Recap: FlashBang Q&A Session

Did you miss the live FlashBang Q&A session? Never fear! In this post, we recap the conversation with Deep Sentinel’s CEO, David Selinger. Read on to learn important information about FlashBang, including product features, pricing, and more.

The following transcript is edited for readability and length. Watch the full video below or on our YouTube channelA.

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David Selinger: Before we even go into questions, I want to talk about a couple of elements. The strobe and the siren are obviously not one-time use. The smoke and the pepper spray, however, do have one-time use components.

I’ll start with the smoke. The smoke has a cartridge that uses a low-voltage hookup to go into the enclosure. The smoke is mounted in that enclosure. Every single time that it’s used, this cartridge has to be replaced. There are four machine screws and an Allen wrench that are used to install that.

As you heard when it launched, it does have a small cap that shoots out. It shocks you but it doesn’t hurt, so there’s nothing lethal about this one. The smoke that comes out of it is over 200 degrees, but it is not in any way dangerous. It cools down very quickly in the air.

The pepper spray uses a canister of compressed gas. It’s a gravity-triggered device. It sprays for about 30 seconds. These are designed to stop those much more serious criminals in the cases where they’re committing a crime and our traditional methods are not working to stop them.

When will FlashBang be available?

The initial launch of FlashBang will be in the coming weeks, very shortly.

We’ve got everything running. The key element to all of this is the FlashBang hub, which allows us to plug all of these elements in and install them without high rates of human error. That’s really a big piece of what we’re working on now.

We’ve completed all the compliance, all the training, and all the process elements of this. So it will be very shortly.

It will initially be available in the state of California. We filed for all the permits and licenses that are required to sell and install this in California. Then, we will be expanding by exception outside of that.

Initially, it will be available for our business customers.

Will the smoke set off smoke and fire alarms?

According to California building code—and most states by the way—the types of fire sprinklers that would be triggered by this are triggered by heat. So this would not set off any of those.

Now, will it trigger smoke detectors or what are called fire alarms? Yes. That’s because those typically use either a laser-based or a radioactive-based particle counter. This smoke is an actual particle that is visible, unlike the OC spray [pepper spray].

The OC spray is an invisible particle in the air. It’s actually more of an evaporated liquid, whereas the smoke is an actual particulate. It’s a food-grade, non-toxic particulate, but it is a particulate, and so therefore it will set off smoke detectors and fire alarms.

So, no sprinklers as far as we know. There are probably sprinklers out there somewhere that are triggered by particulate. But in terms of building code and the average sprinklers that you can have installed in buildings, no. But yes to smoke detectors and fire alarms.

Why isn’t FlashBang integrated with the wireless system?

The first reason is, specifically for [smoke bombs and pepper spray], they’re regulated. Right?

This is a heightened level of deterrence. OC spray is regulated in the state of California and many other states. The average state regulation says that for anything greater than somewhere between 0.5 oz. and 1 oz., you have to have a license to purchase it. You have to have a license to install it. You have to notify the authorities where it is located

Because of that, we treat it as a more secure device. And because we’re deploying it remotely, we need to maintain a secure channel of communication all the way through. While our wireless is secure, it’s not at the same level as a [hard-wired system]. So the first reason is for security.

The second reason is for consistency of deployment.

We’ve had FlashBang deployed for about a year and a half. What we really want to be careful with as we expand the exposure for this to more and more customers is that we’re very carefully deploying the first customers, making sure that that’s 100% successful, moving on to the next set of customers, moving on to the next set of customers, and moving on to the next. From a risk perspective, we want to really be careful about how we’re deploying it.

Will this ever be offered for the wireless system?

As of right now, it’s not on our roadmap. But possibly the strobe and siren. Those are much more likely.

What are the legal considerations for use in California?

We have spent a lot of time and energy and money making sure that we have dotted all of our i’s and crossed all of our t’s.

There’s an industrial forum where a lot say, “Oh my gosh. There’s no way Deep Sentinel can do this because of all of the hurdles.” And they’re correct in that there are a lot of hurdles.

