Startup: The Pepper-Spraying Camera

If a user does not own or normally carry a smartphone, the Defender will not be much benefit over traditional self-defense items.

The company plans to release details when it kicks off its indiegogo campaign later this month.

I wonder what a Venn diagram of "people who do not own or carry a smartphone" and "regular indiegogo users" would look like.

Is this similar to guardly or elerts? Can you please clarify / explain?

I recognize those 2 are apps without 'wands' or 'pepper spray devices' but it seems both are targeting similar users - mobile people who want to immediately send security/safety alerts

The biggest issue is see on this one is the blutooth. I don't know about you but if i leave my blutooth on all the time my phone is dead whenever i need it. So i guess either you have a dead phone or you just ask the attacker to hold on a sec while you turn on blutooth and sync your pepper spray.

I was really hoping it was a PTZ with a long range pepper spray gun. :-D

Camera: Unlike other personal safety products, Defender includes a still camera and flash that takes a burst of pictures when the trigger is pushed.

Although the impact of five-way sensory convergence is enormous in theory, in practice the effective implementation difficulties are just as big.

In the video notice how the flash is triggered hundreds of millaseconds before the stream can be seen. I think the flash was added to the video after the fact. Why? He doesn't blink at all until the pepper spray hits him, again hundreds of millaseconds later. Blink/flinch response usually < 100ms.

So one problem is that the flash could cause the attacker to have his eyes shut when the pepper spray hits, thereby reducing its deterrence while increasing the rage of the attacker.

Also the picture taking should not delay the stream delivery in any way as it seems to in the video.

But by far the biggest problem is letting the attacker know that you are taking a picture of him! Big mistake, IMHO. Attacker will not know its being sent wirelessly to a central station, and if he is not totally incapacitated (thanks to the flash flinch/warning), the enraged attacker may instinctively try to take the camera/spray away from the victim before fleeing. And though the picture itself may be used in prosecution, how does it actually help the help the victim during the attack or right after?

My prediction is it will not ever make it to production in its current form...

[IPVM Note: This is satire.]

The deluxe model has a built-in motion detector which initiates an automated taser if the assailant does not go down immediately. If the Taser fails, the built in self-aiming .357 Magnum round finishes the job for you.

At the conclusion of the event the unit is able to automatically assess the situation and calls either an ambulance or the coroner depending on the final results.

At the bottom of the unit is a handy handi-wipe dispenser and a hair-brush that can be used to get cleaned up before the television cameras arrive.

For those interested, I asked the developer some questions. Here is their response:

Member Update: Defender Delayed

You may recall that they started off with incredible momentum:

They reached the initial $100,000 goal in <24 hours. Not even a week later, the company broke $200,000 in sales.

But after that promising start, they soon ran out of 'pep' closing with total funds raised of $232,277. Still with more than double their goal, they should have been able to deliver by the promised Dec/Jan timeframe.

Sadly, no.

We announced in December to all of our contributors that we are taking a few additional months to develop Defender. We are working diligently to get you a delivery schedule and our supporters will be the first to be notified of our production timeline.

and then

Our Estimated delivery date is February 2015.

and now April without a new shipdate.

But due a new program called "Forever Funding", they are opening up the moneyline again.

Our campaign is open. . .again. We are thrilled to be a part of this new program on Indiegogo that allows successful campaigns, like Defender, to continue raising funds.

Successful, eh? At raising money? But this time no one is going for it and so far they have raised less than $500. But they have added some features. Like announcing to the assailant that their "Picture has been sent".

They have also been 'successful' media wise: check it out in this "Will it work?" news piece made with an actual self-defense expert.

Unfortunately, although overall a positive piece, the self-defense expert had some criticism for the device, echoing those in earlier comments above:

Kristina Beard, self-defense instructor for USA Karate in Bartlett, TN, and I played with the prototype... It is, however, very easy to cover The Defender's camera lens with your finger.

Beard loves The Defender's concept of instant defense, suspect identification and alerts to law enforcement and personal contacts at the touch of a button. But she does have concerns about the audio announcement the prototype emits after the button's pressed.

“I'd be concerned that may really frustrate and make my attacker very angry,” Beard noted. “They may have only wanted my purse. Now they're so mad, they may want to take me or hurt me worse. That would be my only concern.”

But there is hope for those looking for more than a $30 T-shirt, the new Beta-test program:

The first supporters to received Defender's will be those that signed up for the Beta Tester program. We will have a limited number of Beta devices available and we will be looking to expand our beta test group.

Who and what exactly do you beta-test it on? I'm not sure what one could safely beta-test on a fully loaded Defender, except maybe the battery life... Maybe it will be a water-filled defender, possibly a collectors edition...

Lastly, @John, after the initial IPVM coverage, Defender no doubt innocently, added a rare IPVM logo to their "Defender in the News" page. But its not even a link, so not sure how you feel about that...

New Update from Defender:

We have been long overdue for an update and thank you for your understanding and support as we have experienced delays in our production that have prevented us from keeping the delivery schedule we had initially provided during our campaign. As a hardware startup embarking on the development of a new product and a new market, we have faced many development challenges, but we are confident that we have past the greatest hurdles and we have a clear path to completion...

Reliability isn't optional - With Defender 24/7, we made a commitment to deliver a reliable and trustworthy product. Unfortunately the development has taken much longer, but we refuse to rush out a product that does not meet our commitment to reliability and performance.

Interesting. Defender is apparently not content merely to rest on their consumer crowd funding exploits; now they are looking to entice dealers into reselling their Central Station infrastructure. From their new white paper:

You will also notice over the next few weeks that we will be changing our name to Defender 24/7. We added 24/7 to our name to make it highlight the security monitoring service that we call EVERYWHERE SECURITY™.

Smart Personal Protection provides response by utilizing a central station or alarm monitoring center. Central stations are like call centers, but they specialize in handling monitoring and responding to alarms. Central stations, such as the Defender 24/7 Monitoring Center, receive inbound notifications from alarms and make outbound calls to 911 centers.

For the security industry, Smart Personal Protection is the long awaited answer for “What’s next?” Defender 24/7 will be able to be sold and distributed via existing home security companies directly to their own customers, allowing these companies to use their existing monitoring center as the response center for their customers. The backend API provides a seamless user experience for consumers and an additional revenue stream for security providers.

Sign up before its too late.