Demos vs. Free Trials

Demos vs. Free Trials

For those of you who have been part of the Lithos circle for more than a few years, you probably remember the two-week free trial we used to offer for our digital radio product. While we did go around the country showing people how the digital radio worked, installing it on Remotec robots, and walking everyone through a test drive, we normally sent the radio to agencies and let them test it out themselves. Why? And why don’t we do that with all of our products?

Robot control systems are pretty simple, really. You slide the receiver into the ONLY place it fits on your robot, plug it in and turn it on. The antenna cable plugs into your Andros control panel and then the antenna itself goes on top of the EOD truck or even on top of the Pelican case the antenna was shipped in. Now you drive your robot. There’s no learning curve. It’s plug-and-play and there are no new skills to develop to operate it. Most of the agencies who tried it loved it and purchased it. There really was no “selling” involved.

Our newer products—notably the CommandLink family of products—take a little more explanation. With eight varieties of CommandLink, it is not inherently obvious which is right for you. We have a link on our website that will actually walk you through the decision process for picking out a CommandLink that’s right for you, but some people just want to see it all in person. So we travel.

Whenever we show the CommandLink, we start with the Overwatch system. It has all the bells and whistles that any special ops team would want. There’s something in it for SWAT, EOD, and negotiators—and it all ties together nicely for use with incident command setups. Overwatch provides the most bang for the buck in part because it can be used for ANY situation with ANY type of special team. GPS tracking of all iOS assets on scene is useful for SWAT. Satellite mapping of the site is great for any special team. The whiteboard feature is ideal for SWAT team planning and intel sharing. Take a picture and share it with everyone on scene. Pull a photo off your mug shot system and share that, too. Text info can be transmitted the same way. And everything is time and date stamped for later use.

Except for the Audio iLite, all the CommandLink systems allow the sharing of video and audio. When we show the Overwatch system, it’s very easy to explain that one or two video systems can be shared over the system with full military encryption via a password protected iOS app (soon to be ported into Android). Same system, just a few less bells and whistles. And that’s okay, because some teams don’t need all the bells and whistles. Sometimes, just a bell will do. Or a whistle.

Negotiators like to share their throw phone video with commanders on-scene. But, what if you don’t have a video-enabled throw phone? That is the unique niche of the iLite Audio product. It’s designed to be used with audio throw phone systems like the Rescue Phone, with whom we often do demos at trade shows. It’s an easy and inexpensive way to share audio.

When we show you our stuff at your office or in your training facility, we like to tell you what each level will do for you. We’ll talk to you, learn how you work, and suggest the best fit. Believe it or not, the best choice isn’t always the top-of-the-line product. For a bomb squad with one robot that rarely does callouts with SWAT or negotiators, it’s overkill to buy Overwatch. If you have a limited budget, there’s no good reason to get NOTHING when the lower end products in the CommandLink line can dramatically improve your agency’s capabilities.

What also comes through in the demo is that your agency can improve its capabilities in just a few moments. Literally. CommandLink is that fast to set up. We set up the entire system from scratch in about ten minutes. The installed units can be ready to run in about three minutes. The software is intuitive, too. Most officers—even those who are not tech savvy—will pick up the iOS devices we bring with us and are navigating through the system in just minutes.

With the marketing team on hand, any questions can be answered right away. And there are always questions. We love it when we see the wheels turning as SWAT officers and EOD techs figure out what the system can do and how it can inform and augment their operational systems. Some make suggestions, some test things out on-scene. Others call their bosses and request they come to see what we have right away!

We will still do a trial demo of the radio system, but we want to see you in person when you see what the CommandLink system does. It’s a little like Christmas morning. It’s that amazing a product…and it’s fun to watch a bunch of cops look like kids opening really cool presents!  

Tell me what you want

Tell me what you want

When I travel to trade shows and to demonstrations at agencies all around the country, people always say the same two things: first, “That is exactly what I need!” and, second, “You guys have the best ideas.” Both of these statements make me happy, but only the first is true. We DO make things that are exactly what people need. But, generally speaking, they aren’t our ideas. They are yours.

At Lithos, we make a point of asking what our users need. That’s a little different from giant tech companies like, say, Microsoft or Google (or even Remotec), which have a tendency to tell their end-users what it is they’ve been wanting all along. The result is sometimes far less successful than the companies would hope. Windows 8 and the clunking, over-developed Microsoft Word are examples. Google’s brilliantly integrated systems at first seem like godsends as customized-to-your-search-habits info determines your interactions with Google…until you realize that your Gmail is being parsed for content clues and your correspondence is somewhat less private than you’d hoped.