So we’ve spent upwards of $100,000 to make sure that we’ve hit all of the compliance requirements. We’re aware of the compliance requirements across the country, and we’ve hit all of them in the state of California.

Depending on the crime, we may or may not deploy specific elements. For example, we are almost definitely never going to be deploying pepper spray for a person just trespassing on a business’s front porch. That’s just not likely to happen.

To everything that I’m saying, there are going to be exceptions. But in general, pepper spray will be reserved for assault or extreme potential property damage, things like a jewelry store or a bank. Those will be the areas where there are extreme uses of force that are authorized and appropriate for the situation.

Other considerations in the state of California will be things like liability if somebody does get hurt. Even with just the smoke or just the strobe… they get hurt, they trip, they fall. We’re all aware that, in the state of California, if somebody falls and they’re on your property, the state does tend to be a little bit more favorable towards the plaintiff in those cases.

Our agreement has to protect us in that case. We have a rider that goes along with FlashBang that says that any of those things that would traditionally fall in that bucket have to be assumed by the customer.

Do you see this product being legal eventually in New Jersey?

New Jersey is one of the states that we’ve looked pretty closely at. So yes, I think New Jersey is an area that will be a fast follower.

We chose California, not only because I’m here and that’s where a lot of our customers are, but also because it’s generally the most stringent as it relates to regulations. By meeting the requirements of California broadly, we are meeting the requirements of almost anywhere else.

Is FlashBang a one-time payment for every use? And does this raise the monitoring price?

It is a monitoring product because it is an ongoing set of training and processes and procedures that we have to maintain.

On the monitoring side, there are two levels. If you were to get the strobe and/or the siren, that’s an additional $50/month service cost. If you were to add either the smoke or pepper spray, that would be $100/month. In other words, if you already added the strobe and the siren, it’d be an additional $50 to add the smoke and pepper.

Both of those plans are per month. Again, $50/month for the strobe and the siren. $100/month if you were to get the smoke and/or the pepper.

Will this be insured? How will that insurance interact with our other insurance coverage—property insurance, umbrella coverage, etc.?

This is a civil liability question again.

This is (fortunately or unfortunately) an area where I’ve spent a lot of time. I’m going to answer the general answer. But in every one of these cases, you’re going to want to make sure that you as an individual get the right answer for you.

At a very high level, the deployment of these products falls broadly under property insurance. And then in terms of overage coverage, they fall under umbrella insurance.

If those are the two types of policies you already hold, those are the correct things to have. In terms of the amount of coverage, I would think about it as being in alignment with any other commercial policy. I would not see this product necessarily increasing the amount of coverage that you need to have for any of those.

What about availability in New Hampshire or Massachusetts?

The same answer would be that we are reasonably well covered for those states.

In terms of our process, for making them market available, I don’t have an exact time frame. My guess would be that it will be months because of our requirement to really take our time and make sure that the first deployments have gone really well in California before we go and certify ourselves in other states.

But by exception, depending on the specific circumstances, we would consider others.

Did you say that we will be liable for your company’s usage when it is used?

The service that we’re providing is not an insurance service. We’re providing a service for businesses that are facing a serious crime issue. This isn’t something to be taken lightly. This isn’t something to dump all my liability and problems on another company.

If we were to do that, the prices that we quote would have to be significantly more. Because then we’re providing insurance. And as you probably know, you’re paying quite a bit more than that for insurance.

We made the decision to enable our customers to maximize the leverage that they already have in their insurance policies, as well as to assess the risk appropriately for themselves. Some businesses don’t feel like they would need to do that.

For example, smoke is used broadly in Europe for places like banks and jewelry stores. There have been very, very few, if any—I’m not aware of any, I looked—cases of burglars suing.

The second use case that we see a lot of in the U.S. is cannabis dispensaries and high-value warehouses where we see armed individuals mobbing a property. And in those cases as well, in the broad tradeoff between having to use a serious level of force to stop this from happening, then yes, that’s a tradeoff that you have to make.

