Calgary company ZeroKey helps create factories of the future with its market-leading combination of wide-area and millimetre-level 3D tracking technology. The company provides users the ability to locate objects in a 3D space and track them digitally with incredible accuracy.
“Our technology provides the highest accuracy in the world. We’re two orders of magnitude more accurate than the next closest competitor. There’s no other wide area solution that can compete with us on that point,” said Matt Lowe, co-founder and CEO of ZeroKey.
Lowe started ZeroKey with an augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR) concept. “That's where the name ZeroKey came from – we were going to build a virtual keyboard, or in other words, a keyboard with zero keys,” said Lowe.
While building their technology, one of the largest automotive manufacturers in the world caught wind of their work and its possible uses in an industrial environment – tracking objects and processes in a factory in 3D space – a blue-sky concept that now makes up 80 per cent of their current business.
ZeroKey’s product Smart Space is described as a wide-area acoustics-based indoor positioning system, which works indoors where GPS signals can’t reach. It provides building-wide millimetre-level 3D tracking of objects using a coin-sized IIoT sensor that communicates with other sensors and nodes placed throughout a space. The position data it generates is used in a variety of applications such as workflow automation, inventory tracking, and health and safety.
“If you want to locate where something is in an industrial environment, if you want real-time quality control on manufacturing processes, if you want to improve health and safety in a hazardous area, our technology can do that better than anything else right now,” said Lowe.
Zerokey is positioned as a main player on the global stage of technology development and its success is a feel-good story for the tech and innovation ecosystem in the city.
“I think there are new realities in terms of what the future economy of Alberta will look like,” said Lowe. “We've got so much momentum from great tech startups in Calgary, the sector is here to stay, and it's growing so rapidly that the future’s very bright.”
For the full story on ZeroKey and more on Calgary’s tech and innovation ecosystem, visit Live Tech, Love Life.