This startup helps hotels save on energy costs, thousands of rooms at a time

Energy demand is steadily moving up in Southeast Asian markets such as the Philippines, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, and Indonesia. The hospitality sector is contributing to this trend: tourism is up, and hotels must keep the power going without racking up costs.

While Singapore’s hotels have generally become more energy efficient, some would argue that these establishments are either new or have the budget to overhaul their existing power systems.

Many hotels, however, don’t have that luxury, and their next best option is to optimize what they already have. One startup is helping these establishments do just that, using data acquired through wireless sensors – but without the exorbitant upfront costs.

Singapore-based SensorFlow offers a range of wireless, battery-powered sensors that can monitor the following: room occupancy and temperature, water and energy usage, and even door movements. They can also detect when hotel guests place a secondary or substitute key card on the slot to keep the room powered while they are away.

SensorFlow works with co-living operator Hmlet as well. / Photo credit: Hmlet

The company has quickly signed up clients by convincing them that installing its solutions could slash operational costs. Using the data continuously gathered by the sensors, for example, allows hotels to automatically tweak airconditioning settings to account for a room’s occupied and unoccupied times, address any humidity or ventilation issues in any room, and do other tasks for preventive maintenance.

The collected data can also have an impact on hotels’ profitability, according to SensorFlow co-founder and CEO Saikrishnan Ranganathan.

Established in 2016, SensorFlow is a full-stack company, which means the components of its products are designed in-house, from the sensor hardware to the proprietary network layer it uses. The collection, visualization, and automation of data are done internally as well.

Its sensors have no moving parts, so they can last from eight to 10 years. They can also be installed within five minutes. “Our occupancy sensor, which goes onto the ceiling of the room… [needs] two screws that we seal in, and then [we] just turn this device in,” says Ranganathan.

Meanwhile, SensorFlow’s smart thermostat uses the same wires as traditional ones, so it’s a plug-and-play device.

The company replaces its sensors’ batteries every five years, but it plans to run its future hardware on rechargeable batteries within the next six to 12 months.

Common sense

Ranganathan and fellow founder Max Pagel, who also serves as SensorFlow’s chief technology officer, both belonged to the first Singapore cohort of Entrepreneur First(EF), a program that brings experts together to start companies. Both have a background in the internet of things: Ranganathan has extensive experience in the software and product side, while Pagel brought an academic point of view to the table.

“We were actually working on something very similar at that point, which is how we can get different IoT devices to share data with each other securely, and use that data to make decisions,” Ranganathan recalls. He also noted how he and Pagel had similar views on the future of IoT, pointing out how the high cost and difficulty of installing such devices made adoption “increasingly hard.”

With the hospitality industry as its focus, SensorFlow began with just two clients during EF’s first demo day in 2017. Today, it has 36 employees and serves its home market of Singapore plus Hong Kong, Indonesia, Thailand, and Vietnam.

The price of energy savings

Growing fast