Beyond the Device: Push to Talk with AINA

Caramie Huntington joins the Reid Estreicher and the Beyond the Device Podcast to discuss how AINA has evolved critical Push-to-Talk applications over multiple licensed and unlicensed bands with multiple devices that are worn on body and in-vehicle for law enforcement, first responders (fire/EMS), military, fleet and more.  

AINA is compatible with all major PTT applications, enabling instant communication in and around the vehicle while providing clear and crisp audio quality, amplifying all media sounds through a Bluetooth connection. This extremely rugged and water-resistant wireless microphone stays in constant charge, provided by an in-vehicle charging cradle. 

Transcript

Reid Estreicher (00:05): 

And we are live! By live, I mean we're rerecording this so we can edit it down, should we make any mistakes. Thank you so much for joining us for another episode of Beyond The Device. I'm joined today with a fantastic Caramie Huntington from AINA Push-To-Talk. What is AINA? What is Push-To-Talk? You'll hear it as PTT, LMR, all kinds of fun things. We're going to get into all that. Before we do, we're going to introduce Caramie to you guys. For those of you that are watching or listening, I work with Caramie, but you guys might not know who she is. Caramie, over to you. Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at AINA?

Caramie Huntington (00:38): 

Sure, absolutely. My name is Caramie, obviously, you've heard. I work with AINA PTT. You're going to obviously learn about PTT here real soon. I kind of manage a good chunk of their North American business book, book of business. I'm very excited to be here, very excited to be a partner with the 3Eye.

Reid Estreicher (01:00):

Awesome.

Caramie Huntington (01:01): 

Yeah. I don't know if you wanted me to lead into exactly what...

Reid Estreicher (01:04): 

No. No, totally fine. Actually, before we even get into what AINA is, I think it might be good to talk a little bit about push-to-talk because when you say PTT, it's like what is even PTT? Maybe like level set a little information and education for the folks. Before we get into PTT, what is PTT? We hear it a lot.

Caramie Huntington (01:22): 

Sure.

Reid Estreicher (01:23): 

It's push-to-talk, but what does that even mean?

Caramie Huntington (01:25): 

Sure. What does push-to-talk mean? Well, the start of push-to-talk over cellular specifically was back with the old Nextel phones. I'm sure a good chunk of us that are at least over 30 years old probably know a little bit about that if you're younger than... Well, I'm sorry you missed out on a really good time. Those are some...

Reid Estreicher (01:49): 

Missed out on a really fun time of annoying your friends.

Caramie Huntington (01:52): 

Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (01:52): 

Constantly chirping them.

Caramie Huntington (01:53): 

Constantly chirping in and saying hello.

Reid Estreicher (01:56):

Absolutely. Yep.

Caramie Huntington (01:57): 

Yeah. Essentially, that's what it is, is being able to chirp in quickly much like a walkie-talkie, Nextel created this original push-to-talk over cellular. It was specifically over cellular, but it was specifically over their network also, and only on their phones, which actually was a Motorola phone, but they had partnered to do that. Yeah. But it was going over the Nextel network. Anybody that had a Nextel phone and a Nextel network had the ability to chirp into somebody's pocket, "Hey, what's going on? How's it going?" That's the side of it, that is the consumer side of things, but they really took off when it came to business, like construction and public safety and things like that where it's really necessary to have immediate communication where you need to... Instead of dialing, making a phone call, doing all that...

Reid Estreicher (03:03): 

Looking up a number. Yeah.

Caramie Huntington (03:04): 

Looking up a number, going through the initial chit chat that's always, "Hey, how's it going?" "Oh, I'm doing good." Nobody cares. It's just, "Hi."

Reid Estreicher (03:14): 

Nobody cares. It's just that in a certain situation, it's not like, "How is breakfast?" It's like, "I got a guy bleeding to death. I just need you to get by," as the pleasantries.

Caramie Huntington (03:22): 

Yeah. "Hey, we need to move this truck here," or what have you. Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (03:26): 

Exactly.

