Tantallon FAQ
The Tantallon Charter
Data Sovereignty. Your data never leaves your home.
Your home is not a data point. It’s not a profile to be traded, a habit to be tracked, or a feed for a distant server. Tantallon products live on your hardware, under your roof, behind your firewall. No phone-home. No mandatory internet. That data stays where it belongs: with you.
Permanent Ownership. No subscriptions, no monthly ransom.
Companies promised convenience but charged a hidden tax: your privacy. They built backdoors into your living room and sold the keys to the highest bidder. Tantallon is different. We build fortresses, not funnels. You own the hardware, you own the logic, and you own your automation.
Pricing Integrity. One price for everyone, zero tracking.
No "Basic," "Pro," or "Elite" tiers. Every feature we build is included the moment you open the box. We don't utilize behavioral tracking or automated profiling to adjust pricing. One honest price for industrial-grade security. Period.
General Questions
Why Tantallon?
Foremost, we are all home-owners. And we too feel the need to protect our homes. What better way to convey our strong sense of having to go through great lengths to ensure privacy and protection than by fortifying our homes with the best and most privacy driven tech we could design, build and deliver.
Tantallon, the last of the grand Scottish castles, always stood as a bulwark, a fortress against invasion, assault and the need to protect freedom. It was a natural choice for us, a beacon and symbol that illustrates our commitment to protect privacy and self-reliance.
Why a division of Optima?
Tantallon is the consumer-facing evolution of Optima Telecom. For over 25 years, Optima has built the backbone of enterprise networks. We aren't a startup learning on your dime; we are a seasoned engineering house bringing 'carrier-grade' reliability to the home.
Why have you decided to start Tantallon now?
With each passing day, it seems that life is getting more complicated. We have seen countless corporations offer alluring smart home products only to see these products turn into useless paper-weights, jettisoned by their originators due to lack of corporate interest, or not meeting sky-high profit expectations.
As more and more features are walled-off behind paywalls, we together with many other home owners have grown frustrated and infuriated by the ease in which our private data was hawked off to the highest bidder, while our brand loyalty is taken for granted or mercilessly trampled. We saw an opportunity, a need to do things better. And we felt we had what it takes given the decades of experience designing and manufacturing high-quality products that need to work 24/7, right here in Canada.
Who stands behind Optima?
Over the years, we have assembled a seasoned team of hardware and software professionals that know one thing: how to conceive, engineer, manufacture and ship electronic products, made locally in Markham, Ontario/Canada. We use our own in-house electronics assembly lines to ensure quality. We develop our own embedded firmware, bringing the same meticulous attention to detail and safety to the software that resides deep within our products.
What is your take on AI?
AI is a complicated subject matter. We detest the intrusion of snooping corporate AI bots, the incessant collection, accumulation and sifting of personal data by AI agents driven to fatten corporate coffers. But we are not anti-AI.
We believe in Edge AI—intelligence that lives on your hardware, not in a data center. If an AI helps your camera distinguish between a swaying branch and a person, that logic should stay inside your house. We use AI to make our products smarter, not to make our customers' data more marketable.
If there are no fees, how does Tantallon stay in business?
By building a sustainable business model based on fair hardware margins. Most companies use subscriptions to hide inefficient manufacturing or to please shareholders with 'recurring revenue.' We prefer the honesty of a one-time purchase that funds the ongoing development of the hardware you own.
Does "No Subscription" mean "No Updates"?
Absolutely not. You will have lifetime access to firmware updates. We believe security is a living process, and your purchase entitles you to improvements we make to that hardware's logic.
Can I integrate Tantallon with my existing smart home?
Yes. We believe 'Smart' shouldn't mean 'Closed.' We provide the steel; you build the walls. Our products are designed to be open and interoperable using standards like Zigbee and native Home Assistant support.
Do I need to be a 'tech expert' to set this up?
