Siren Marine with Dan Harper


World class IoT Innovation founded in Newport Rhode Island, the city by the sea. Siren Marine created a “first mate” app to be aboard your boat and report back any problems while you are away. “Siren Marine” is like “Nest” but for your boat. Essentially, Your boat, in the palm of your hand.” states owner Dan Harper.

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Read the Transcript

Welcome to Newport Living and Lifestyles

I’m Christon and we were at the

2019 Newport International Boat Show with

Dan Harper of Siren Marine

Thanks for having me. Great to be here. Great to be at the 2019 show.

We’re off and running had a great crowd today.

Yes. It was actually really great!

It was, you know, a little gray outside, but hey, the Sun was shining here.

And it will be shining the rest of the weekend.

I’ve seen that and I can’t wait.

So tell us about Siren Marine.

Yeah, super excited to talk about the company always, of course

Yeah, we’re a Newport Rhode Island based company, very excited about that.

We live and play here and there’s nothing better than actually living in town where we love being on the water

And we’re connected with the marine industry here, especially the sailing piece of the marine industry

Which makes coming to work everyday a bonus.

What is it a drinking town with a yachting problem?

I’ve heard that, I mean, I don’t know that, but I’ve heard that might be the case, yeah

You don’t have a bunch of yachts?

Yeah, I don’t have a tab at the Cooke House, no… That was somebody else…

Yes, they keep my credit card on file, yeah

So what we do is, you see behind me here,

We’ve got a giant iPhone actually and it’s actually a real iPhone it connects with this black box

over in the corner and you can really think of it as Nest for boats.

Like you can change your thermostat or check on what’s happening back home, check the video

What we do is

on any cell phone, Android, iOS, Doesn’t matter

I can click onto our app, which looks the same as this.

Nice boat by the way.

That’s my boat, my swan.

I had not idea.

A little plug for Swan, there.

Swan Nautor

All the things that I’m interested in, my boat is right out here in Newport Harbor, but I’m working a ton, here building Siren.

I’m not on my boat nearly as much as I would like to be and so,

When there’s a storm that comes through or I just want to check and I haven’t got out to the boat for a few days

I just take a look. My battery voltage is right where it needs to be

My geofence is actually broken right now because I moved the boat from my normal mooring

to a mooring just off of the dock for the show. So it’s now gonna be this big red indication,

Hey, there’s something that’s different or wrong and I can I can deal with it.

It’s not a problem in this case because it’s right where it’s supposed to be, but it is outside of the geofence.

so really what we do is we

We are your on board first mate and anything that you’re interested in.

You’ve got a beautiful boat a Hinckley 36

Phenomenal boat, we had a lot of work with Hinckley, another hometown team.

Those things like, you haven’t been out to the boat in a few days, you’re wondering if the battery okay,

is the bilge taking on water? Well, all you do is check your app and there you go.

When did you start your company?

Great question. 2011 I started working on the project in 2006, brought the first prototypes and then

really turned it into a formal thing in 2011 and came here and I want to say 2014

I’ve not heard of this for boats previously,

but you’re gonna buy one from your boat tomorrow.

I’m gonna buy one today today

Today, and on film…

He’s got me now, is there any competition

There are

How do you guys stand out?

We’re leading the pack by

It’s easy for me to say that because I own the company,

He’s not biased

I’m not biased at all

But it’s a great question and it’s one that I love talking about because objectively speaking

if we measure our functionality, our features, our price point

What we offer our customers in terms of peace of mind, features and functions and maturity as a company

We’re on our third generation product, most of our competition

Is just getting their feet wet and this stuff is hard

I’ve got an amazing team of engineers that carry out sort of my vision for the company

They’re way smarter than I am these days and I built the first prototypes a long time ago

I can barely keep up with these guys these days, but they are absolute experts in their field of IOT, RF or

low power edge devices, the things that we do and build are built by incredibly smart guys

And then we leverage additional engineering, where there’s a specialized thing like wireless inter low-power

970 megahertz technology, right, but there’s only a handful of guys that do that stuff.

