Will Reliance’s JioGate Be Able To Survive In Security Management Space?

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Group generated a lot of buzz with the recent launch of JioGigafiber and wooed Indian startups with its partnership with Microsoft Azure for cloud services. The company has been continuously acquiring startups to support its ambitions, with Mumbai-based VR startup Tesseract being the recent one.

Reliance Jio has now launched a security management app, JioGate. A company which has leveraged acquisitions to enhance its capabilities and launch an ecosystem of products with it, Reliance’s JioGate looks like an addition which is bound to make ripples. 

What Is JioGate?

The company has defined JioGate as the “most convenient solution to manage entry and exit of your visitors, daily staff, deliveries, cabs and more. We are changing the way security management processes are handled to make your premises more safe and secure, leading to crime-free and theft-free community environments.”

The app has recorded over 500 installs on Google Play Store. It is compatible with devices that run Android 4.1 and above. For Apple users, it requires iOS 10 or later.

Here are the features, JioGate is offering:

• Visitor management – With just a simple passcode, your guests can enter your apartment complex. No registrations are required.
• Domestic help management – Residents can get notified when their domestic helps enter and leave the complex. Their attendance can also be recorded automatically.
• e-Intercom – JioGate lets you set up your smartphone as the intercom. This enables you to accept or deny visitors from wherever you are.
• Delivery management – The app helps residents verify the entry of sundry delivery boys. So, you get notified when your food and grocery orders, Amazon and Flipkart parcels and everything else is at the gate.
• Panic alerts – With one long press, you can automatically send your live location to the security guard and your family members. The app allows users to set a mobile number as their ‘Panic Contact’.

However, there is still no word on when JioGate will go live or whether it is already in testing at select apartment complexes.

Further, scanning through user reviews, the start doesn’t look really great for JioGate. Several users highlighted JioGate as a copy of Bengaluru-based MyGate, a mobile-based security management solution for gated premises.

Also other users, who were unable to register themselves, questioned the use of app. The app allows only societal managers to enroll users, i.e first your society should register on JioGate, then only you can.

JioGate: Similarities With MyGate, Gatekeeper, Etc?

At most residential premises in urban cities, hardware still forms a major part of the traditional security system in the form of access cards, biometrics, car stickers and so on. These solutions are capital intensive, work in isolation and the benefits tend to wane over time. Moreover, they came in with apps such as MyGate.

Bengaluru-based MyGate solves security and visitor problems with an intelligent app-based solution in gated premises. The company offers a comprehensive solution for gated communities to manage operations at the entry and exit gates. It also saves cost for deploying any other isolated systems like RFID cards, fingerprint biometrics, access cards, vehicle stickers, etc.

Other players include CommonFloor Smart Guard App, using which communities can let the security guards record the movement of visitors (Staff/ Guests/ Vendors) in the mobile app, send automatic SMS alerts to residents on a guest’s arrival to ensure authorized entry.

Talking to Inc42, Abhishek Kumar of MyGate said, “From MyGate’s standpoint our tagline is simplifying urban living and we continue to believe in the same. Not surprising to see that Jio also believes that there is some relevance for them as well. Overall, community and convenience is going to be a big space with potential to build large valuable company and that’s what our focus has been and will continue to be the same.”

As per a Grant Thornton report, the security services market in India is a $6 Bn industry of which the gated-premise security market, comprising of manual guards and security equipment, is estimated at $2 Bn. Having disrupted the industries it has ventured into, the question now arises is — Will Jio continue to keep up the trend with JioGate?