While we offer deep integration for power users, Tantallon is designed for simplicity. Out of the box, our framework is plug-and-play. We provide the professional-grade steel; we’ve already built the walls for you.
Can I access my system when I'm away from home without a cloud?
Yes, but on your terms. We don't provide a "middleman" server. You can use secure methods like WireGuard VPN or Home Assistant’s remote access tools to "tunnel" into your own home. Your data never touches a Tantallon server.
What happens if the Internet goes down?
Absolutely nothing. Tantallon is built for offline-first reliability. Your automations, schedules, and local recordings live inside your home. We don’t need a persistent connection to keep you safe.
Is Tantallon "locked" to specific hardware?
No. By using standards like Zigbee and native Home Assistant support, our devices are designed to play well with others. We provide the "steel," but you aren't forced to use our "bricks."
Where is my data stored?
On the Tantallon devices inside your house. Not in a far off data center or a server in another country. If you want to back it up, you can sync it to your own private NAS or a physical drive you control.
Is your 'Made in Canada' claim real?
It’s real. We have our own SMT assembly lines right here in Markham. We design the circuits, we code the firmware, and we populate the boards. When you buy Tantallon, you are supporting Canadian engineering and manufacturing.
Is the hardware weather-rated for Canadian winters?
Yes. We live here, too. Our outdoor hardware is engineered and tested to withstand the extremes of the Canadian climate—from humid summers to the deepest -40°C winter nights.
What if Tantallon (the company) goes away?
Your system keeps working. Because our products don't "phone home" to check for permission to run, they are truly autonomous. You bought it, you own it, and it belongs to your home forever.
What is the warranty on the hardware?
Because we build for permanence, we back our hardware with a comprehensive 18-months warranty. We don't build disposable tech; we build assets for your home.
Do you use dynamic or algorithmic pricing?
No. We believe a product’s price should be based on its value and our cost to build it—not on your personal data. We find the practice of "algorithmic personal pricing" predatory. Our prices are transparent, fixed, and the same for everyone.
How does your privacy mission affect the price I pay?
Because we do not track you, we cannot participate in the trend of price extraction. When you visit tantallon.tech, we aren't profiling your income level or your urgency to buy. We view you as a sovereign owner of hardware.
Why don't you offer "Personalized Discounts"?
"Personalized discounts" require constant surveillance to work. We value your anonymity more than a tracking-based marketing gimmick. We prefer a "Built for Permanence" approach: honest, upfront pricing.
Hardware Deep Dive
Can the SentryIQ-Boss really see through doors?
Yes. Depending on the density of your door material (non-metallic, such as certain wood, composite, or glass), the mmWave radar in the Boss version can detect human presence on the opposite side. This allows for "pre-entry" alerts, giving you a few extra seconds of awareness before a door is even opened.
Why do I need radar if I already have a contact sensor?
Contact sensors have a massive blind spot: they only work when the door moves. If you leave your door open to air out the house, a standard sensor is "blind." The SentryIQ-Boss uses radar to stay active regardless of the door's position, monitoring the physical threshold for anyone crossing into your space.
Where should I mount the SentryIQ-Boss for "see-through" and threshold detection?
To maximize the radar’s capabilities, the SentryIQ-Boss should be mounted on the interior top side of the door frame adjacent to the opening, rather than on the door hinge side. For "see-through" detection, the sensor needs a clear line-of-sight to the door surface to project its mmWave signals through the material.
Furthermore, by mounting it on the fixed frame, you ensure the sensor is not encumbered or blocked by the door panel when it is swung open. This kind of placement allows the radar to maintain a constant, unobstructed view of the threshold, ensuring you are protected whether the door is bolted shut or standing wide open.
The Tantallon Charter Pledge
We will never 'brick' your device because it’s an older model. We do not hide security features behind a paywall. And we will never view your home as a stream of data to be sold.
You are the Master of your home.
We are simply the ones who help you fortify it.
Integrity Guarantee
Zero Tracking.
Zero Profiling.
Zero Price Manipulation.