Fun fact, we probably have the best port-o-potty detector in the world.
Also, Unions hate this right?
For example, they can look back through yesterdays events to see that their plumber showed up - and then they'll know they need to go check on the work. The alternative is trying to get the plumber on the phone to figure out if the work had been completed or not - which is difficult in 2023.
There's not a lot of unioned workers in most states for residential construction. But autoworkers, and anything else in manufacturing would be used to the constant monitoring. Commercial construction also typically has fulltime site superintendents, who would do this anyway.
The GC can often bill it down to the homeowner as antitheft, which reduces time/money to complete the build. The biggest being time. An example, if custom windows are stolen, it could delay a project by months right now.
That being said, as someone with digestion issues, tracking bathroom habits is offensive.
In short, yes this is invasive. But much like AI, this type of thing isn't going away, there is just going to be more lawsuits about it in the future.
That said, for a lot of subcontractor trades, it's so hard to find anyone that I'd worry about the reverse: you get known as "the freaks with the cameras" and no one good bids on your stuff anymore, and then the delivery is even more delayed.
I think economists would call that a feature and not a bug. It is essentially an auction (something economists LOVE). You could instead take that money that you're spending on surveillance and instead spend it on giving the contractors a bonus to show up to your place instead.
I really don't buy that this would "shame" them into coming to your place first. Everyone already is aware that they don't always show up because you got out bid. You're "solving" the problem the wrong way because you're not addressing the actual problem.
It was clear (our) GC was not used to this because they were constantly telling us that things were happening when they very clearly weren't (thanks to the live video we had from to the site).
I applaud you creating your own solution, many GCs can do this, but most can't or don't want to deal with it.
Since we record motion on site, we typically catch the illegal dumpers, but it's hard to pick out from the many motion events that may occur on a construction site.
It's more about the fact that GCs struggle to get accurate schedules around when their subs will show up, the subs are in too high of a demand (think plumbers, electricians, framers). So they ask the subs to come out and complete a job and the sub responds with, "we'll be there sometime next week." Sometimes they show up, sometimes they don't. GCs need to know when and if they are showing up.
If a software startup assembles a bunch of open source hardware together and packages it as a product, would you say they don't "make" software?
No, I'd say they are more of a software company than a hardware company though. All software runs on some kind of hardware, but these days it is pretty rare for that hardware to be very unique or custom.
I was mostly just curious what custom hardware you had, since that was the topic at hand. My curiosity comes from working in the surveillance AI space for the last ~15 years, and having done a number of custom (as in we made the whole thing) cameras with AI, but now there is a trend more towards using a lightly OEM'd camera with custom firmware in many cases.
Considering the availability of cameras with advanced SoCs capable of doing edge inference, I wanted to ask more about your hardware and your design choices in this market, but I think I'll just bow out. Good luck with your startup!