensors that will be used in the power management and control systems supplied by Quantify, to be installed during calendar year 2015.

Quantify suffered a recent setback when its plan to list on the ASX via a merger with publicly listed telecommunications outfit Cape Range Limited fell through.

Lapins told CRN he was confident the company would still go public.