So we pull in this deep expertise where we need it, to build what we believe is absolutely the

Most advanced marine IOT system available, but really because boats are hard too. They’re they’re battery operated

There’s 12 volt, 24 volt, 36 volt, 110 volt , 240 volt

They’re all different Yamaha, Yanmar, Perkins, the propulsion systems, everything’s different

You’ll have five Hinckley 36’s, you’ll have different electronics, probably different motors, different stuff.

As it turns out marine IOT is really hard.

We’ve been at it for ten years now much longer than most any other company and we’ve continued to evolve and build now our third generation product.

We feel like we can say we really are

Not just the best, but the best by a considerable margin.

and right here in Newport, so that’s Fabulous.

Right here in Newport!

Right how many employees do you have now since you started?

23

Started with one myself, and over the years we went to

three kind of a study state for a while, and then five for a study state for a while then

three for a little while, and five for a while, and then seven to nine, eleven and twelve and then

Twenty-three is where we are at today.

Do you have any insightful things you can tell us that might be coming or on the way for next year’s Boat Show?

behind the scenes?

I can!

Next year’s boat show will be an entirely different thing.

So this is actually the Boat Show as you guys know being Newporters.

There’s a building going in so the show has been redistributed this year.

so our booth is half the size as it usually is because everyone’s is.

What you’ll see next year will be an

different look and feel for Siren Marine because we’re introducing

really some new products that involve bringing data off of the boats

really powerful useful data that we believe is going to transform the marine industry.

It’s gonna allow boat builders, engine manufacturers

industry stakeholders the ability to now provide

services and products that they’ve never been able to provide before based on

the kind of information and data that we’re gonna be delivered.

Do you have a very sentimental testimonial from any of your clients that really pulls at your heartstrings ?

A ton of them actually.

Makes you feeling proud?

Just just before you came into the booth. I had a customer here that came through the first,

this was the first boat show we ever did, the Newport International Boat Show and 20 it was either 2010 or 2011

About 10 years ago.

This customer came through and has had all of our products to date and loves them

and ten years later is still coming to our booth and saying how much he appreciates the product and

watching us grow and I think to sum all of the great testimonials up that would be one that was just five minutes ago.

We just missed him!

I know !

A decade long customer that just keeps,

you know, upgrading with our new products and just

comes every year to say how much he appreciates the peace of mind he gets from having a Siren Marine device.

What about celebrities? Do you have any good celebrity stories for us?

Well besides Jay Leno, well ya know!

Just kidding

But Jay if your out there. We would love to hook up your cars, or boats, or anything motorcycles, bicycles… antique cars…

We do, we actually have quite a number of….. I don’t know if we can actually say who…

You don’t have to, but you can if you want…

I would if I could

Thank you so much, really appreciate learning more about you,

Learning more about Siren Marine and

We look forward to seeing you on

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Jay Lasky Helly Hansen


Extremely Entertaining stories getting to know Jay Lasky owner of Helly Hansen Newport who has participated in the Newport International Boat Show since 1998! The first and only Helly Hansen retail store! He may not have a signature dance move, but he will dance on the table after (more…)

August Photo Contest WINNER


WINNER OF THE AUGUST PHOTO CONTEST GIFT GIVEAWAY IS ANNOUNCED! $100 Gift certificate and a bottle of Bubbly from Kevin Hegerty of 12 Meter Charters and guest judge and photographer Cory Silken

All you have to do is enter #NLandL in your photo comments and/or tag @NewportLivingandLifestyles and YOU will have the opportunity to win a gift certificate & a bottle of bubbly from a local business.

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Read the Transcipt

Welcome to Newport Living and Lifestyles.

I’m Christon and today is the August photo contest of the month.

Anybody who hashtags #NLandL enters to win.

You can also tag @NewportLivingAndLifestyles if you wish.

You will all be seen and one winner will be chosen today!

Joining us is guest photographer Cory Silken.

Cory Siken Photography, right on Thames Street and

Kevin Hegerty from 12 Meter Charters

who’s offering $100 gift certificate and a bottle of bubbly

That’s one ride, right?

One sail on one of the 12 meters in Newport.

Tell us a little bit about 12 Meters,

Where you’re located and your boats.

We’re down on Bowens Wharf. 12 Bowens Wharf

and we have a couple of America’s Cup boats. Colombia and Heritage.

whoever wins this will enjoy a fun sail on hopefully Columbia with me.

