Have you heard about Elbex ?

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Elbex now brings the future of home automation and home shopping to apartment buildings .

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David Elberbaum. Elbex

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/ By Yael Segev /

Entebbe, Uganda July 1976. An Israeli elite military unit breaks into Entebbe Airport in Uganda and against all odds, succeeded in rescuing more than one

hundred hostages, most of them Israelis held for seven days at Entebbe airport by Pro-Palestinian hijackers. One of the hostages, travelling from Israel to Paris, was David Elberbaum, a young Israeli entrepreneur, making his first bold steps in the Japanese electronics industry.

Tel Aviv, Israel, April 2013. David Elberbaum, 75, the founder of the Elbex group, one of the leading manufacturers of closed circuit television, video interphone, home automation and consumption reporting systems, was not surprised to hear about the significant role of the security cameras in the terror attack on Boston last week.

 In 1974, 2 years before his own terror experience, Elberbaum, an ambitious electronics engineer employed by an American trading company in Japan, was already able to foresee the full picture: the future of the “big brother” technology.

Today, Elbex, a multi-million dollar company has factories and R&D facilities in Japan, China and South Korea, branches in various countries around the world, manufactures a full range of security and home automation solutions. Elbex also has a patent portfolio of over 400 registered patents world-wide.

Its security cameras can be found in airports, city control centers, jails, banks, government institutions, shopping malls, sport stadiums, public and private buildings, industrial factories and even nuclear power stations.

– What has been the impact of the events in Entebbe on your security perception?

“After 7 days in captivity I got back to my family and I knew that I had to focus on inventing the new generation of the closed circuit video cameras. At that time,

the CCTV technology was in its early stages and was still a “virgin market”. The  quality of the  pictures was quite poor. My personal experience led me to believe that I have to develop high quality surveillance systems that will match the real security demands. I have learned that terror cannot be regarded as some kind of a bad dream and that anyone can find himself in the middle of such an ordeal.

My years of involvement in the security market are in a way, my small contribution to the worldwide battle against terror and crime.”

 And Indeed, Elberbaum’s ability to foresee the future proved itself several times. In the fall of 2003, when a female terrorist entered a beach side restaurant at his home town, Haifa, and bombed herself up along with 21 innocent victims. Israeli Authorities used the high quality pictures taken from Elbex cameras installed at the nearby traffic junction in order to locate the vehicle that drove the terrorist. Within several days, the mega terrorists who sent her were behind bars.

Elberbaum’s business interest in Japan began in the late sixties. While working as an engineer in the Israeli company Elron, he discovered the advantages of the Japanese electronic components. A few years later, Elberbaum moved to Tokyo with his family and started to work as a division manager of the Japanese branch of Amerex, an American trading firm.

– The ‘Smart’ home technologies are available for more than 30 years now, but so far did not penetrate nor made a significant impact on the market.How can you make Elbex systems a common necessity like HVAC systems?

“For many years, home automation has been marketed almost solely to the private housing sector however the constant growth in world population and the shift from rural to urban cities, has led to a global high-rise residential construction of over 10 million apartments annually.

Over the last decade, Elbex has developed the future generation of residential automation, based on optical solutions, and created a new market for high-rise apartment buildings. Our systems provide on line power consumption reporting and control of every electrical appliance in the apartment as well as connectivity to any smart grid.

The need to reduce energy consumption both individually and on the national level, is one of the major global concerns. President Obama has already realized the crucial need to save on energy consumption and ordered to invest billions of dollars in creating ’smart grid’ solutions. I believe, that the consumption reporting from every switch and socket will eventually become a part of our daily life, as has the smart phone.

Our patented optical home automation system provides a unique and practical solution for power consumption efficiency, control and real time reporting at low cost. We have developed and manufactured the only hybrid system that provides total redundancy using opto-mechanical switches, that operate parallel with the manual switches. Our powerful reporting and on-line control capabilities can save significantly on household energy, making the customer’s prior investment pay off in a short while.  Our advanced home automation touch screen enables the control of electrical appliances through a programmed menu and in the near future, will also incorporate e-shopping and e-services capabilities.

– Tell us more about your last invention, “the shopping terminal”.

 Elberbaum is evidently enthusiastic about what he calls: “the future of home services”. “Why should we waste our time and gasoline on rides to the supermarket or on surfing the internet through endless menus?”, he asks me and begins to describe the new shopping habit of his future home shopping terminals.: The users will just have to click on the requested groceries image on the home automation touch screen and add it to their cart. The smart system will automatically send the order to the warehouse within the building and in a few minutes, the items will reach our door step. The billing will be performed automatically, saving us the long payment procedure on the internet. According to Elberbaum, the in-house shopping terminals will be the most convenient, simple and immediate home shopping and delivery platform for groceries, and other e-services and e-shopping.

– Why have you decided to use a tiny state like Israel as a model for your home automation systems?

We have been operating in the Israeli market since 1978 and are well acquainted with the Israeli construction market. Elbex has been involved in the video interphone market for over 25 years in Israel and world-wide. The Israeli market is commercially small but very open minded and eager to adopt new technologies. It was only natural to introduce our new optical home automation to apartment buildings in Israel and we were amazed at the positive responds from both the constructors and the end users. Within less than 2 years, we obtained a substantial market share of over 8% of the newly built high rise buildings.

Based on this successful achievement, we have decided to also launch our new “shopping terminal” technology in Israel. The shopping terminal monitors will be installed in high rise buildings and will be connected in a closed circuit network in order to provide e-shopping including groceries, within minutes. Our shopping terminal concept is based on pre-selected shopping/services programs which are loaded to the touch screen and controlled by one gateway per building.

Elbex’s home automated apartment buildings, equipped with the most innovative systems are being installed in many Israeli cities and we are certain that the Israeli model will be adopted by many other worldwide markets.