JSTER.

• Author: Peterson, Eric
• Position: TECH STARTUP

WHERE: DENVER

WEB: WWW.JOSH.AI

FOUNDED: 2013

INITIAL LIGHT BULB:

Tim Gill, well known in Colorado as the founder of Quark, started developing the artificial intelligence behind JSTAR to automate his Denver home in 2012.

"It was his personal project," says Gill's co-founder, Alex Capecelatro. "He was just hacking around on his own." Gill would use it to turn on lights and music, adjust the heat and air conditioning, and otherwise coordinate all of his connected devices.

As Gill perfected "his own personal smart home," he connected with Capecelatro to start JSTAR.

The duo named their Al "chatbot" interface JOSH, honed its personality and linguistic processing, and launched the product in September 2016.

JSTAR currently has about 15 employees split between its Denver headquarters and an office in Los Angeles. Gill is the company's CTO and Capecelatro serves as CEO.

IN A NUTSHELL:

JSTAR's "black box" acts as the nerve center to automate all of the connected devices in a home, says Capecelatro. It integrates the devices with iPhones, iPads, Androids and other interfaces for voice control.

"We auto-populate the rooms," he says of the system. "Pretty much instantly, you can play The Beatles in the kitchen and turn on the lights in the living room."

The speech recognition technology is specifically designed for home automation and is more accurate than Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri, says Capecelatro.

"We're the only platform that can handle complex commands," he says. "We do a number of things that allow for an infinite number of commands strung together in a single breath."

For example, most systems might have trouble with a command like, "Play Simon and Garfunkel," and separate the two singers at the end. Not JOSH, says Capecelatro.

He anticipates launching JOSH in non-English-speaking countries by the end of 2017.

The system can be programmed for daily routines and adjust to users' lifestyles. "We're the only system that's focused on learning patterns in the home," explains Capecelatro. "The system gets smarter as time goes on."

Price is another differentiator, he...