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Yale and August U.S.: The smart lock that let you keep the key
August put a motor on the inside of the door and left the familiar key outside. Paired with Yale, that small concession became a business in deciding who gets in, when, and how.
DSR makes the smart home speak the same language
A sensor, a gateway and an app walk into a house. DSR does the unglamorous engineering that lets them have a conversation - and has turned that skill into shared software for chipmakers and identity builders.
SmartThings and the house that couldn’t ask for help
A damaged Colorado house inspired a company built to make ordinary objects report extraordinary trouble. Samsung gave SmartThings a much larger stage - and a much harder promise to keep.
Tuya Put the Cloud in 1.2 Million Device SKUs - Then Learned the Price of Being Everywhere
Tuya became the invisible plumbing behind a crowded smart-device aisle. When the pandemic boom snapped, it stopped chasing every customer and rebuilt around larger accounts, software-rich hardware and AI that can finally do more than switch on a bulb.
Nanoleaf's Solar Idea Had Nowhere to Sell - Then It Turned Light Into Lego
Three engineers began with a solar product nobody knew how to buy. Their escape route - a homemade Kickstarter video, a $35 origami-like bulb and, eventually, modular panels - offers a practical lesson in turning efficient hardware into something people can see, share and want.
The $12 Relay That Wants to Run Your Whole House
Shelly's tiny relays slip behind the switches you already own and quietly automate the house - no hub, no subscription, and a following of DIY installers who treat local control like a religion.
The Company Behind the Switch: How Jasco Quietly Wired 100 Million Homes
You may not recognize the name Jasco, but you have probably handled its work. The Oklahoma City company built a 50-year business by hiding in plain sight - behind familiar brands, ordinary household problems and an uncommon promise to give half of its owned-brand profits away.
Ayla Networks
The smartest thing in a connected appliance may be the infrastructure its owner never sees. Ayla Networks supplies that hidden stack - from firmware to cloud to app - for brands that want the benefits of IoT without surrendering the customer relationship.
CANDY HOUSE
CANDY HOUSE, Inc. is the consumer-hardware company behind Sesame, the retrofit smart lock that mounts over an existing deadbolt with adhesive tape and turns a smartphone, fingerprint, card, PIN or face into a key. Founded in 2014 by Stanford engineer Jerming Gu and famous for a 2015 Kickstarter that raised about $1.4M, the company built an open ecosystem around SesameOS - locks, touch and face readers, a coin-sized Matter hub, sensors and finger robots - aimed at making smart-home access affordable, rental-friendly and developer-open.
Jerming Gu
Jerming Gu is the Taiwanese founder and CEO of CANDY HOUSE, the company behind SESAME, the smart lock that clamps onto an existing deadbolt and turns a smartphone into a key. He started the company as a Stanford mechanical engineering master's student in 2014 with co-founder Jongho Shin, then turned a 3D-printed dorm-room prototype into a Kickstarter phenomenon that raised roughly $1.4 million in 2015. After a decade building a dominant smart-lock business in Japan - including funding from ITOCHU and a strategic alliance with lock maker MIWA - he relaunched CANDY HOUSE in the US and Canada in 2025 with a lineup spanning SESAME 5, face recognition, palm-vein biometrics and Matter-compatible hubs.
John Grady
John Grady is the CEO of Ayla Networks, a San Jose-based IoT and smart home software platform that powers over 15 million connected devices and 250 billion annual transactions for brands like SharkNinja, De'Longhi, Canadian Tire, and Schneider Electric. A Boston College and Indiana University Kelley School of Business graduate with 20+ years in technology sales and operations, Grady rose through roles at Brown Brothers Harriman, Covad Communications, Pace PLC, ChargePoint, and Solar Mosaic before joining Ayla in January 2022 as Head of Global Sales and ascending to CEO in 2024. Under his leadership, Ayla was ranked the #1 US-based Smart Home Platform by ABI Research and announced a major Google Cloud partnership in April 2025.