The difference is, of course, that a poor Google search doesn’t affect your ability to come home safely at the end of your shift. If your bomb robot control system fails, forcing you to send a tech in a suit to set up your PAN disruptor, that’s a whole different ballgame.

When I was still on active duty on a bomb squad, my team wanted to be able to share robot video with people around our bomb truck. While the people who would be able to see the video thought we were being generous and trying to make their jobs easier (and more entertaining on a call out) the truth is less giving. We wanted to keep as many people out of our bomb truck as possible. No matter who is there, they take up space, talk too much, and hang over the robot operator’s shoulder. We asked Lithos, with whom I was consulting, if it was possible to wirelessly share video. It was. The CommandLink 900 was the result…a point-to-point video sharing system that would send audio and video to a second vehicle location (typically an incident command truck).

After I left the sheriff’s office, we were approached by the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office (near Tampa, FL) and asked if we could do the same thing with throw phone video. In their case, though, they needed to share with individual officers on-scene. SWAT commanders, incident commanders, shift commanders…all wanted to be able to hear or see what was happening but there were physical limitations as to how many could fit in the relatively small negotiator’s van. The other alternative, running lengths of cable, required close-proximity parking in most situations and the cables were a nuisance. CommandLink i900 was the result.

Over the course of a year, we had SWAT commanders asking to GPS track their operators on an iPad. We added that. Others wanted a whiteboard function. We added that. Now you can click on a robot to see its video stream. Same with a Sentinel surveillance unit. We added repeaters to the surveillance unit so  you can go double the distance or bounce signals around buildings, all because someone on the job said, “Hey, you know what we really need?”

It’s one of those conversations that has us working on a SWAT robot. It’s not a throw bot, because there are several good ones out there. It’s not a big Remotec F6A that, while powerful and imposing, is too heavy and awkward for many situations and too expensive for most agencies to buy on their own (and the lack of Federal grants is, as we all know, a huge impediment to agencies buying ANYTHING). Our robot is mid-size. It’s about $30K. It’s got a good arm/gripper arrangement that will open doors. It will climb stairs. It doesn’t get tangled up in towels and socks on the floor. It can see over couches and in windows. In short, as one customer said, “Can you make it so that it’s kind of a mini-tactical officer? We don’t want to have to get out there WITH it. That defeats the purpose.”

And that is one of our chief complaints about tactical robots—and the way companies make officers bend their practices to the limitations of the equipment. We’ve been on training call outs with SWAT teams where the robot operator walks about 50 feet behind the “tactical” robot, making it less tactical and more dangerous as the operator pays more attention to the video monitor and less to his surroundings. The reason is because the radio control system doesn’t have enough range, power or penetration to allow officers to stay behind cover while operating the robot. The only solution is to send cover officers. Now you have two or three men downrange in a hostile environment, one driving a robot that is SUPPOSED to be there doing the job of a person so that the people—the men and women we work with and who have spouses and kids and dogs at home that will miss them if they don’t come back—stay safe. The robot, while arguably lovable in its own way, will not be nearly as missed as an officer should it take a shotgun blast to the video camera.

Trailing after a robot because the radio doesn’t have enough punch is bad tactics. And it’s a ridiculous necessity that robot manufacturers should be ashamed to ask of officers. We have the best digital radio control system available, with a mile line-of-site range and terrific penetration capabilities. We have a repeater. We’ve had the ability to keep you all as safe as possible as you do your jobs.

To be honest, we really weren’t planning on making a robot. But, after we’ve received so many requests, it just seemed like the right thing to do. After all, as with everything we make, there is a definite and identifiable need. And if it will make it possible for us all to get home at the end of the day, then I think it’s worth building. Look for it coming soon!

Who the heck am I to tell a cop what he needs to get the job done?

Who the heck am I to tell a cop what he needs to get the job done?

Most Lithos customers see my name on the website or in an email with “director of marketing and sales” after it. I know, typical white collar business guy, right? Not so long ago, I was a cop. How I came to the place in life where I appear in direct emails and trade shows is a story of good luck followed by really bad luck followed by good luck again.

This is my second marketing career. A long time ago, before I was a cop, I was a marketing director. I hadn’t set out to be one. It just sort of happened. To be honest, it an accidental career path. I come from a family of cops. My dad was a Buffalo Police Officer for 20 years. I was raised in a household where talk was tough—and dad was tougher. And I was going to follow in his footsteps, that was certain from an early age.