Have you ever been on one of the charters?

Yeah I have, actually that’s where I met Kevin years ago .

Certainly one of the best charters in Newport

when you want to get out for an afternoon or an evening.

Have you taken photos of the boats or with the boats?

Yeah they are also some of the most beautiful boats in the harbor for sure.

Certainly these old boats have the graceful lines that new boats just can’t quite match.

Yes, for sure, definitely had some of the most beautiful photos of Columbia.

I am looking around his gallery right now.

So if you want to see some pretty pictures of Columbia come in the gallery.

Do you have any crazy fun stories about your charters that you can actually say out loud?

We meet all types of people. We are on the water every day, we meet people from all walks of life.

When they get on the water it’s a great experience for them.

I have to say he’s been really super busy so it was really hard to put him down.

so we’re really happy to have 12 meters a part of our show today.

Thank you for having us.

Where can people find you on the website? Do they need to buy tickets in advance?

The website is 12MeterCharters.com

or you can come down, we have a little kiosk downtown.

You can buy a ticket there for a fun sail.

We do a lot of corporate events and team-building. We don’t just race on the boat.

We actually just won the 12 Meter World Championships.

Hurray! Congratulations!

Thank you!

That’s so exciting!

yeah I was a pretty extraordinary event.

How many 12 meters were there?

The biggest gathering of 12 meters ever in the US, there were 22

12 meters from all over the world.

Yeah and this was a really busy summer for all of sailing in Newport.

You can see one of the s-class photos behind us here.

We also had the s-class 100th anniversary here in Newport this summer,

which is actually what my new book is about, which my father wrote and I did the photography for.

The S-class was the Herreshoff S class was designed and built up in Bristol RI, Just near by here.

The boats were originally designed in 1919, there were

about a hundred boats built and roughly half of them still exist. We had

21 boats on the bay racing here. There were a few others that are in racing

condition but weren’t able to make it, but still it was extraordinary having so

many of these old boats still racing so competitively, you know, we talked about

racing, well certainly, you can see in the picture behind us that they are tight and still very competitive.

You really have amazing photos, how did you get started in the photography world.

I started in photography back in school.

I was always into out-door adventures and

wanted to be able to show the gorgeous scenery with all my friends and family, when I would come back.

I grew up sailing, so certainly I blame my parents for that aspect of it.

It’s nice to blame your parents for everything, you know, even our personal shortcomings.

Yeah and I’ve just taken it from there.

yeah that’s great

I just saw recently on Facebook that you’re with some really

extraordinary people including Annie Leibovitz.

It was quite an extraordinary event, Greta Thunberg, who is an environmental activist from Sweden was

coming across the Atlantic with Team Milizia which is IMOCA 60 ocean racing team.

They brought her and they sailed her across the Atlantic because

she didn’t want to have the environmental impact of flying in an airplane.

You know, of course, that is also a great media for sailing and promotion of sailing

having her come on this boat. Quantum Sails also sponsored this team and they just

arrived. With the wind of course, you never know when the transatlantic

crossing boat sail boat is going to arrive and they came in late Tuesday

into New York and it was pretty extraordinary to see her and all the

fanfare in New York Harbor, even even despite that lousy weather and then

Annie Leibovitz was out there making a portrait of her as well, so we

got to hang out with her in the morning and it was it was quite a special day.

Where can people find your artwork?

My website CorySilken.com

You can also look for @silkenphotography on Facebook and at @silkenphoto on Istagram.

It’s really fantastic, so you mostly focus in the sailing community?

Mostly yachts, although I do shoot some portraits and some interiors as well.

My work with a number of regatta sponsors and shipyards and private yacht owners and

do some book projects and of course fine art as well around yachting and local scenery.

Cory’s chosen five photos or eight photos? How many photos did you choose today?

We have 8 photos from the Newport Living and Lifestyles photo contest.

We’re gonna take a look at them and hopefully

you’ve chosen the winner so stay tuned to the end and find out who the big winner is!

This first one is a neat shot from @Kara_Ann322

It’s a photograph of the reflection of the bridge at sunset or sunrise and some sunglasses on the beach.

