Consumer and Industrial IoT Applications

Although Valarm is an industrial strength solution, it is still available and easy to use for consumers and hobbyists!

Valarm uses various sensors (air quality, temperature, barometric pressure, humidity, switches, GPS, accelerometer, light, camera, microphone, and others) and powerful connectivity (3G/4G, WiFi, Bluetooth) built in to an Android™ device to perform remote tracking, asset or environmental monitoring and data collection wherever, whenever you need it. The information can be immediately sent to you via text message and/or email, recorded securely on the device, and instantly uploaded to your Tools.Valarm.net account – giving you real-time awareness of the things that matter most to you, whether family, property, or business.

The possibilities are limitless, and all you need is a basic Android phone or tablet and any connectivity plan from any provider (or use WiFi for free).

Valarm’s built-in flexibility can do things like…

Monitor your home garden, aquaponics, hydroponics

Valarm’s weather sensors (temperature, humidity, barometric pressure, light) along with air quality sensors (CO2 & Volatile Organic Compounds, VOCs) allow you to monitor any environment in real-time. Know the exact conditions of any micro-climate. If humidity or CO2 levels go too high or low you’ll get a text message and/or email. Your Valarm data can be uploaded via 3G/4G or WiFi to Valarm Tools for interactive visualization and analysis.

Contact us if you’d like any advice on setting up Valarm.

Instantly alert you to tampering or unauthorized use

Valarm’s motion, sound and light sensors can be used to alert you to anyone using anything in or on which you can hide a small cellphone. If your stuff moves or shakes, or if Valarm hears a noise, or a container is opened, Valarm can instantly begin recording audio, taking pictures, and sending you SMS/text messages and emails to alert you to the activity. Calibration and adjustments let you set the sensitivity to motion, sound or light. Note that not all devices are equipped with ambient light sensors (although external USB light sensors are available with Valarm), but they pretty much all have accelerometers and microphones.

Track your teenager’s use of your car

Concerned about the whereabouts or safety of a loved one? Got an inexperienced new driver or sneaky “car borrower” in the household? Install Valarm on a phone, password protect the phone if necessary, activate Valarm, and stash the phone anywhere in the car (the engine compartment is NOT recommended: high heat destroys phones). Valarm can periodically notify you of its location. Or when you text the phone (with a configurable password), Valarm will respond within moments with its location. Valarm can also alert you when your vehicle has travelled faster than any speed you set as a limit, beyond any distance from home you specify, or too close to any location you specify! The accelerometer can even detect abrupt driving or sudden stops. Valarm’s OBD2 integration can alert you (via SMS, email, or web) to a driver “flooring it”, or even just racing the engine, speeding (without OBD2, the built-in GPS can also monitor speed). Valarm can even detect an engine overheating situation. In a future release, we’ll include monitoring of vehicle malfunctions (e.g. engine trouble) and other vehicle status.

Track down thieves

Theft Prevention and Recovery is the original inspiration for Valarm. One of our founding partners had his pride & joy (motorcycle) stolen from his garage while he slept soundly inside.

A few weeks later, after the police report, insurance claim processing, endless bike shopping, and finally the purchase of a new bike (even more precious), Lorenzo found himself with an obsessive need to prevent the heartache, expense, and inconvenience of having another motorcycle stolen. Apparently thieves frequently check back after successfully stealing one vehicle: they know the owner has insurance and will eventually get a new one!

Place a Valarm device in your asset (e.g., trunk or glovebox of a vehicle, tucked into a bag of expensive camera equipment or musical instrument), enable the motion sensor, web and/or SMS settings and you will instantly know if someone is tampering with your asset.  If your asset is removed, Valarm will use GPS, cellphone towers and WiFi hotspots to continually update you with your asset’s location via SMS, email, and the web so you can take appropriate action.

Utilize Audio, Light, and External Sensors

Valarm allows Android devices to use the built-in microphone, camera, and ambient light sensor to sense the environment. Additional sensors can be added to expand the functionality of Valarm via USB (Yoctopuce, Valarm Pro only). By enabling the microphone sensor, Valarm will notify you (via SMS, email, or the web at tools.valarm.net) when the sound of the device’s environment meets or exceeds a customizable noise level. You can then instruct your Valarm device to take further action like “send a text message“, “take a picture”, or “start recording audio”.  Using Valarm with weather data will allow you to receive an email or SMS / text message if the temperature or humidity goes above or below your custom setting.   This means Valarm is a very economical solution as a home monitor, indoor or outdoor garden monitor, and server room monitor!

Baby/Pet Monitoring

(beta) Valarm uses the phone or tablet microphone to allow your device to be used as a baby or pet monitor. After setting the microphone sensitivity trigger, the device with Valarm will alert your own mobile phone if noises in the room (such as a crying baby, barking puppy or screaming parrot) meet or exceed a customizable noise level. You can then instruct your Valarm device via SMS to call your own mobile phone – allowing you to listen to the room and your child. Or Valarm can record the audio for you to listen to later.

Utilize Motion and GPS

Valarm allows consumers to track their device’s movements and environments using the built-in and external sensors such as the accelerometer, microphone, and GPS. Movement and audio alarms are triggered once the sensors are enabled. When an alarm is triggered, Valarm will send you notifications about the type and intensity of alarm triggered along with the location of the device.  Speed alerts are customizable (e.g., tell me when the device, or a vehicle carrying the device, exceeds 80mph).  There are also alerts for when a Valarm device has exceeded a certain distance from a user-settable origin and for when a device/vehicle has come within a customizable range of any location.

Advanced Home Monitoring

Coming soon: Valarm devices can be installed at home to create a multiple sensor monitoring network. Valarm harnesses the video and audio recording capabilities of your Android device in tandem with external sensors to create a powerful home monitoring tool. External motion sensors can be attached to the Valarm device via micro-USB and used to trigger motion alarms to notify you (via SMS or Email) of any movement. Similarly, by calibrating and using the device’s microphone sensor, sounds that reach a certain noise level can also trigger notifications. Once an alarm is triggered you can instruct your Valarm device via SMS to “call back” your mobile phone allowing you to listen and communicate with whomever triggered the alarm.

See a list of all features built-in to the Valarm Android app.

Questions?

Take a gander at our Customer Stories and Web Dashboards for your remote monitoring, Industrial IoT, M2M, and Telemetry Sensor needs.

Please don’t hesitate to contact us at Info@Valarm.net if you’ve got any questions.