Then my father got sick—cancer—and, on his deathbed (literally) he asked me not to become a soldier or a cop. So, I went to college for graphic design and English. I became a freelance writer and graphic designer. I started a small graphics software business that evolved into an ad agency. Later, I went into public relations and then leapfrogged up the corporate ladder until I held a couple of director-level jobs in marketing. I was successful. And bored.

And then 9/11 happened. As someone who was raised by a cop, I grew up with a cop’s sense of responsibility for his community. Frankly, I had a hard time watching other people taking care of the injured, looking for the bad guys, and seeing my neighbors in fear of the terror that unfolded that day. As it was for many Americans, it was a life-altering time. So, I tried to enlist in the Marines and Army. Both said I was too old. Today, they’d snap up a fit, willing applicant in his mid-thirties. One recruiter suggested a different path. “Try law enforcement,” he said. “Serve closer to home.”

So, I did.

I became a deputy sheriff in a rough part of Florida. It was a great place to be in law enforcement. Lots of drugs (85% of all prescription drugs sold in the US are in Florida, and we had the highest per capita usage of crack cocaine in the nation for a while), home invasions, endless burglaries, gang violence, and more drugs. Florida is the wild west. There’s something about the heat, the mix of cultures, the inherent transience that makes it a hotbed for bad behavior. Have you ever watched America’s Most Wanted? Where do they find all of the fugitives? Yep. Florida.

Since this is going to be read mostly by other in law enforcement, I can say this without giving away any secrets: being a cop is the most fun you can have while working. Yeah, it’s stressful, it’s dangerous, and it can be tedious. But, you see more in a shift than most people do in a lifetime. You experience more in a year than civilians do in a lifetime. And you take it all in stride. I loved it. I was on the bomb squad. I went to every tactical school I could find. I was a patrol defensive tactics trainer. I tried it all and it was fantastic. Law enforcement is a great profession for people who like to keep learning. This was the first good luck part of the story: I had opportunities to learn everything I could want to in the law enforcement catalog of study topics.

But what happens when you stop being a cop? I couldn’t really imagine that possibility but I figured I had about fifteen years to figure that out. Except I was wrong. One speeding driver, a missed stop sign, and a nearly head-on collision at a combined speed of about 110mph changed that. That is the bad luck part of the story.

In my case, I was lucky. I fell but landed on my feet—and running! I went to work for Lithos Robotics, a company with whom I had been consulting for six years after meeting the company president at a bomb robot demo. We hit it off. By sheer coincidence, the company was based not only in my hometown but 100 yards from my older sister’s back door. This is the good luck part.

Allen Mann started the company that would become Lithos Robotics twenty years ago. He is passionate about what the company does. He, too, was moved by the events of 9/11 and wanted to help create new ways to keep America safe. The company did a lot of Department of Defense work to start with, but eventually domestic law enforcement became Lithos’s focus.

Allen is not a cop, but he GETS it. Some people get it; most don’t. Allen gets it. He gets it that the job is dangerous and that, at the end of the day, we all want to get home to our families. And he gets it that technology can help this happen. He gets it that cops break things. (Let’s be honest…the term “cop proof” didn’t come about on its own.) He gets it that, though we mean to, cops will not really train much with their equipment until the day of the callout—and then it needs to be easy to use and foolproof. Or cop proof, in this case. 

I could have gone to work for a lot of companies. I have a diverse background and can do that whole white-collar corporate thing if I have to. But, that would take me away from the career I CHOSE: law enforcement. One of our customers, a grizzled SWAT sergeant still on the job but well past retirement age,  said to me after a demo at his agency: “You never stop being a cop, you know. You may have this job but you are still a cop. You’ve see too much to go back.”Fortunately, I don’t have to go back. I get to hang out with some of the brightest, most talented SWAT, EOD and crisis negotiators in America. Hopefully, I get to make a difference in their lives and maybe—just maybe—I will be responsible, at least in part, for making sure one of my brothers or sisters gets home at night after a rough callout.

So, who am I to try to tell you what you need to get your job done? Actually, it’s the other way around. I don’t tell YOU what you need to get the job done. You tell ME. And I tell my boss and he will make it for you. That’s the real reason I picked Lithos. The company is adamant in its belief that the real experts are the boots on the ground. You know what you need. It’s our job to make it come to life.  

That old sergeant was right: despite the tie and white collar (which, to be honest, I never actually wear), I am still a cop. And I look forward to many more years of service to the law enforcement community even if my uniform looks a little different these days.

Richard Williamson

Director of Marketing and Sales

Former cop