DGLY interview
Yesterday I met with the Director of Sales and Marketing of Digital Ally. Here are my notes from that meeting.
The manufacturing plant is located in Grain Valley, MO near Blue Springs. There is enough space to meet current demand and they can go to a 2nd shift there if needed.
The list price of the rear view mirror product is $3,995 and the flashlight is $1,595. The flashlight product is just going to market in January of this year. The rear view mirror product is their best seller and is about $1,000 below their competitors and the average sale price is $3,895 or $100 below list. There are several future products in the works – no specifics were given.
The rear view mirror product has a constant 60 second recording. The device automatically goes into full record mode when the police car sirens are on. The product has the ability to go back 60 seconds (pre event) prior to the sirens to see the event leading up to turning on the sirens – such as running a red light, etc.
There is a behavior component to using the devices. Police actions are constantly being monitored via the recorder so it reduces favoritism and creates a more professional environment as a result.
Printed circuit boards are outsourced. All the rest – assembly, testing, QC is handled by DGLY. There are 70 employees (this does not count the sales staff – sales are handled by independent reps) that includes 15 to 16 engineers (software mainly).
There are about 400,000 law enforcement vehicles out there. About 40 to 50% have some type of video equipment – only 20% are digital with the rest being analog which is very poor in comparison.
DGLY’s equipment is integrated – no need for special equipment in the trunk or elsewhere. This is a major advantage of DGLY over the competition. The do have a wireless device that can be added for $1,000 that does auto detection and downloading of the video to the police station. This eliminats the need to take in the flash drive. Police like the device as it simplifies the creation of daily reports.
A very interesting feature of the rear view mirror product is that it also includes a GPS. There is a feature that is called ‘Mark’ so that when a police vehicle is following a car and something is thrown in a field, the officer just hits the ‘Mark’ button. That feature makes it much easer to search for the material later as the geographic coordinates are established during the chase.
The flashlight can be used by police, security, insurance investigators, etc. The flashlight has all the equipment integrated including the use of a USB output. The batteries last 5 to 6 hours of continous use.
Imagine how great it is to have John Ashcroft, former Attorney General on DGLY's board of Directors to open the doors for products that can be used by home land security and other government agencies.
AI