Caramie Huntington (03:28): 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But in an enterprise realm, oftentimes if they need instant communication, they don't want to have to wait for a dial, look up the phone number, dial, wait for it to start ringing. There's a lot of just downtime that happens with that. Instant communication or Nextel's... What they called it was Direct Connect was just walkie-talkie over push over cellular, but only over their cellular network. What's cool about push-to-talk over cellular now is that it's not just push-to-talk over cellular. It's actually push-to-talk over IP and it's not directly connected to any cellular network, so you don't have to be on someone specific...

Reid Estreicher (04:22): 

Someone specific. Yeah.

Caramie Huntington (04:24): 

Yeah. Additionally, it's an over-the-top type solution. If you have some people, some friends or some coworkers or some whatever on a Verizon network and some of them on a T-Mobile network and some of them on a... Whichever network they... AT&T network, whichever network they prefer, you still have the ability to communicate with all of them with a single quick immediate push to communicate essentially solution.

Reid Estreicher (04:55): 

Got it. That's very cool. I don't think a lot of people are aware of that. Regardless of the carrier that you're on, you can still come over the top with this as a mechanism of communicating. I wasn't aware of that.

Caramie Huntington (05:07): 

Yeah. Yeah. That's the cool thing. It used to be very specific to that network or band or what have you, but not anymore. There's the old adage that there's an app for that, and that is the thought process that it brings it all over the top. As long as you've got the app and as long as the app is compatible with your device, then you have the ability to utilize it.

Reid Estreicher (05:34): 

All right. Then, is LMR the same thing as PTT essentially? It's not, right? Because LMR is the band. It's land mobile radio, but is that essentially the old school walkie-talkies use LMR? Am I getting that right or am I way off?

Caramie Huntington (05:49): 

Land mobile radio is... A walkie-talkie could be a land mobile radio as well. It's a different way of describing it. It really depends on what you're talking about. A land mobile radio could be a handheld device that's much like a walkie-talkie that's going over that or it could be like an in vehicle device where you've got a speaker microphone that's connected to that, or it could be in an office or something along those lines. Walkie-talkie is more of like a mobile type solution, but also not specifically an LMR, either an LMR typically uses big towers that enable them to have a little bit wider scope instead of going device to device. That's what most people think of when they think of a walkie-talkie is that it's jumping device to device.

Reid Estreicher (06:51): 

Got you.

Caramie Huntington (06:51): 

Whereas usually like an LMR radio is utilizing towers that are going to help you have a little bit bigger range, but you're never going to have the range of an IP type solution or a nationwide coverage type solution like what push-to-talk over cellular or push-to-talk over IP is.

Reid Estreicher (07:10): 

That's a big advantage, especially I think then if you're deploying a solution and you have to maybe use LMR, which might be outdated or expensive because of the limited availability of those towers, probably a lot more cost-effective to roll out PTT over LTE.

Caramie Huntington (07:30): 

Right. Absolutely. Especially since in... As I kind of mentioned, there's an app for that for everything now.

Reid Estreicher (07:37): 

Yeah, there is.

Caramie Huntington (07:38): 

Almost everybody is running some type of cellular type device. They already have a data connection and running a PTT type solution isn't going to be adding to their cellular usage by very much at all.

Reid Estreicher (07:58): 

Yeah. That makes sense. Yep.

Caramie Huntington (07:59): 

If you're already paying for one thing, why are you paying for a whole nother solution essentially for this LMR type thing? It didn't use to be those so...

Reid Estreicher (08:08): 

That makes sense.

Caramie Huntington (08:10):

... easy to get, because Nextel was the only thing. Then, it started to become the apps that did it, but now you're limited by the devices that can run these apps, or you also don't want to deploy a $1,100 phone into a construction site. That's scary.

Reid Estreicher (08:36): 

Yeah. Unless you bubble wrap it.

Caramie Huntington (08:39): 

Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (08:40): 

Exactly. Current PTT solutions then, do you want to transition and maybe talk about some of the things that you guys have as an offering? Then, we can talk about the different... Because I know there's Bluetooth and wifi and LTE we just discussed. Maybe that'd be a good transition between those.

