History of iRidium mobile: from trade in computers to a global manufacturer of software for smart homes

The first fact about iRidium mobile : it is from Nizhny Tagil. Omit the folklore celebrity of this city - it is mainly known, of course, for its metallurgical production (the legendary Uralvagonzavod also from there). And this metallurgical environment played a certain role in the future of iRidium, but more on that later.


Nizhny Tagil: tank-city, the birthplace of the fundamentally new OS Denis Popov and the home of iRidium mobile

2006 Internet to every school

The history of the company began in 2006, when Sergey Korolev, its founder, was also engaged in the sale of computers. Urals people can remember the trade network "Square". In the "Square" there was a unit engaged in the development of cable networks. For example, it was engaged in conducting the Internet to schools in Nizhny Tagil under the program “ Internet to each school ” in the framework of the national project “Education”, which started just in 2006. Thus, a team of people was formed in “Kvadrat” who knew how to set up security systems, fire safety, video surveillance, local networks, etc. - the division received a naschvaniye "Kvadrat-service".

At the same time, Korolev understood that computer trading as a business is doomed: competition with large networks would kill him. Looking ahead: it happened when the DNS came - “Square” is gone for a couple of years. But then the company still had time. The ability to work with networks and automation systems led the team to the topic of smart homes. The decision was made - and in the company appeared the unit "Square - smart home". So one national project and the foresight of the company's founder pushed the computer vendor to become an integrator.
')
"Square" is actively engaged in promoting a new direction. Like other integrators, Smart Home began by going to interior design studios. Representatives of Kvadrat-Service were so energetic and confident in the prospects of smart homes that they managed to infect with their enthusiasm even Marat Gilyazetdinov, a programmer with 15 years of experience at the time, whose wife was working in one of these design studios. But only when he came to get a job with them, Marat found out that in the “Square” there is still no programmer. So he stayed there, becoming the first and for the next two years the only software developer for the needs of the integrator.

year 2009. Crisis - and a new twist

A new twist in the company's history, which transformed it from a regular integrator into a software manufacturer, which is used by thousands of integrators around the world, happened in 2009. As in the previous case, it was predetermined by a combination of several factors.

The first is the high cost of smart homes. In the middle of zero, smart houses were not just considered a luxury - they were only for the richest. The minimum budget of the project "Square-service" was at the level of $ 150 thousand. Studying pricing, the company realized that the main eater of budgets are control panels - i.e. the very touch control panels with which smart homes actually associate. Say, AMX MVP 8400i cost $ 5-6 thousand and weighed 2.5 kg, while the functionality was not very different from any PDA.


AMX MVP 8400

He actually had no alternatives - products from another manufacturer, Creston, cost the same, and industrial solutions were prohibitively expensive - up to $ 10,000 for the console and above.

For the second clue where the project should go, you should thank Steve Jobs, who presented the first iPhone in January 2007. He reached Nizhny Tagil only a year later, in February 2008, when Sergei Korolev was presented for his birthday. The touch screen of high quality, ease of management and thoughtful, with many excellent solutions, made a huge impression on the employees of the “Kvadrat”, including Marat.

It was decided: the company needs its own version of the AMX protocol, which allows it to control the company's controllers from other devices. And the first such device was supposed to be the iPhone.

The development of the protocol began in March 2008. At the same time, the name iRidium (Iridium) first appeared: this is where the metallurgical environment affected, which it was impossible not to notice when working in Nizhny Tagil. The programmer Marat, already leading by that time, was in the habit of naming his projects by metal names — he had already used the names Aurum, Argentum, and even Tantalum in other works (that project died). The feeling that the new project will surpass them all was immediately. Therefore, the name Marat chose the appropriate one: Iridium is higher in the periodic table and surpasses all these materials in density. For the time being “Iridium” remained an internal name, which became a brand only in 2010 - but more on that later.

In July 2008, Apple, under pressure from developers who had already begun to hack the device so that they could develop and install their own programs on the iPhone, released the SDK for iOS. In January 2009, Kvadrat acquired a license for development under iOS, and started creating its own version of the protocol that would allow AMX controllers to be controlled from other devices, “pretending” to control panels of the same brand.

To do this, Marat had to pick open the initially closed protocol AMX - and in March 2009 the prototype was ready. The first object on which Kvadrat applied its version of the AMX control protocol was the demostand in Yekaterinburg, imitating a one-room apartment with control of light, heating, fireplace, motion sensors and a camera at the entrance.


AMX interface on native console and converted AMX interface on iPhone 3G


iPhone 3G, AMX and Samsung on Windows mobile

Then this decision was planned to be used simply as a competitive advantage in the integrator business, but the third factor interfered: the 2008 crisis. By the spring of 2009, the smart home market collapsed - it was no time for luxury. Iridium then failed to find a single client in Yekaterinburg.

Such a bizarre line of fate: the high cost of AMX solutions pushed for the decision to develop its own version of protocol controllers, the invention of the iPhone gave the idea to develop for it, and the crisis finally pushed the company out of the field of integrators, pushing the integrators to implement its AMX protocol. . And in the autumn of the same year, the implementation of another KNX protocol, which is popular in Europe, was added to iRidium.

Ekaterinburg installers were not very happy about this. One of them was so upset that he even told Kvadrat: "You are killing our business." The fact is that in the wholesale purchase, AMX gave a discount of up to 60%, allowing integrators to earn excellent money on hardware.
But everything worked out: that integrator not only did not die, but since last year he himself began to buy iRidium solutions.

