Mistakes can be made, okayPests. They can cause serious damage inside homes and buildings, and can also damage crops and plants outdoors. The amount of chaos and disaster these little fellows can cause is directly related to one factor: how many of them there are.
Most people don’t realize they have an insect problem until there are enough of them to cause noticeable damage to homes, furniture, or wildlife. By the time they do, the problem may already have become a bit unwieldy.
This is exactly the type of situation Spota hopes to prevent. Using sensors, the startup’s small devices detect the first few bugs so people can get rid of pests before an infestation occurs.
“This sector hasn’t innovated in decades,” Robert Frears, the company’s co-founder and CEO, told TechCrunch+. “Nothing has changed. People are looking at plastic buckets and sticky paper, and technology can certainly help with that. Catch it early before you need large amounts of chemicals.”
Fryers explained that Spota’s small devices attract bugs inside, recognize them, and send photos of the bug to their users. For this type of product to be able to scale, he said, it is important that the devices are small, cheap and require very little maintenance.