Caramie Huntington (08:57): 

Yeah. Sure. Yeah. Talking about the different type of types of PTT solutions. As I mentioned, there's an app, which we all know nowadays, but maybe it's still not as apparent. Sometimes when you're thinking about the solution is that apps on a phone or a tablet or what have you can run over. They can be connected to an LTE network, but they could also be connected to a Wi-Fi network or you could be connected to a big network, like a Verizon or a T-Mobile or AT&T or what have you, but also there's a lot of companies that nowadays are starting to roll out their own private LTE networks so that you have a little bit more control over them.

Caramie Huntington (09:53): 

You can lock them down more, but it's just also so that you can ensure that your area is more covered with regards to having that connectivity. There can be dead spots with some of these different big carriers, but if you're rolling out your own private LTE, then you're going to ensure that you're connected everywhere on your job site or at your mine, or at your company. There's a lot of different things why you would want to have a private LTE network. Yeah. That's the idea is that you're always connected.

Reid Estreicher (10:41): 

I know we talked about cost, but why LTE for PTT? We'll only speak in abbreviations from here. Why LTE? Yeah. Is it just cost?

Caramie Huntington (10:55): 

It's hugely cost, but also... Hugely cost. You're definitely going to save money in going with a solution like that, but it's also you're not limiting yourself with range anymore. We could be sitting here talking directly with the app on our phones and I could be pinging you just like the old Nextel days and we're states apart. Right? There's no towers that you're having to work around or no, those types of towers, you obviously still have the LTE network that you're working around, but you're just way less limited by range. You're less limited by just a lot of things. Then additionally, there's way more functionality on a lot of these Android and iOS devices that enable more functionality. There's a little less functionality.

Reid Estreicher (11:57): 

Yes. That's a great point.

Caramie Huntington (11:57): 

Right.

Reid Estreicher (12:00): 

Yeah. Because if you have a mobile device, I don't know if it's a J series phone. It's like a whale device from Samsung, but if you've got a entry-level device like a Samsung or a Zebra or whatever, and then this is also an app on there, you still have all the functionality of that device, plus this piece of it. That makes a lot of sense versus just having a point-to-point device that you're using to talk or to annoy your friends as we were talking about earlier.

Caramie Huntington (12:25): 

Right. Right. Well, a lot of the radios now, you've got channels. You've got certain things that you can do that it's very directly about one-to-one communication or one-to-group communication, I guess, but you're still hefting to get to specific channels. You're still hefting to have a lot of people on one channel and hear a lot of radio chatter. Whereas with these apps and things that you can download onto these Android phones and things now, there's background stuff where you can be like, "Oh, I actually only want these four people to hear this at one time or these 20 people to hear this at another time." There's just more functionality and an application.

Reid Estreicher (13:16): 

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. You can lock it down more devices. Actually, I don't think we don't typically talk about it, but if you are using like a mobile, like an off-the-shelf customer like an entry-level cell phone or mobile device, excuse me, or a tablet and you are provisioning that to have the app on there, if you need that device or something else, you could always de-provision it. Then, you're back to the factory settings of that device and you can repurpose it versus having to completely refresh a fleet of devices that might be purpose-built. It's a lot more modular. Something we don't really talk about a lot, but it's a very valid point. You have some customer success stories as well. Shaw Earthworks being one of those. Securitas, I've got a fun fact about those guys. I think I might have shared it with you at one point and then Controlcom as well. Do you want to go through those and talk a little bit about AINA Push-To-Talk solution?

Caramie Huntington (14:18): 

Yeah. Sure. Interestingly enough, we skipped over one thing though that was really what helped Shaw Earthworks move on in their business. We actually have a video about this that is really easy to find on YouTube if you care to look at.

Reid Estreicher (14:40): 

Yeah. We'll put it in the description too for people so that they can see it. That's a quick and easy thing. It's okay

Caramie Huntington (14:48): 

Yeah. Sorry. Still getting over it. Still got the COVID hanging around in the old windpipes there.

Reid Estreicher (14:54): 

It's a permanent thing. We just got a permanent COVID thing hanging out.