What does AMX think about this?

In short - AMX do not mind. Such a protocol neither in Russia nor in Europe is not an object of intellectual property - unlike the United States. But in the US, in the worst case, the manufacturer could only prohibit trading them in the territory of some states. Nevertheless, attempts were made to tell AMX about their development - but without success, the Americans ignored all attempts of Russian developers to get in touch. You can even say that they were just not interested, because they earned mostly on hardware (remember the price of each console, yes).

But that all changed with the advent of the iPad.

2010: entering the world market

The next, third, turn, in the fate of the company was again accompanied by a combination of factors.

At the end of 2009, iRidium brought its solution to an exhibition in Moscow. The market reaction was disappointingly cautious: first, integrators still didn’t know much and didn’t trust iPhone. Secondly, they were confused by the age of the company. I must say that the installation business in the field of smart homes is not childishly harsh: it happened that companies that took on a project but did not pull, for example, programming, simply ran away from the objects.

In general, when Steve Jobs introduced the iPad to the world in a couple of months, Korolev decided: go to Berlin Frankfurt to take part in the European exhibition Light & Building . And we will bring on it a version of the protocol for the iPad. The operation was called "Flight to the Moon."

This time a year nobody waited. The exhibition was to be held in April 2010. And in January, just as the iPad appeared, iRidium downloaded its SDK and started creating a protocol version for the tablet - even without waiting for them to get it physically. The company even invited a tutor in English to make it easier to read the documentation. Of course, it was a risk: the application could simply “not start”.

At the same time, through friends in America, iRidium ordered three iPads. And, given the time trouble, their delivery was ordered immediately to Frankfurt. It turned out that the tablets would arrive right before the exhibition at - so the guys had only one shot: either the application will work or not. There is practically no time to change anything in case of problems.

But everything turned out. An iPad application, dubbed iRidium HD, made a splash in Frankfurt. At that time, iPad did not see everything alive, but some strange Russians brought three things at once, walk with them around the exhibition and show everyone the already working product of their own design.


Founder of iRidium Sergey Korolev and Sales Director Nikita Kamaev in Frankfurt


Developed in the emulator, iRidium HD application launched on the iPad on the first attempt

From that moment, Iridium was started to be written from abroad. We went and requests to develop something exclusive. For example, a Briton came in and asked to develop a program for controlling AMX controllers from an iPad and an iPhone for a company engaged in renting yachts. He agreed with the shipyard, which added controllers so that the client could control household items such as light and music from his smartphone or tablet during the voyage. At the same time, the developed application made it possible to restrict access to smart systems strictly for the period for which the yacht was rented. At about the same time, an apartment in Burj Khalifa appeared in the iRidium portfolio.

iRidium 2.0

At some point, iRidium outgrew the capabilities of the standard AMX protocol, resting on the limitations of its architecture. The AMX developers themselves, forced to develop software crutches, rested on these limitations. The system clearly degenerated - and from this swamp it was necessary to escape.

In August 2010, iRidium began developing its own architecture.

In 2011, iRidium V2.0 prototypes for Android, Mac, iOS and Blackberry appeared (the latter did not work as a result due to low demand for the smartphone itself). The prototype tests began in April 2012, but the official release was announced in November 2012, when the app was accepted on the App Store. However, by that time they had already been used by a sufficient number of integrators.

In addition to multiplatform, "deuce" includes more than 40 protocols; It has its own API - the iRidium Driver Development Kit, which allows you to write your Javascript driver for any device and the iRidium GUI Editor, allowing you to create a beautiful control interface.

A single core was an important internal improvement in version 2.0: the first version of iRidium was written for some platforms in Objective-c, for others - in C ++. The second version was already entirely in C ++. This made it possible to quickly make changes to clients for different platforms: if earlier changes made in the client, for example, in C ++, could be transferred to the client for another platform on Objective-s for weeks, after switching to a single core, transferring the implemented changes from one platform to another (for example, from iOS to Android) it took a few hours.

In August 2013, a version of iRidium V2.2 for Windows was released (however, according to the established tradition, the official release date of the version is October 2014, when it appeared on the App Store), in which, among other changes, support for the .h264 video codec allowing reduce the load for the video transmission channel, reduce the volume of stored files and increase the video frame rate to 25-30 frames per second against the previously used .mpeg, the transmission rate of which on slow channels could drop to 1-2 frames per second.

Meanwhile...

Today, the company has already 12 programmers. All of them are from Nizhny Tagil, and work in the Tagil office of the company. Marat Gilyazetdinov was the first to invite to his team three experienced tagil programmers whom he knew well personally. In the second wave, programmers with non-core higher education, such as metal processing, physics, electric drives, gunners, etc., went. Thanks to a streamlined mechanism for transferring knowledge from person to person, employees grow within the company, resulting in a strong professional team.

There is a lot of work in the company, including tasks for beginners: testing the product, writing drivers, internal logic, customizing interfaces in the embedded language based on JavaScript. The ideal career path in iRidium lies through all stages, starting with the beta test - which opens up excellent opportunities for students. In order to attract them, the developer collaborates with local universities: the Ural Federal University and the Mining Technical School, inviting students for internships and lecturing at educational institutions themselves. They help iRidium and integrators by creating new drivers for them as an optional programmer.

But the main project on which programmers are now working is the development of iRidium 3.0. However, we will tell about it another time. Subscribe to our blog!

Thanks for attention
with