Indian Startup Smartron Unveils Its First Smartphone – tphone

Smartron, a Hyderabad and Bangalore-based tech-hardware company, has launched tphone, a 5.5” premium android smartphone, as part of its tronx ecosystem that includes all of its hardware, software, cloud, care, and community platforms.

tphone is an ultra thin smartphone with features like 64 GB expandable inbuilt memory, 13 MP main camera, 4 MP front camera, multi-touch with Gorillas Glass 3 with Apical Assertive Display technology. It has some unique features like superior noise cancellation technology, backed by inbuilt 4 mic array making voice conversation loud and clear at all times. Plus the surround sound is supported by the specially designed sound chamber with DTS premium sound & DTS PlayFi.

The tphone is priced at INR 22,999/– and will be available for registration on gadget360.com and smartron.com. The product will be available on sale early June 2016 on Smartron tstore and Gadget360.com.

Mahesh Lingareddy, ex-Intel and co-founder of silicon startup Soft Machines, launched Smartron in August 2014, which came out of stealth mode in March this year. At the same time, it announced Sachin Tendulkar as one of its key strategic shareholders, and also roped him as company’s brand ambassador.

The main idea is to build an India based global technology OEM (original equipment manufacturer) company, riding the Internet of Things (IoT) wave. “India has only focused on services over the last two decades while China though started off as manufacturing hub but lately become home to many fast growing brands like Lenovo, Huawei, Xioami and Alibaba to Baidu. A strong product ecosystem is the key to long term growth and value,” Mahesh said.

What’s In Store?

In March this year, the company launched a convertible ultrabook, which is a 12.2”-inch, Windows 10, 2-in-1 t-book, with an all metal unibody powered by Intel Core M processors. It features a flip-stand and keyboard, with 4 GB RAM and is priced at a range starting from INR 39, 999.

The aim is to build an app store for hardware where one can buy products from both Smartron and other smaller manufacturers who are unable to sell these on their own. As per Mahesh, current app stores focus on software, content and services.

We have launched an “open innovation platform” called crowdtron through which we plan to crowd source a range of IoT products and offer them through the smartron tronx platform.

Smartron is developing a variety of next generation smart devices and systems with integrated cloud services and care, targeting consumer, enterprise, industrial, and infrastructure markets. The company is innovating in the areas of smart, sensor, AI, robotics, and big data technologies to bring next generation of IoT ready devices that are more autonomous and intelligent built on the concept of “Internet of TronsTM” to deliver the seamless tronx experience.

It currently has R&D centers in Bangalore and Hyderabad; it is further planning to open more centres across India to support growth plans. Also, there are plans to partner with various local manufacturing companies to encourage local manufacturing ecosystem. “India lacks a robust innovation infrastructure. It is very difficult to build capital intense R&D driven companies which require a long time to market and break-even. Everyone is focused on building another restaurant or food app. But, now we need real product companies and brands,” added Mahesh.

Making Devices ‘Talk To Each Other’

In the coming years, Smartron plan to have a range of devices that run powerful artificial intelligence and deep learning system on all its devices (trons), and are able to talk to each other seamlessly to make people lives simpler and smarter. This means that by using hardware, software and cloud platforms, all data like contacts, SMS, photos, etc., will be available across devices. So, when a person buys a laptop and phone from Smartron, if he gets a message on his phone, he will be able to answer messages from laptop.

Presently, one can sync photos between phone and cloud with Google Photos or iCloud and contacts via gmail, etc. However, Smartron wants to simplify the process by aggregating all the services under one window — tronx.

As said by Mahesh, “With IoT, we are going from a handful of devices per household to tons of devices like wearables, smart bulbs, smart cameras, smart appliances etc. It is no longer just a desktop/laptop PC and a smart phone/tablet. The challenge is to make all these devices talk to each other and move the data across these devices, seamlessly, in order to provide timely and highly intelligent information to the user.”

IoT Ecosystem In India

Major companies active in IoT space in India are Intel, Cisco, Volkswagen, Hero Motor Corp, MediaTek, Apollo Hospitals, Bharti Infratel, IBM and more. Some emerging startups in this space are Altiux, Altizon Systems, Cooey, Ecoaxis, Entrib, Span, Maven Systems, Nexiot, Sensegiz, Yuktix, etc. Majority of these ventures are flourishing in four major cities of India, viz. Bangalore, Mumbai, Pune, and Hyderabad.

As per a Nasscom projections, India will capture 20 per cent market share in Internet of Things (IoT), which would be worth $300 Bn by 2020, specifically in manufacturing, energy, transportation, medical, and other industrial sectors.