Jono Lockwood

Jono Lockwood, co-founder of Timescapes, joins Andy to discuss how construction cameras and AI are transforming site visibility. Timescapes evolved through three phases: remote high-res timelapse solving disconnectedness, building their own hardware (Nikon partnership), and now layering AI/ML for actionable insights. With 130+ customers and expansion into Australia, Canada, and the US, they detect excavators, dump trucks, cranes, skip bins, people, hard hats, and hi-vis across sites. The conversation digs into training data requirements, the "garbage in, garbage out" principle, software ecosystem integration, and why Jono calls Timescapes a "hardware enabled software company."

Key Topics Discussed

• Three phases of Timescapes. (1) Remote high-res timelapse cameras solving disconnectedness between office and site. (2) Built own hardware through Nikon partnership. (3) AI/ML layer for actionable insights from visual data.
• Object detection and classification. Detect excavators, dump trucks, cranes, skip bins, people, hard hats, hi-vis. Classification model layered on top of detection model (e.g., person detected → is person wearing hard hat?).
• Training data requirements. Need approximately 3,000 images to build a model, then 20-30K more images for training to reach 85-90% accuracy, with 95-100% as the goal. "Garbage in, garbage out", high resolution data quality is Timescapes' competitive advantage.
• Safety applications. Detect hard hat and hi-vis compliance at a macro level across multiple projects. Move from reactive incident investigation to proactive compliance monitoring.
• Software ecosystem. Seamless Procore integration, working on Aconex. The broader challenge: tech vendors need to talk to each other, build APIs. Fragmentation hurts adoption.
• Scale. 130+ customers, expanding to Australia, Canada, and the US.
• "Hardware enabled software company". The hardware (cameras) is the enabler, but the real value is in the software and data layer.

Notable Quotes

• Jono: "Garbage in, garbage out", high resolution data quality is their advantage.
• Jono: Timescapes is a "hardware enabled software company."
• Jono: Tech vendors need to talk to each other and build APIs.

Guest Background

Jono Lockwood is the co-founder of Timescapes, a construction camera and AI company. Started with remote timelapse cameras, evolved into building proprietary hardware through a Nikon partnership, and now delivers AI-driven insights from visual data. The company has 130+ customers across NZ with expansion into Australia, Canada, and the US.