Caramie Huntington (14:58): 

Yeah. But anyway, sorry, that also brings us back to where we are today. Anyway, yeah. The Shaw Earthworks, they were essentially patching to phase out their radios. There was some regulations that were necessary for them to upgrade their really, really old radios, and they did. Then, they basically failed them like one-third out of all of their radios worked properly in the areas that they were trying to service.

Reid Estreicher (15:33): 

Oh, yeah. Only a third worked properly? That's awful.

Caramie Huntington (15:37): 

Yeah. They spent thousands of dollars on it too. You can see it in the video too, but lots of money that they invested in it. Then, only a third of them worked properly. That's not great odds right there.

Reid Estreicher (15:55): 

Not great. That's a bad investment. That's a bad investment. Yeah.

Caramie Huntington (15:57): 

Yeah. Yeah. They started looking into other options and another solution... Well, one of the solutions that we have is very specific... I know we've talked a lot about Android iOS devices that can run this application that can support push-to-talk over cellular, and push-to-talk over IP. We also additionally have our own device that is a very specific purpose-built device. This is really great in instances where maybe you don't issue your company, a whole thing of phones, or you don't want to have to spend... Like I said, spending money on an Android or iOS device these days can be pretty costly. It can be pretty expensive.

Reid Estreicher (16:48): 

That is true.

Caramie Huntington (16:50): 

Additionally, you're also putting this consumer-developed device into an enterprise situation, which can typically be very rugged, a situation where you need something more rugged than a consumer device, essentially. Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (17:14): 

Yeah. It's kind of the bubble wrap comment. Yeah.

Caramie Huntington (17:18): 

The bubble wrap comment. Yeah. We made another device that has the ability to run said app on it, and it's very specifically purpose-built. Actually, I have one here. I could show you a picture of it. Yeah. It's specifically built with the app built-in. All you have is this tiny area to see what's going on, and that's meant to be. Additionally, maybe you don't want to be issuing phones or tablets because then you have to worry about them utilizing YouTube or Facebook or any of these other apps or webpages that they can go to. Then, you have to spend extra money on paying for an MDM and locking them down and mobile device management for anybody that is unaware of, again, [inaudible 00:18:13].

Reid Estreicher (18:12): 

Then, threat defense and the endpoint defense, and then you're on the network and managed detection response. Yeah. It gets a little long in the tooth, right?

Caramie Huntington (18:22): 

Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (18:23): 

Especially with all the security problems we're having in today's world.

Caramie Huntington (18:25): 

Yeah, totally. This device was developed so that there's nothing except the app built-in and that's what it is. It's just like an old walkie-talkie, except...

Reid Estreicher (18:39): 

What's the name of this one? Sorry to interrupt you.

Caramie Huntington (18:41): 

This one's called Kepler.

Reid Estreicher (18:43):

That's the Kepler? Okay.

Caramie Huntington (18:43): 

Yeah. I don't actually have one of our voice responders to show you because I just shipped one out for a customer demo. But anyway...

Reid Estreicher (18:56): 

That's the one that's...

Caramie Huntington (18:57): 

I'm sure you can... That one's the Bluetooth one that would go directly to the phone or tablet, Android tablets.

Reid Estreicher (19:04): 

That's the one that's being paired with the RAM Push-To-Talk solution powered by AINA.

Caramie Huntington (19:10):

Correct.

Reid Estreicher (19:10): 

We're going to talk about that a little bit later. We have a whole episode devoted just to that. There's some really cool stuff happening from the world of RAM and AINA. Be warned, or be aware, not warned. That was ominous for no reason, be warned. Sorry. Yeah. Securitas, they rolled this out. Going back to the device, the Kepler device specifically to be able to use that push-to-talk solution, that app, but it's on a device, not actually having the devices out in the feel like a consumer-grade device that could get broken.

Caramie Huntington (19:43): 

Sorry. No, that was a Shaw Earthwork stuff.

Reid Estreicher (19:45): 

Or Shaw Earthwork. Sorry, sorry.

Caramie Huntington (19:47): 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Shaw Earthworks did because they didn't want to have to issue devices. They have a more bring your own device type platform at their company. They didn't want to have to make sure that an app worked with everybody's phones and go in and download an app on all their phones and be dependent on them not running Spotify and YouTube and everything else all over it and then it not working properly. Then, they can't stay in contact with them. They said, "Okay. Well, we're used to radios. This is very much radio like basically 2.0.

