The OxBlue Story - Construction Webcams

OxBlue's mission is simple and straightforward: empower the construction industry to improve project delivery and team communications with highly effective webcam solutions.

Since the founding of OxBlue in 2001 we have maintained our exclusive focus on the needs of the construction industry. The approach has always been to hold ourselves to the highest standard by providing a turnkey solution - every piece of hardware, connection and service included at a straightforward price.

Result: the best construction webcam system available in the industry, period.

Following is the story of how OxBlue has pioneered the construction industry's webcam system and how we continue to lead today.

1998

In 1998, an international real estate development firm wanted a leading edge approach to allow their overseas investors to monitor millions of dollars worth of construction site activity. With no adequate solution available on the market and no single source vendor in place to develop the solution they turned to technical experts within the construction industry.

The team was lead by Chandler McCormack and Bryan Mattern, two graduates from the Georgia Institute of Technology. McCormack, a Senior Project Manager with over 10 years of practical experience civil engineering commercial projects and having expertise in visualization technology and Bryan Mattern, a senior technical consultant specializing in the development of enterprise communication platforms with a background in construction engineering took the challenge.

The challenge: Develop a secure camera system, accessible from the Internet, which is higher resolution and easier to use than anything on the market. Then turn that system into a project management tool for communications and contract compliance.

The solution: Delivered as contracted, the system's success exceeded expectations. More importantly, as the projects progressed the power of such a webcam system to every member of the project team was revealed. The contractors were able to coordinate changes in real time with the design teams, owners were kept in the loop on progress, unnecessary communications were reduced across the board and schedule disputes were all but eliminated. But not without the cost of highly modified hardware and hundreds of man-hours of development time.

The need was established and the potential of such a system was revealed. The demand to bring it to market was evident and OxBlue Corporation was formed.

2001

OxBlue was founded January 1, 2001. R&D began on developing a solution which served the needs of the construction industry, would exceed the capabilities of the original system, and do so at a lower cost and a high level of reliability. The lessons learned from the original project were priceless and OxBlue systematically worked with every off the shelf system available. But no system offered the ease of use, image quality and reliability necessary to meet the needs of the construction industry.

The decision was made: They would build the system themselves. On the tail end of the dot-com bust a high level of technical expertise was ready and available. OxBlue was in the right position to harness this expertise and accelerate development of the system. Work was being done on every part of the technology; developing hardware, front end software and back end infrastructure, all of the communications technology which make the system possible.

2002

By 2002, OxBlue had reached a 3 mega pixel resolution with the construction webcam system and standardized on it, providing stunningly vivid imaging and zoom capabilities that had real value for jobsite analysis.

As the technology continued to evolve the industry's early adopters began to implement systems, real world lessons were being learned, and OxBlue responded to the developing needs. Image resolution, ease of usability, and simple installations were the focus.

OxBlue was building a solid customer base throughout the construction industry. The private sectors of construction including retail, commercial and industrial we're adopting and starting to standardize on the system.

2003

With a growing client base, OxBlue was able to continue investing in back-end infrastructure and to respond to the needs of the construction industry. The capabilities at the original datacenters were outgrown and new, highly redundant infrastructure was being invested in.

OxBlue continued the commitment to focus on the needs of the client. Enhancing the functionality of the system with more powerful tools which allowed the client to drill down to specific images and events. Image enhancement technology was developed to increase the quality of the images and allow clients to zoom in on specific details. The simple and effective interface to the OxBlue system was refined, allowing users even with the most basic PC skills to take advantage of being able to access the jobsite remotely.

Later in 2003, OxBlue turned its attention to the next major challenge: Wireless image transmission from the jobsite. The bottleneck which had prevented widespread adoption of jobsite webcams was always the need to use high bandwidth lines for data. The "last mile" challenge of the country's telecommunications companies to bring high speed bandwidth to more locations was also the challenge that doomed, and still does, attempts to implement national jobsite monitoring programs based on systems intended for fixed security applications which need high bandwidth lines.

OxBlue realized this early on and took the practical approach of building a system that would run on the nations more readily available phone line infrastructure. But for the construction industry to have a truly scalable solution, something that would work at virtually any location in the country, a solution without the need for wires for data transmission or IT expertise at the jobsite was needed. OxBlue continued to lead the way by pioneering the development of systems to transmit ultra high resolution images over the nations cellular network.

2004

OxBlue's buying power for cellular solutions gained the attention of the national cellular carriers and meetings began to overcome the barriers which make the system possible. The wireless solution that now enables OxBlue's clients to effortlessly and economically monitor construction in virtually any part of the country, without the headache of on-site I.T. expertise internet connections, was born.

A truly turnkey solution and managed service with high reliability and effortless installation was created. OxBlue assumed responsibility for all of the cellular accounts used by clients, allowing clients to avoid dealing with the technical support and contracts of the cellular carriers.

OxBlue's cellular accounts are larger than those of most large corporations, allowing us the power to do things with cellular services that another company or individual user is simply not able to.

2005

The addition of cellular wireless capability kicked off a period of exponential growth. Clients realized how OxBlue construction webcams worked. The pricing was straight forward, the system reliable and the images were 40 times higher quality than other construction webcam system which were available.

As adoption of OxBlue's technology grew rapidly, something new started happening. Project teams would buy systems for a specific project, and soon after, someone would recommend the system for enterprise-wide adoption. A general contractor would have a webcam system installed on a project for their own use; the owner would see it and buy systems for all of their other projects. Word of mouth and peer-to-peer referrals became one of OxBlue's best sales vehicles.

2006

A paradigm shift had begun. OxBlue clients were buying larger volumes of OxBlue webcam units to deploy across multiple projects. The requirement for OxBlue webcams began to appear in owner's contracts, construction specifications and even on architect's drawings. The system had proven itself and had become a standard management tool for many companies in the construction industry. The next phase of growth at OxBlue had begun.

While the exponential growth in sales was welcome news, OxBlue continued the quest to deliver the highest quality images. In early 2006, OxBlue introduced a 6mp camera system, doubling the resolution possible. The 6mp system has been adopted by users with high-end needs who want the most advanced imaging system available.

In June 2006 after months of development, OxBlue unveiled its OxBlue Pro interface. A leap forward in construction webcams, the new interface was acting as a powerful project management, analysis and reporting tool. Elements included the Project Dashboard, which allowed users to monitor dozens of project webcams simultaneously. Tools for comparing changes in site progress over time and automated image based reporting systems that kept the entire team in the loop.

OxBlue Pro paved the way for the next era of construction webcams, going beyond the individual jobsite to an enterprise model which delivered benefits at every level of the organization.

2007

Strong demand for OxBlue's construction camera technology continued to increase as successive company milestones were reached throughout the year. Behind the scenes, office and production space was expanded and to meet the construction industry's demand for OxBlue's technology. Additional personnel for customer service, production and order fulfillment were also brought on board to maintain the companies commitment to superior customer service.

OxBlue's enterprise level relationships with each of the major national cellular carriers grew as changes within the cellular industry resulted in new relationships and expanded coverage areas, both domestically and internationally.

At the end of the year OxBlue released a line of solar systems specifically designed for use with OxBlue construction cameras. Meeting the need for a reliable cost effective standardized solar solution. Both new and existing clients responded favorably and plans for increased use of solar systems in 2008 are underway.

Today

Originating from within the construction industry, responding to the needs of the construction industry, and pioneering the technology for the construction industry made OxBlue the leader in construction webcams. No other vendor comes close. By consistently delivering value, reliability, and ease of use, OxBlue has become nationally recognized as "the construction industry's webcam solution."

What can we do for you?