Tech veterans launch firm

Troy L. Smith//June 29, 2012//

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Recent data from the National Association of Realtors shows approximately 8 million U.S. vacation homes. Three local entrepreneurs hope to capture that market with their new company’s first product.

In mid-June, Sensored Life LLC launched a cellular-connected temperature, humidity and power alarm. The company based in Penn Yan, Yates County, says it is the first of its kind.

MarCELL, a product whose name is derived from "monitor alert remote-access cellular device," is a temperature and power gauge that plugs into a home power outlet and is backed up by battery power.

The device uses cellular technology to report problems to homeowners via email, text or phone. The product is intended for second-home owners who want to protect their vacation properties from costly problems such as pipes freezing because of furnace failures or humidity issues due to air conditioners malfunctioning.

Sensored Life co-founder James Odorczyk said the device costs $149. There is a monthly mobile connection fee starting at $9.95; the device operates on its own cell plan. Odorczyk said Sensored Life has negotiated an agreement with wireless carriers.

The company plans to begin shipping the first round of MarCELL devices in August. It is too early to give sales projections, he said.

Odorczyk came up with the idea for MarCELL in 2009 when a friend who had a home on Keuka Lake returned to it and found the heater broken and the pipes frozen. The repair costs were around $10,000, Odorczyk said.

"I had just bought a condo in Florida," he said. "I wanted to make sure that didn’t happen to me."

In looking into possible solutions, Odorczyk tapped his considerable experience in technology.

A former software engineer at Xerox Corp., Odorczyk went on to create Inter-ad Inc., a company that developed public access kiosks using touchscreens for clients such as Wegmans Food Markets Inc.

After Inter-ad, he founded National Integration Services Inc. in 1992. The Henrietta-based company created touchscreen monitors used by clients such as Eastman Kodak Co., NASA and Walt Disney Co.

NIS made the Inc. 500 list of the fastest-growing private companies in 1998, ranking 169th. Odorczyk said he sold the company in 2000 to Tyco Electronics Ltd., which is now known as TE Connectivity Ltd.

In developing Sensored Life and the idea for MarCELL, Odorczyk partnered with longtime friend Michael O’Brien, founder of tech companies such as NesTek Inc., which specialized in custom software that used Java and Oracle, and xDefenders Inc., a Fairport company that sold network security servers. EarthLink Inc. acquired xDefenders in September 2011.

Odorczyk and O’Brien then reached out to Eric Snavely, who had been Odorczyk’s director of engineering for NIS. Snavely now is CEO of Touchstone Technology Inc., a Gates company that manufactures custom keyboards, displays and touchscreen-based control panels.

Snavely said Touchstone will handle all of Sensored Life’s manufacturing.

Odorczyk said the company has spent two and one-half years developing MarCELL. He said he expects the device’s main competition to be temperature-sensitive phone dialer systems or Internet-based systems that require phone and Internet connections, which vacation-home owners usually turn off when they are not there.

Home security companies now offer similar services. Doyle Security Systems Inc. has a system called Doyle Total Connect that offers remote home monitoring via phone, iPad or computer and allows customers to monitor and control their home security system, thermostat and security cameras. ADT Security Services offers an app for the iPhone with similar services.

Some of the world’s biggest companies have also entered into the remote home-monitoring market.

Last year, Google Inc. announced plans for Android@Home, a platform that could allow homeowners to control home electronic devices such as lighting, televisions and dishwashers from a mobile device.

And last October, Verizon Communications Inc. launched the Verizon Home Monitoring and Control system. The platform allows customers to control appliances and monitor energy use on computers, smartphones and tablets using a wireless communication protocol known as Z-Wave.

In May, AT&T Inc. announced plans for Digital Life, which allows customers to use mobile devices to monitor their homes for water damage and burglaries, as well as to control temperature and lock doors using an Internet connection.

While many of those systems feature a number of complex features, O’Brien said, Sensored Life has focused primarily on baby boomers who want to protect their home investments in as easy a way as possible.

"One of our biggest influences was Steve Jobs and Apple," O’Brien said. "We looked a lot at the simplicity of Apple products. We were hell-bent on making our product as simple as possible to use, especially for our target demographic."

Odorczyk said the technology that created MarCELL could eventually be used as a water sensor for homes or a built-in microphone that can detect whether a smoke alarm is going off.

Sensored Life has begun marketing it to local customers and will reach out to regional customers in the first quarter of 2013 before moving on to national customers late next year.

The three entrepreneurs are funding the business themselves. Odorczyk would not say how much they have invested.