Reid Estreicher (20:26): 

It's a radio.

Caramie Huntington (20:27): 

Yeah. It's a radio. It's just now, you have the ability instead of hefting to pay for the towers, instead of hefting to ensure that those towers work for you, you can go over an LTE network, but what's really cool with this one too is we have a built-in actual walkie-talkie like functionality.

Reid Estreicher (20:44): 

Oh, cool.

Caramie Huntington (20:47): 

Actually, if you have them and they're within range of each other, they can bounce back and forth. If you aren't on network, if you can't connect to LTE, you can't connect to wifi, then they have the ability to still have a backup mode of communication.

Reid Estreicher (21:06):

Awesome. See, this is the part where if I had one, I would've just chirped you in the video, see it works long distance. I don't have it. It's just my phone. Yeah. You still have a mode of communication, even if everything went down basically.

Caramie Huntington (21:21):

Correct. Yeah. Within a certain range, because again, it's really going back to what a walkie-talkie does where it's their direct device to communication. There is the ability to kind of [inaudible 00:21:31].

Reid Estreicher (21:31):

Correct. You're not going to [inaudible 00:21:32] to California. Right.

Caramie Huntington (21:33):

Correct. That's where you need the push-to-talk over IPU over cellular over wifi, what have you just like you would with any kind of phone. Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (21:44): 

Do you want to talk about Securitas? Because apparently, I can't wait to talk about them. I keep mentioning it apparently. Yeah.

Caramie Huntington (21:49): 

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

Reid Estreicher (21:50): 

I remembered all the details of what you were talking about, but I couldn't remember the freaking name. Shaw Earthworks and not Securitas, but now we're talking about Securitas and actually some amazing...

Caramie Huntington (22:01):

Correct.

Reid Estreicher (22:01): 

I wonder if anybody would know this without telling them, but it would be fun thing to put in the comments, if you guys know what Securitas originally started out as, the name of the organization before it became Securitas. If you guys know it, put it in the comment section. I would love to see if somebody can know it without Googling it. If you Google it, then it doesn't have the same trivia.

Caramie Huntington (22:22): 

Yeah. Don't be a cheater.

Reid Estreicher (22:23): 

Don't be a cheater, unless you want to cheat. Then, we can't do anything about that. Right? What about Securitas? How did they leverage AINA?

Caramie Huntington (22:30): 

Yeah. Securitas, they're basically a private security type company, in case you don't know who they are. They utilized what is basically our flagship product, which is that Bluetooth speaker microphone that I spoke to you guys about earlier. Again, when it comes to Bluetooth, it can be utilizing any device that has Bluetooth connectivity. To a certain extent, it has to have pretty good functionality when it comes to Bluetooth, but most devices these days do. Whether it's Samsung or iOS or Zebra or Sonim. There's a plethora of devices out there that we pair well with and that essentially marry well with. A lot of these apps, these different push-to-talk applications work really well on them. We have our own push-to-talk application.

Caramie Huntington (23:32): 

It's awesome, but we also have a myriad of partners that we work with that have their own push-to-talk applications that have been around for a while. There's some with the different carriers that they have their own and then there's other companies that also have their own push-to-talk apps. But like I said, it's not stuck on just a Samsung device. It could be an Apple device, a Zebra, Sonim], Kenwood, there's a bunch of different ones that we pair with. But anyway, ultimately the device was rolled out with them because they wanted to... Well, there was a couple different reasons, but they essentially wanted to keep their Android device securely, firmly, put in a pocket or somewhere where it wasn't going to get in the way of their security-type duties.

Since we've touched on several times over now, a consumer-type device is a lot more fragile. They wanted to have something that was also easier to engage with. When you're trying to engage with an app on your phone, you're like, "Ugh, got to unlock it. Got to open it up. Wait, where's the app. If it's running in the background, let's go find that app that's running in the background," which most of these push-to-talk ones are. Then, you got to find it. Then, you got to push a button. There's a whole lot of stuff that's involved in that whereas our Bluetooth speaker microphones, we've worked with all these different partners of ours, all of these different application partners and obviously our own to ensure that the speaker microphone itself when you press a button, it can engage that application from a black screen.

