We Brought Our Own Expertise Into The Engineering Of Billion Capture+ Smartphone: Smartron
Indian OEM and IoT brand Smartron has collaborated with Flipkart as the Design & Engineering partner for Billion Capture+ smartphone. Mahesh Lingareddy, Founder and Chairman, Smartron tells BW Businessworld about partnership through which Smartron aims to extend the tronX ecosystem to third party brands.
You have already launched Smartron smartphones. Why did you choose to design Flipkart’s Billion Capture+?
I think I would go back to what we had said when we introduced tronX back in July, where we talked about making tronX the backbone of the entire connected ecosystem in the country. Our aim is to develop and design our own products under the Smartron brand and also work with other partners who can develop products and run their devices with tronX or fuel up with tronX.
This Flipkart partnership is the first step towards our goal of building this ecosystem. In our collaboration with Flipkart while we have essentially designed, engineered and manufactured this particular smartphone, it will also come with the tronX platform integrated in it with our own stock Android software.
Being in the sub 10K category, will Billion Capture+ affect the sales of srt.phone?
Smartron is essentially an IoT company and our devices across categories will be a part of a connected ecosystem that we are building around tronX. This partnership is Smartron's first step in the 'Powered by tronX program to extend the tronX ecosystem to third party brands and is aimed at giving partner devices, whether they are smartphones or computing devices or wearables or smart home things, access to tronX's assistive and predictive AI capabilities. Hence, even though both srtphone and Billion Capture+ compete in the same price segment, our end objective of expanding the tronX ecosystem is met and that is what we are aiming for.
What goes behind your partnership with Flipkart for Billion Capture+? Do you also manufacture or assemble the phone?
Smartron is the design and manufacturing partner for Flipkart for the Billion Capture+ phone. The hardware has been designed and manufactured by Smartron, and the features have been customised as per the needs of consumers, which has been derived from Flipkart’s own data research. Flipkart has an in-depth market intelligence in terms of consumer preferences. They have shared many important inputs in finalising the specifications and prototyping of the product besides the price point and we brought in our own expertise into the design, engineering and specs of the product.
What exactly does powered by tronX mean?
tronX is an AI powered IoT platform that ushers the users into Smartron’s Ambient Computing Future! Deeply integrated into operating systems on Android powered devices and voice enabled smart speakers, tronX is a first of its kind, intelligent ecosystem that connects a range of devices, sensors and systems across varied communication platforms.
A kind of next gen OS, tronX offers a rich, seamless user experience and delivers highly intelligent services and care, all driven through the power of IoT and AI with voice enabled solutions focused on Indian languages and accents. With every user being different, tronX tailors the experience to cater to each one in a way that’s most personalised and non-intrusive. Right from deep partner integrations for travel(flights, cabs), entertainment(movies, music, events), e-commerce(shopping, budgeting, health), news & smart home experiences for the end consumer to process automation, energy & efficiency control, traffic and road management for enterprises, tronX does all of this and more through its AI augmented IoT interface.
To extend these rich experiences and intelligent services to devices and programs outside of Smartron’s, the brand has created the ‘Powered by tronX’ program. This program gives the partner devices, whether they are ambient computing devices or smart switches and sensors or voice enabled speakers, access to tronX’s assistive and predictive AI working seamlessly to give an unmatched end user experience.
Are you planning to partner with other players in the future? Are they going to be Indian or International brands?
With tronX, Smartron is aiming to build a connected ecosystem of products, systems and services that are powered by AI. This will include strategic partnerships with brands/players across different categories and industries. The Flipkart Billion partnership is the first step in this journey and we will be announcing more such partnerships as and when they are finalised.
Will tronX work in Billion Capture+ similarly to how Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant or Siri works in other phones?
We have our own master language processing engine like Amazon’s Alexa and Apple’s Siri. However, it is much more advanced and more suited for the Indian consumers since we have kept the contexts like languages and accents in mind. We have developed our own voice recognition engine for all our devices built into one big ecosystem based on our own tronX.
When are you planning to launch all verticals of tronX- Personal, Home, Health, and Infra?
We announced our AI powered IoT platform tronX with four different verticals: tronX- Personal, Home, Health and Infra a few months ago. We are currently developing devices across computing, smartphones, wearables and auto. We are expecting to roll out products under these segments in the next 8-10 months under the Smartron brand and a few powered by tronX announcements as well in the same timeframe.
