OpenTech Alliance Inc., a Phoenix-based provider of self-storage kiosks, call-center services and other technology, has signed an exclusive distribution agreement with France-based robotics-engineering company Wyca SAS to sell and support its Keylo robot in North America. The robot is designed to assist self-storage customers in renting units, making payments and purchasing locks. It can even escort new tenants to their units, according to a press release.
Keylo can also connect customers with a live counselor to answer questions. “This technology is part of a larger trend toward unattended or unmanned self-storage,” OpenTech officials said in the release.
“As an industry, we are fortunate [Wyca has] decided to invest their brainpower, money and resources to help put self-storage operators in a position to leverage the latest in technology to operate their businesses,” said Robert Chiti, president and CEO of OpenTech. “Typically, the aerospace and healthcare industries get to have all the cool technology first. Over the next year, we will be demonstrating the robot and collaborating with self-storage operators to learn more about how they feel it can help their business.”
“We are engineers, and our passion is integrating robotics with artificial intelligence technologies to solve business problems,” added Matthieu Besozzi, co-founder of Wyca. “We are very pleased to be partnering with OpenTech Alliance to be our sales and service partner in North America.”
OpenTech demonstrated the robot last month at the Inside Self-Storage World Expo in Las Vegas. It has posted a video of the robot in action on Vimeo.
Based in Toulouse, France, Wyca developed Keylo for retail and service applications, with self-storage being its first use in the field, according to the company website. The company began deploying the robot in Europe last fall. It uses a cloud-based platform to control its technology and integrate it with customer-relationship-management systems.
OpenTech provides several models of INSOMNIAC self-serve kiosks as well as a range of self-storage rental solutions including the INSOMNIAC Live! Call Center, INSOMNIAC Online Web and mobile applications, LiveAgent! software products, and the INSOMNIAC ILock Security System, all available through the company's self-storage cloud.
