Revolutionising Tenant Experience with Smart Utility Insights

Our brief

A leading Build To Rent (BTR) company approached cThings with an exciting challenge to enhance the tenant experience in one of their largest developments located in the heart of London. The development comprised over 1,000 properties, and the company was dedicated to providing the best possible service to their tenants.

As part of their commitment to offering cutting-edge technology solutions, the company had already invested significantly in creating a digital platform that allowed their tenants to access information about their properties through a user-friendly mobile app. This included details about their rental and internet bills, updates on services, and the ability to book additional services such as cleaning, all at their fingertips.

However, the company received feedback from their tenants that they wanted even more transparency when it came to their energy and utility usage.

With rising energy costs becoming a concern for many tenants, they felt in the dark about their energy expenses, which were becoming a substantial portion of their overall living expenses. As a result, the company sought to add energy and utility information to their existing app to address this request and provide their tenants with a more comprehensive view of their usage and costs.

The challenge, however, was obtaining accurate and real-time utility data from the industry meters onsite, which proved to be a daunting task. That’s when the company turned to cThings, a leading provider of IoT solutions, to see if they could offer a solution to collect and integrate the utility data into their app.

Our solution

With our expertise in IoT and data collection, we undertook a thorough review of the company’s existing metering strategy.

While non-smart sub-meters for water and heat had already been installed, there was a lack of electricity sub-metering. Leveraging our full range of products, we made each of the water and heat meters smart and installed our wireless gateways, allowing for seamless data collection that could be integrated into the company’s existing mobile app through our API.

To address the electricity consumption data, we developed a customised solution that involved installing wireless sub-meters in the consumer units of each apartment. These meters transmitted energy data every 30 minutes to cThings’ IoT platform, which in turn was available for viewing by residents through the existing mobile app.

"We were thrilled to partner with cThings to improve our tenant experience. Their solution for collecting utility data has been instrumental in helping provide our residents with real-time information about their energy usage and costs.

The cThings team's expertise and innovative approach helped us overcome the challenges of obtaining utility data, and their seamless integration with our mobile app."

The results

The customer is currently running trials with the additional utility data, which is being displayed on the app and used to inform residents about their energy usage patterns.

Going forward, our customer plans to provide further insights to tenants, such as comparisons of consumption with similar-sized apartments and information about their environmental impact, along with suggestions on how they can reduce it.

With the cThings' solution, the BTR company was able to address tenants’ requests for utility data and improve transparency, leading to enhanced tenant experience and increased awareness about energy consumption.

The benefits

Low-cost solution

The use of wireless meters and sensors allows for fast and cost-effective deployments, saving on installation costs and minimising disruption to existing infrastructure.

Access to data

The additional metering provides valuable insights to inform customers about their energy consumption, which would not have been possible without the installation of these sub-meters.

Building analytics

The collected data provides valuable insights into the performance of the building. This data can be leveraged to optimise building services and make informed decisions for future design improvements, ultimately leading to enhanced operational efficiency and improved tenant experience.

Additional sensors

The solution allows for the seamless installation of additional sensors to provide additional benefits such as environmental monitoring, occupancy monitoring, smart parking, and door entry.