You're saving battery also on your Android iOS device from a black screen and be able to engage the push-to-talk application, so you don't have to go in, find the app, push a button, which is really important. Also, this doesn't have to do with Securitas, but if you're driving or something like that, you don't want to be trying to go touch a phone and...

Reid Estreicher (25:59): 

Well, it's illegal. You're not supposed to.

Caramie Huntington (26:00): 

Yeah. It's illegal, right?

Reid Estreicher (26:00): 

I know we all do it, but we aren't supposed to. You're not supposed to be on your phone when you're driving.

Caramie Huntington (26:05): 

Right.

Reid Estreicher (26:05): 

Yes. You can, very quickly, if it's on your shoulder, a police officer with their mic on their shoulder, you can just quickly lean over and say something. Also to the point of actually Securitas, if you're in a situation in security and you need to respond, I can't imagine. It's like you're pulling your phone out like, "Hang on, let me call this..." That's not really a good model. You probably need to be able to access communication immediately rather than unlocking it with your eyes, finding an app and then calling something in that's not really applicable.

Caramie Huntington (26:33):

Correct. Yeah. Another thing about that, that you mentioned when it comes to security is you still see all the time, these cops that they've got this like big bulky thing on their back, poking them and they've got the curly-cue coming up to their other device and they found that that could be a hazard for them in choking them and being able to...

Reid Estreicher (27:01): 

Yeah. Get into a fight. Yeah.

Caramie Huntington (27:02): 

Yeah. If they have to physically engage a suspect, then that could become a hazard. Having a Bluetooth type solution is a little bit... Typically, there's nothing there to choke you with or to wrap you up with or to get you tangled in.

Reid Estreicher (27:25): 

Yeah. Yeah. Then, you also talk... That was the solution. You get the mobile device in the pocket or somewhere on the body and then the actual Bluetooth handset somewhere else on the body easily accessible.

Caramie Huntington (27:43): 

Right. Then, another reason that they chose it was for its ability to be a lot more crisp and clear. That's also another thing that goes along with being able to utilize the media over a phone rather than some of the devices that are more purpose-built. They're a little more like...

Reid Estreicher (28:03): 

Yeah. Has anyone's been to the New York Subway systems? Hopefully not recently, because they're dangerous, but the [inaudible 00:28:11] will do something about that eventually. Fingers crossed. If you ever got a New York study subway and you've ever heard the intercom announcements, you can't make out a damn thing that anyone's saying. It's like they have the microphone in the back of their mouth while they're saying whatever train is... [inaudible 00:28:26] even if they do that anymore, haven't been in New York in years. But yes, the actual communication is not exactly crisp over some of those purpose-built devices because they're using whatever parts that they can source to make those devices.

Caramie Huntington (28:41): 

Right. Yeah. That's the same with... You go to the airport and you hear them talking on their walkie-talkie things too or their LMRs and you're like, "What?"

Reid Estreicher (28:51): 

How are you understanding it?

Caramie Huntington (28:52): 

It takes a trained ear to understand. Yeah. Yeah. You shouldn't have to train somebody's ear to understand very important, critical communication, which is what push-to-talk is, is immediate communication.

Reid Estreicher (29:04): 

Yeah, absolutely. Then, the other one was Controlcom from a use case perspective. Do you want to talk a little bit about those guys? Was it Controlcom, right?

Caramie Huntington (29:16): 

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It is. Very similar needs and wants as Securitas though. Just being able to utilize a solution that is crisp, clear, has great audio and that is quick and efficient that they can roll out alongside consumer-type devices enables them to keep the device more securely positioned, whether they put it in mount or in a pocket or something along those lines. There's a lot. We haven't talked too much about the whole mount situation, but being able to keep a tablet mounted or a phone for that matter mounted in a vehicle and leave it there and not be worried about moving away from it. That's really important. Being able to stay mobile, but keep these very expensive devices in a more secure fashion like in a mount or in a pocket.

