Dive Brief:

• Construction safety startup Heads Up Display has successfully completed a 10-month beta test of its signaling system on the SolarCity construction site in Buffalo, NY, the Buffalo Business Journal reported.
• The company's Heads Up app alerts those working on a construction sites to different safety situations and communication requests via an LED light-signaling device attached to safety glasses. A green, blue or red light — depending on the type of message — appears in the worker's peripheral vision.
• The product is about to hit the market after completing its testing. Heads Up said that in New York, the system can save companies up to 4% on their workers' compensation insurance premiums after a full year's use. 

Dive Insight:

Heads Up has partnered with a Buffalo-based distributor to market the product and is working with major tool companies to develop a points-based reward system for workers who use the system. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration also recognized Heads Up at the agency's most recent Noise Safety Challenge Event.

Companies are utilizing technology to improve job site safety, particularly with wearable sensors tracking human movement, activity, location and biometrics. Another startup investigating safety sensor technology, SmartSite, uses laser, UV and vibration sensors to detect hazardous particulate, UV and noise and vibration exposures that could endanger workers. And Pillar Technologies, which uses onsite sensors to monitor construction projects for fires, extreme humidity exposure, mold growth and other environmental and safety hazards, was named a winner of the Global Change the World for Profit competition at the Forbes Under 30 Summit.

The $900 million-plus SolarCity project, part of New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo's Buffalo Billion development initiative, has been in the spotlight lately for other reasons as well. U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara has been investigating how contracts under the Buffalo Billion program were awarded and has targeted associates of Cuomo's, as well as SolarCity general contractor LPCiminelli. Bharara's investigation coincided with a funding shortfall for the project earlier this year, a situation that led to more than 200 workers walking off the job after not being paid. After that, state legislators put extra controls on funding for the project.

Then in September, Bharara, alleging bid rigging, bribery and fraud, arrested three executives from LPCiminelli, as well as six others connected with the Buffalo Billion project.