The bridge is very popular, yeah wow, I love the colors in this, almost opalescent, iridescent, fairyland like.

What do you like about it?

I just like the picture.

I just like it.

I like it a lot.

And that’s how you should view photography,

if it’s something that you like, there’s there’s no more rationale needed.

If you like it, you like it, and that’s good enough, that is certainly a lot of my

customers here in the gallery. Something that when you connect with it , that’s that’s all you need to know.

She had 131 likes on this, so that’s great, good job.

Yeah and the next one is from @AnnM816 which is a photograph of bird.

It’s a hummingbird.

A hummingbird, yes.

Gorgeous colors.

Wow, that’s beautiful.

wow it’s so just clear.

Yeah it’s a very crisp image and very very nice with the

pink against the green background. There must have been some other trees

or bushes behind it. Yeah it’s very pretty.

and it’s hard to choose and narrow it down to 10, We have some really great local photographers and

just people with even with their iPhones, so this is, this is not an easy feat,

that’s why I bring in the judge photographers.

Yes and the next one that we have here is from @TimNewportRI and

it’s photograph of Newport Harbor with

some of the rocks in the foreground and it’s a really pretty shot.

Yeah gorgeous the reflection I just love the way the ocean here really picks up on pinks and

The pastels in the clouds and just the curve of the cloud

in the sky really brings your eye into the image very nicely.

I like it.

He likes it, “Mikey Likes It”

The next one is from @JMich78photography which is a

photograph of some poppies in a field with some cloudy sky in the background.

It’s really nice. I think the color of the sky, the kind of blue gray, as it goes

against the bright yellow of the flowers, sunflowers.

It’s a really nice contrast and I’ve seen a lot of these ominous clouds here a lot lately.

Do you like it?

Of course I like it.

Sunflowers are so cool

It’s going to b the ongoing theme of every picture now.

It is.

Alright and and the next one is from @SailOnHopeSan and of course it wouldn’t be very

good if we didn’t have any pictures of boats in here. This is a great

picture of a boat in the fog, with I’m assuming, that’s the sun trying to break

through the background, which is a scene we’ve seen all too often this summer in Newport.

Right Fog.

and you know they won laughs last month too!

Oh did they? okay

Oh yeah! Patrick and Monica, they charter “Hope San”, their sailboat.

They always get really great photos out on the water.

Here we have one from @l_Double

I really like his work a lot.

Reaching into the sun of the road.

Lee Abney has really fantastic stuff you can always, always know when it’s his picture. It’s really unique.

Yeah, you’ll have to check some of his stuff out. Nice work Lee.

230 Likes, that is a lot! Good job

The next one is from @DMN-images

It’s kind of a neat shot at the beach with

some glow sticks I guess.

Do we have rave parties here that I’m not aware of?

Right?

Are you guys going to the rave parties?

Ya know, at 4AM you never know what’s gonna happen.

That’s true.

I don’t think that one was quite a 4AM

A neat shot nonetheless,

Nice creativity in this bunch of images.

DMN_Images, 107 likes, 3 days ago. Good work.

Then this next one which is which is my favorite.

Oh could this possibly be the winner? this is it?

This is the winner! drum roll….

@Anastasia_M_Arnold

Anastasia!

It’s a shot at the beach, with the lifeguard tower and a surfboard and a

group of presumably either surfers or lifeguards more likey.

It’s framed really nicely. It’s got a nice mood to it and just nice muted

color for the scene which works really well with it.

Makes it pop.

A little bit misty on the water.

I love what she says here. What does she say

Stand 5 is my hangout place. I’ve

never enjoyed the beach as much this summer as before, so peaceful.

Congratulations Anastasia Arnold.

Congratulations, great photo.

You can come on down to Cory Silken

store located at 518 Thames Street.

518 Thames Street and collect your bottle of bubbly and you’re sailing tour.

We’ll get a really fun photo with you, right guys?

Yeah absolutely, can’t wait to meet you.

Congratulations to everybody who enters.

If you’d like to see more interviews with local businesses and

get to know the people behind the scenes, the influencers so to speak,

visit Newport Living and Lifestyles.com

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We look forward to seeing you on Newport Living and Lifestyles