Reid Estreicher (30:25): 

Yes. So they don't get lost because you don't want to replace them, that they're expensive to replace or...

Caramie Huntington (30:29): 

Or broken. Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (30:30): 

Or broken. Yeah.

Caramie Huntington (30:30): 

Yeah, exactly.

Reid Estreicher (30:31):

Securitas and Controlcom, kind of similar. Then, Shaw Earthworks, very different use case, but there's at least some decent information, but you did allude to mounting and tablets and mobile devices. Maybe a good time to pepper yet again that RAM and AINA are partnering to bring a really cool push-to-talk solution to market for people transport amongst other things. That's all I'm going to tell you right now. We got a whole episode coming to it and I'm going to allude to it one more again obnoxiously one more time before the end into this episode officially, but I also want to talk a little bit about competitive advantages for you guys.

Reid Estreicher (31:08): 

I think that's always a nice thing to highlight, specifically you don't manufacture in the China, which is a thing for a lot of people right now. The lead times coming out of Asia are huge to the point of... This is not an exaggeration or a lie. [inaudible 00:31:24] partner recently was talking about this 52 weeks. For those of you who aren't unfamiliar with the calendar, that's a year. That's a year. That's a year. Can you imagine that? If you were like, "Hey, I need to get this." It's like, "Sure. You can have it next year." That doesn't vibe. You guys are not manufacturing in China. You guys are manufacturing out of...

Caramie Huntington (31:46): 

We are manufacturing out of Europe, specifically out of Estonia. We do some part of our manufacturings in Finland, which is actually where our company is based out of. But good chunk of it is a lot of Estonia, which is just over the sea from Finland. Yeah. We don't run into as many problems when it comes to that. That's a huge reason why also we're trying to partner with 3Eye and Ram to bring this bundle together so that we can utilize 3Eye as being able to hold that stock product for us so that we don't... If, God forbid, anything crazy happens again, we still have stock because it's all sitting at 3Eye and we can just say, "Oh, we know who you can go get it from."

Reid Estreicher (32:40): 

Yeah. Hey, like I said, I'm super excited about this because of what we're bringing to market with RAM, and also because you guys have a great solution. It's not just the RAM portion of this, but it's a very unique solution that I think is needed for communication market. It's like one of those things that's like, "Yeah. Why haven't we disrupted this yet with the ubiquitous connectivity of LTE? It silly that hasn't happened sooner and more." The other thing I wanted to point out, I got my hands on one the other day, it's in the office for the RAM-AINA podcast we have coming up with you guys. We're actually going to demo it with Ambrose. He's going to be on... Shout out to Ambrose Spring. He's going to be demoing it, so I get a chance to play around with it.

Reid Estreicher (33:22): 

It's really well made. It's got a good feel to it. I think that's the quality piece of this. If you're pulling it in and out of a dock, it can't be getting stripped of its connectors. The thing is just very, very well made. I just wanted to point that out at least for my side. I don't know if you have any other additional things to add about the quality or if there's something in the manufacturing process that you do, but maybe it's just taking points or feedback from your customer base, but I thought the thing was very sturdy and it felt good in your hand. It wasn't too tiny or it wasn't too big.

Caramie Huntington (33:51): 

Yeah. Well, much like the RAM Solution, it is MIL-SPEC H10G. It's got all of those different things that we've put it through. Wind, dust, water, all of that has been taken into account. We specifically designed this device because we knew of the shortcomings when it came to some of these different competitors and honestly, our company came to be because we designed this device and presented it to... I don't know if you're familiar with Harris or I guess it's L3Harris, but anyway, they only are needing devices that are very, very, very, very, very ready for an environment that could be a little savage, I guess.

Reid Estreicher (34:51): 

I think that was five varies, I think. Did I hear five varies? That's MIL-SPEC H10Gs, five varies.

Caramie Huntington (34:57): 

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's very, very important. Oh wait, there's two more.

