Sony’s smartwatch follow-up is a smart lock. WiL guides tech giant towards product release

The product in action according to the crowdfunding website

Sony’s once gleaming PC business might be dead and the company might be turning into a ghost, but it still has some tricks up its sleeve. Today, Sony announced that it is partnering with the Palo Alto-based World Innovation Lab (WiL) to create Qrio, a new company.

The firm shares its name with the Qrio SmartLock, a smartphone enabled door lock which will be the company’s first product. The smartlock already had its own crowdfunding campaign, but now that WiL and Sony are putting in just under US$3 million into the project, one can assume backers will get their goods even though Qrio has yet to reach its target.

Not only does this announcement give Sony a new item to tout after its well-received e-paper watch, it also serves as a coming out of sorts for WiL. The organization has a mission to enable Japanese corporations to innovate. It is quite hands on, going so far as to take Japanese executives over to Silicon Valley and train them to think like startup leaders.

Qrio, which WiL has a 60 percent stake in to Sony’s 40, is its first publicly announced project. Co-founder and CEO of WiL, Gen Isayama, is pleased with the results.

“This announcement itself is about one product, but has a lot of implications,” he told Tech in Asia. “It is the first time for Sony to use an outside partner (WiL) to launch a new product. It is one of the fastest product launches since the product idea came up this summer. This would not be possible under big company standards. Third, the old Sony brand Qrio was granted to us. [We find] new ways to leverage assets sleeping inside of big companies.”

See: SmartBike and SmartLock: devices that answer Vietnam’s motorbike theft culture