Hoyo Tech, a Macedonian software company specializing in smart home automation, has received an award of recognition by Deloitte. This is the second company this year to be recognized by Deloitte, after Adeva, which received the recognition Fastest 500 in North America.
For Hoyo Tech, this is the second time to be on such a list. In 2022, the company was on the list Companies to Watch, and now it is the winner of the recognition Impact Star for companies in Central Europe.
This was an opportunity to talk with the co-founder of the company, Dimitar Stojkoski, about what they do and how they got on the Deloitte list.
Who are Hoyo Tech? When was the company founded, how many employees are there and what are you working on?
Hoyo Tech is a Macedonian software company that was founded in 2018.
Our story started with an idea to make an IoT solution for home automation (Smart Home system). After numerous researche, we realized that the IoT products for Smart Home that are available on the market are not complete and have certain shortcomings. Some solutions were extremely expensive and others did not offer adequate protection and privacy.
This is where our innovation came into play, to come up with our own solution to fill the gaps of IoT devices on the market and we believe that with Hoyo Home we have achieved that. We managed to create a product that will help our users to manage their homes more efficiently and at the same time the system will help them in their daily activities, home security, as well as to save electricity. We believe that these are key factors that play huge role when it comes to implementing a Smart Home solution in their home.
Apart from Hoyo Home as the main product, in our portfolio we include a Fleet Management system as well as several other software solutions that are still in the development phase; hence we are not ready to discuss them in more detail for the time being.
As a software company, we also offer the development of complete software solutions from idea to full realization.
Our company currently has over 35 employees in 4 offices in Skopje, Struga, Pristina and New York.
How did you end up on Delloite’s Impact Start achievement list in Central Europe?
Every year, Delloite gives companies the opportunity to submit financial reports and a company presentation. Based on that, Delloite analyzes and evaluates the companies and prepares their lists.
This is the second year in a row that we are the only Macedonian company to be on one of Delloite’s lists.
Last year we found our place on the list for the “Companies to watch” category.
What is a current trend in the Smart home industry that was not a thing 3 years ago?
In the last few years we have noticed an accelerated trend of new IoT devices coming to the market. Among them, the most common are appliances from white goods that we use every day in our homes. From smart vacuum cleaners that know when they need to clean to smart refrigerators that tell us and notify us about the status of the products inside.
Fortunately, we successfully predicted this trend that we are seeing now and from the very beginning we adapted our product to be able to constantly upgrade and support these devices. The main goal of Hoyo Home is to aggregate all the IoT devices that exist in a given home and control them from one central place. The IoT industry itself by adopting specific unified standards helps us to be able to constantly upgrade our system to support the latest IoT appliances and devices. With this, we as a company can guarantee our users that they will always be up to date with the latest and most popular technological trends.
The second and most important trend is the application of artificial intelligence in the IoT industry. This opens new doors and opportunities for complete automation of some processes. Artificial intelligence contributes to the smart system itself working autonomously, analyzing user needs and making decisions that will improve the user experience. We believe that this is the future of the IoT industry and that we will soon see a huge benefit, especially when it comes to saving electricity by using Smart Home systems.
Which project are you most proud of?
This is a difficult question that I don’t think I could answer. That’s like asking parents about their favorite child; we can’t pick one because we love all of them equally. But if we talk about the products that I have personally worked on in my professional career, I would definitely say that Hoyo Tech is the project that I am most proud of.
What are your thoughts on the skepticism surrounding the security of Smart home solutions?
Security is one of the key points in the original idea of Hoyo Home. The whole idea started from the concept of making a secure IoT solution in order to break this skepticism. As I mentioned, there are many IoT devices on the market and one feature that connects 95% of them is that they all require internet access. In general, the entire process of using an IoT device involves it being constantly connected to the Internet and sharing every status with a Cloud server.
Our solution works with a local IoT server and thus we guarantee that all user data remains local and no so-called Data Harvesting is performed. Modules that apply artificial intelligence use exclusively local data to be able to learn most precisely from the settings of the given user and adapt only to his needs and preferences.
For greater flexibility, we also offer mobiles through which the user can control his home. To ensure that privacy is preserved we use state-of-the-art encryption in the entire communication process with a direct connection of the mobile application to the local IoT server.
What 5 tips would you give to users of Smart Home devices to increase their security?
First of all, it must be taken into account that the market is flooded with IoT devices that have the sole purpose of collecting user data. Although they seem attractive, I would still advise users to make an informative decision about the product before implementing it in their home.
I feel these 5 tips that can guide you towards increasing the level of security in your home:
1. To buy products from a known manufacturer that is subject to some regulations (EU or USA).
2. By using devices for early detection of a problem, it is possible to react in time and prevent any accident.
3. The use of alarm systems helps timely intervention in case of robbery.
4. Using a smart video doorbell that has the ability to detect motion drastically contributes to home security.
5. Video surveillance systems are the most relevant asset for maintaining the security of your home.
What’s next for Hoyo Tech?
Currently, we are ambitiously working on several new products that we want to bring to the market.
Soon we are planning to open an online store that will offer a different experience in creating a smart home on the market, and with a new smart office, which we will soon open in Skopje, all interested customers will be able to come and try our system.
Subscribe
Login
0 Comments