Reid Estreicher (35:02): 

There's some more. Seven. Seven, [inaudible 00:35:06]. I've talked about the partnership with RAM as I've alluded to that multiple times and we'll probably do it one more time, but you also have tested with a lot of the OEM manufacturers as well. You mentioned that a bunch, but I just wanted to come back to it from an iOS perspective or Android perspective, Zebra. I imagine Honeywell, you didn't mention them by name, but I imagine your devices work on Honeywell. Who am I forgetting? Sonim, QS-ERA. I'm sure there are a plethora of others out there that would also work, but again, I think it's just the intelligence of what you guys have created. It's not... Going back to the Nextel thing where it only works on one person's product or band. It's just as ubiquitous as the LTE platform that you guys are manipulating or have used to get and proliferate this solution into the market.

Caramie Huntington (35:58): 

Yeah. Yeah. I couldn't have said it better myself. That was perfect. Yeah, you're right. I can name all of our different partners. That would take a while. I think you named a good chunk of them though just right now.

Reid Estreicher (36:10): 

Okay. We can move on and we're done. Goodbye.

Caramie Huntington (36:14): 

You kind of hit them.

Reid Estreicher (36:15):

No, I'm kidding.

Caramie Huntington (36:15): 

Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (36:15):

No, that's...

Caramie Huntington (36:17): 

But again, also thinking about all of the different push-to-talk app providers out there too, we have ensured that their apps and our devices work well, so that again, we can stay ubiquitous in the market with regards to being able to provide a push-to-talk solutions to someone because you can provide an app, but that's one thing to really bring the full solution together. You really need that, the mount, the microphone, whatever it is that really comes into play for your specific application, but definitely a way to engage that application without hefting to boop, boop, boop, boop, boop.

Reid Estreicher (36:59): 

On the cell phone.

Caramie Huntington (37:00): 

Because then, you took away from the whole push-to-talk portion of it all, didn't you?

Reid Estreicher (37:06): 

Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Caramie Huntington (37:07): 

You might as well just go back to making a phone call.

Reid Estreicher (37:09): 

Yes. That is very true. Well, that will bring us to, I think the end of our episode. Before we go though, I do want to allude just one more time that RAM is partnering with AINA to bring a really cool push-to-talk solution to market that's going to be bundled exclusively through us, which is awesome. Even more selfishly, but I think we got to help the ability to solve a lot of problems with this. It's modular to an extent we're going after, like I said, the people transport segment of transportation to start, but there's a lot more coming and a lot more partnership announcements as well. Do you have any teasers or anything to add to that? Like I said, we're doing that episode next week, so that'll drop pretty quick and we want to get this information in the market for everybody. It might have something to do with FirstNet. I'm just throwing it out there. I'm just throwing it out there.

Caramie Huntington (37:58): 

Yeah. I think, like you said, people transport is definitely just the jumping off point. I think there's going to be a lot of opportunity out there that's going to be uncovered and that we already are looking into. I think what's really cool too is that we've got the super knowledgeable reps that know everything about these types of solutions and the types of markets that we should really be hitting.

Reid Estreicher (38:27): 

Well, thank you.

Caramie Huntington (38:27): 

I think it's going to be good.

Reid Estreicher (38:28):

I also think they're great.

Caramie Huntington (38:29): 

Yeah.

Reid Estreicher (38:29): 

I love our team. They're fantastic. Ambrose Bregg, Tony Gilchrist, Jalen Holly, Jonathan Schanke. Shout out to Danielle Zebell, director of sales. Awesome team. Thank you, Caramie, so much for making time. I sincerely appreciate it. I hope you guys learn something. I know I always do when I'm with you. I thought this is an awesome episode. If you liked it, please click the like button. Subscribe if you want to hear more of these types of things. Also, if you guys want to post some comments in the comment section, let us know what you want to hear about these types of things, or if you have questions for Caramie or myself or 3Eye or AINA, whatever the case may be, you can post it in the comment section, or if you have any direct sales questions or inquiries, you can reach out to us at sales3eyetech.com, and sales@3eyetech.com. Thank you so much for tuning in for another episode of Beyond The Device, and be sure to check us out for the next one, featuring the RAM and AINA bundle. We'll see you on the internet. Bye guys.