Think about it like personal defense. If this were a weapon of some form, then it is being deployed in your agency as a customer, and therefore you have to assume the liability of that for your property.

We’re providing a very serious service. We’re providing it at a price that is designed specifically so that we’re not providing that liability coverage.

Do I have to pay extra if smoke or pepper is used?

You’re not getting charged extra for how many times it’s deployed. But there are equipment costs. Each of these canisters [for pepper spray and smoke bombs] has a small expense associated.

Has this been approved for use in California?

It is approved for use in California. We’re still in the process of getting the final licenses, but we will be getting those.

Do we need to notify law enforcement agencies?

Yes, you do. That’s part of the policies and procedures that we’ve developed so that we can systematically and consistently deliver that level of compliance to customers.

How is FlashBang deployed? Is it activated by guards?

It depends again on the specific product, but I’m going to walk you through the core.

Let’s use the smoke for example. So we have smoke installed in the interior of a warehouse. We have intervened on a group of individuals who are armed. They’re outside. We told them to stop. They proceeded. We were unable to stop them at the door.

We’ve already contacted law enforcement. Law enforcement is at least 10 or 15 minutes away. If there’s a local patrol, we’ve contacted them.

Then the guard would initiate the FlashBang approval process. We use what we call the nuclear 2-key solution. The guard has to assess the situation, answer a series of questions about that situation, and then those responses are escalated to a more senior guard with an even more detailed set of questions.

Those sets of questions then determine what products are available for deployment. Then the product would, in the case of smoke, deploy pretty much immediately. It’s about a 5-second delay.

In the case of pepper spray, it would actually play an audio file for about 15–20 seconds first, notifying the person that pepper spray is about to be deployed and to leave the premises. Then it will deploy.

All of that is designed to make sure that two people are checking it. That check is in compliance with our best knowledge of the law and the liability of those two situations. In order to deploy these types of products, we have to see either armed individuals or a person who’s at threat of receiving bodily injury or in specific cases where the property is considered of such irreplaceable value or such infrastructure value that that level of force is justified, even if it is just a break-in.

Will the smoke ejector work in an outdoor environment?

It will fill about a thousand square feet outdoors, but then it will clear after a number of seconds. So the smoke is definitely going to be the most effective in the interior, whereas the strobe, the siren, and the pepper spray can be effective outdoors as well.

The pepper spray has a unique aspect to it. In an indoor scenario, it’s going to permeate the space. Until the ventilation kicks in and clears that out, which is about 15 minutes, that space is going to be uninhabitable.

In an outdoor deployment, you can think about it like a handheld pepper spray. Anybody who is within 10–15 feet and gets hit will be incapacitated for a minute, two minutes, five minutes, 10 minutes, depending on how sensitive they are to pepper spray.

What procedures follow after an incident? Does Deep Sentinel manage all matters including police reports?

We file most of the police reports for our customers when something happens. We obviously don’t have all the information. I would recommend, as a customer, to contact your installer.

We do have a set of information and procedures that we will file with the police department in advance. For example, we’ll be describing the system, the cases that it will be used in, and our policies and procedures. The police department will already have that on file associated with your property.

The installer’s job, then, is to check and replenish the equipment. And in the event that you want to file a police report of your own as the property owner, then you can file that police report on your own as well.

Who installs the equipment? Does Deep Sentinel offer vetted vendors?

Yes, of course.

There is no DIY option on FlashBang. While our wireless cameras do have a DIY option, there is no DIY option [for FlashBang]. These must be installed by a licensed installer.

Is there a shelf life for products if unused?

There certainly is. They each have a label on them stating the date of manufacture as well as the shelf life.

Who is deploying the smoke? Live guard, business, …?

It would be the live guard, but I will add the one thing that we did add to that process is that there’s the two-key system.

