Bringing IoT Solutions to the Great Outdoors

Ray Dikun, Director of Technology at Plano Synergy, has a career in telecom that’s taken him around the globe throughout the past 30 years. From Motorola to RIM, Dikun’s seen the digital evolution up close and is one of its creators. Dikun joined Mike Wilkinson, Founder and CEO of Paragon Innovations, and host Tyler Kern for a peek inside that journey and at how he wound up merging his passion for the outdoors with today’s technological IoT advancements.

After several decades in the consumer electronics business, just when Dikun thought he was out, they reeled him back in. In 2019, when a recruiter asked if he was interested in getting back into the consumer electronics game, Dikun politely declined.

“What if it was for hunting?,” the recruiter said. “Hunting and fishing?” Dikun replied.

The “they” in question was Plano Synergy. When Dikun realized it was the “Plano tackle boxes people,” he said, “I’ll start tomorrow.” Plano’s portfolio spreads wide in the outdoor sports industry.

One of the first things Dikun did in his new role at Plano was to put together a strategy to bring them into the modern age, especially in game cameras.

“I have a game ranch outside of Sweetwater, Texas, and I utilized trail cameras before to monitor the animals’ movements and do some things like census counting, seeing when animals were on certain trails, and mostly to see the pictures,” Dikun said. “I thought there is a lot of additional data that’s in that picture. If you could utilize a computing solution to put together a heat map to understand things like how animals interact with the weather, time of day, moon phase, when the animal shows up, what type of elements attract him to a certain location – that would take it to the next level.”

From there, Dikun and his team began to look at how IoT could enhance additional aspects of gaming and other outdoor activities.

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