The first key will always, in every situation, be the live guard. There is not an option in the app to deploy pepper spray because you think it’s funny. Or important. It’s just not in the app

That’s not an option that we are currently providing. We may change that in the future. Currently, the deployment of FlashBang initiates from a guard.

But the second key can either be an elevated individual within our operation center or it can be the customer. And that is an option that the customer can elect and say, “I want to have control over my property. I don’t want you ever deploying this unless I’ve approved it.”

In those cases, that second approval happens in the app. The customer will receive a description of the crime—a special web page that has all of the information that the guard has entered about it as well as a clip of the video when the guard requested FlashBang and a live view of your camera, all of which can be used then to either approve or disapprove the use of FlashBang.

Will the pepper spray and smoke bomb leave a residue hours or days later?

I’m going to tackle them one at a time.

The smoke is an incendiary smoke. It is lighting the combustible fuel on fire and ejecting it out. 99.9% of that mass comes out as small smoke particles which can make you cough quite a bit. In addition, though, there are small bits of solid that you will find on the floor or whatever’s in front of this that is easily cleaned with a spray cleaner and a paper towel.

The pepper spray does. It is an oil. The way that it travels is that the oil evaporates into the air—that’s capsaicin—and gets into people’s eyes, nose, and mouth. When that sprays, it does create a small puddle of oil underneath. Within about an hour, that evaporates. Cleaning that up is very similar, just a spray cleaner. I would probably wear gloves and then wipe it up.

Now, what are some other things other than residue?

The smoke will leave a scent. If you fire that indoors in a 2,000-square-foot room with no ventilation, and the smoke has sat in that space, that smoke will settle just like any other smoke particulate. And it may leave a layer of dust. If there is ventilation, that part won’t happen, but there will still be a smell. That smell lasts about 24 hours.

The pepper spray, as I mentioned, evaporates into the air. That will stay in an area for about 15 minutes in an indoor area with ventilation. It will stay for longer in an area with no ventilation.

Both of them, after 24 hours, do not leave anything once you’ve cleaned up the specific residue.

Is FlashBang meant only for businesses? Can it be deployed at a residence?

FlashBang, initially, is going to be for businesses only. We will handle things on an exception basis depending on the need and the opportunity. But initially, it is going to be for businesses.

Where exactly are the guards with this discretion based out of, geographically?

They’re in California.

Since this is for businesses, if the smoke alarm does go off, won’t the fire department respond?

Certain smoke alarms do go to a central station that is monitored, which then requests dispatch from the fire department.

In the event that does happen, yes, I don’t want to waste the time of the fire department. But if we’re deploying this because there are four guys there, having someone respond is going to be better.

Now, we will also have contacted the police, and those dispatches coordinate. So they will be deploying police. They won’t enter the property into danger until the police clear the property.

When are you going to have something like this for residential?

I can’t answer that yet because I just don’t know exactly how long our proofing period is going to be for businesses.

As you can tell, we’re the only company doing something like this, so I want to do that correctly and I want to do that well. There’s liability involved. There are potential mistakes that could happen, and those mistakes have a bigger potential impact.

So as excited as I am about this, I still want to be really thoughtful about the path that we use to move forward so that we’re not creating more problems than value.

Has Deep Sentinel used FlashBang in a real crime?

We have not had to use it in a real crime scenario.

It’s been deployed and trained. We have used sirens. We’ve used strobes. But not the pepper spray or the smoke.

The remote guards: are they in California or are they located in another country?

The guards for FlashBang approval are located in California.

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I appreciate all of your interest in the product. We’ve had so many people who are interested in FlashBang for their business or their homes.

Security is one of those things that is not getting better right now. As a person, as a dad, and as a citizen, I really wish it were.

I love running Deep Sentinel. I love doing what we do. I’m so proud of what we do. But the necessity for this is not something that I would hope for our society.

I am glad and I’m proud of our ability to start serving some of these problems that are out there and that are very real for people.

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To join the waitlist for this innovative crime suppression solution, visit deepsentinel.com/flashbang.