Smart business

Darren Beck
Gaining an Edge Through
IoT-Powered Sustainability
Smart
Business
Com
plim
entsof

Darren Beck
Smart Business
Gaining an Edge Through
IoT-Powered Sustainability
Boston Farnham Sebastopol TokyoBeijing Boston Farnham Sebastopol TokyoBeijing

978-1-491-97504-6
[LSI]
Smart Business
by Darren Beck
Copyright © 2017 O’Reilly Media Inc. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America.
Published by O’Reilly Media, Inc., 1005 Gravenstein Highway North, Sebastopol, CA
95472.
O’Reilly books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales promotional use.
Online editions are also available for most titles (http://safaribooksonline.com). For
more information, contact our corporate/institutional sales department:
800-998-9938 or corporate@oreilly.com.
Editor: Jeff Bleiel
Production Editor: Colleen Lobner
Copyeditor: Gillian McGarvey
Interior Designer: David Futato
Cover Designer: Randy Comer
Illustrator: Rebecca Demarest
October 2016: First Edition
Revision History for the First Edition
2016-10-06: First Release
The O’Reilly logo is a registered trademark of O’Reilly Media, Inc. Smart Business,
the cover image, and related trade dress are trademarks of O’Reilly Media, Inc.
While the publisher and the author have used good faith efforts to ensure that the
information and instructions contained in this work are accurate, the publisher and
the author disclaim all responsibility for errors or omissions, including without limi‐
tation responsibility for damages resulting from the use of or reliance on this work.
Use of the information and instructions contained in this work is at your own risk. If
any code samples or other technology this work contains or describes is subject to
open source licenses or the intellectual property rights of others, it is your responsi‐
bility to ensure that your use thereof complies with such licenses and/or rights.

Table of Contents
1. Small Business, Big Impact. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
2. Barriers and Opportunities. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
The Focus on Big Business 6
Overcoming Inertia 8
IoT with the Assist 10
3. Reduce Energy with IoT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
Saving on Illumination with Smart Lighting 15
Managing Light and Heat with Smart Windows 17
Cooling Expenses with Smart HVAC Solutions 19
Deploying Total Energy Management Solutions 23
4. Save Fuel with IoT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27
What If Your Fleet Manager Had ESP? 29
5. Conserve Water with IoT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
Optimizing Irrigation for Healthier Crops 37
Reducing Water Use in Commercial Applications 43
6. Competitive Differentiation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Giving Products an Edge with IoT 53
PlotWatt: Mining IoT Data for Actionable Insights 55
Big Ass Solutions: Enhancing Products Sensibly with IoT 58
7. Resources for Success. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Assessing Your Priorities 64
v

Funding Your Endeavors 67
Maintaining Momentum 70
Final Thoughts 72
vi | Table of Contents

CHAPTER 1
Small Business, Big Impact
Each day, millions of small businesses across the country provide
products and services that enrich our lives. There is the local café
that serves melt-in-your-mouth pastries for breakfast, a visionary
software firm that develops cloud-based tools that make your busi‐
ness hum, the florist shop that arranges a cheerful bouquet for your
friend on the mend, the golf course that offers an oasis where your
foursome unwinds after work, and the plumbing company that fixes
the leak you discover upon arriving at home.
Small businesses are the heart and soul of the American economy.
According to the Small Business Administration, ventures with
fewer than 500 employees make up more than 99 percent of US
employers and generate about half of private-sector output. They
also use a significant amount of energy and resources to create this
economic value. Based on ENERGY STAR estimates, the nation’s
small businesses collectively spend more than $60 billion annu‐
ally on energy alone. “That equates to nearly half a billion metric
tons of carbon emissions each year that impact climate change,” says
Daniel Hill, cofounder and president of the Green Impact Cam‐
paign, an organization that provides small businesses with free
energy assessments to help them improve profitability and environ‐
mental sustainability.
1

Small businesses spend more than $60 billion a year on energy.
—ENERGY STAR, Small Businesses: An Overview of Energy Use
and Energy Efficiency Opportunities
While Hill and other leaders across the country highlight the eco‐
nomic importance and environmental impact that small businesses
have in aggregate, they also point to a missed opportunity. Small
businesses rarely factor into most public discussions about sustaina‐
bility. “One of the issues that our work is trying to shine a light on is
the overall neglect of small businesses in climate change discussions,
that includes a lack of data on small business energy profiles, water
usage, and waste. If we’re not trying to collect that data and measure
small business’s impact, we will struggle to truly reduce their
impact,” says Hill.
In short, small businesses have yet to receive the same level of atten‐
tion, guidance, and assistance that have propelled so many
enterprise-sized companies to focus on the triple bottom line: eco‐
nomic, environmental, and social performance. What if technology
could help level the playing field for them? What if it could provide
the resources needed to effectively identify opportunities and capi‐
talize on them? The Web is doing just that.
The Internet is a powerful resource for small businesses. It enables
them to compete effectively with the big guys by reaching custom‐
ers, marketing their business, and transacting deals with relative
ease. It helps them drive continuous improvement through quick
access to knowledge and experts from around the world. Now with
the Internet of Things (IoT)—sensors and controllers embedded
in everyday objects networked via the Internet—small businesses
can also identify and embrace opportunities to operate more green
and lean.
IoT-enabled solutions earn their keep by revealing hidden insights
that help small businesses make better decisions and automate tasks
to help owners and employees focus on what’s most important—the
core business. For instance, imagine systems that monitor the elec‐
tricity use of equipment, analyze performance, and generate just-in-
time advice on how to reduce energy consumption; smart windows
that know just how much light to let in for optimal comfort, produc‐
tivity, and energy savings; on-board vehicle intelligence that can
help lower fuel use in small fleets; and sensors that can help con‐
serve water by detecting leaks and preventing over-irrigation.
2 | Chapter 1: Small Business, Big Impact

These solutions enable small businesses to operate more efficiently
and sustainably, giving them a competitive edge. They help drive
down the cost of doing business by saving time, labor, and resour‐
ces. They create a marketable advantage by shrinking the business’s
environmental footprint—an appealing proposition for conscien‐
tious consumers, as well as corporate and public sector organiza‐
tions that are seeking to improve supply chain sustainability and
resilience. Eco-focused, IoT capabilities can even be infused into the
products and services that small businesses produce and sell,
spurring new and/or greater opportunities for revenue. Best of all,
there is a range of resources available that make it easy to take
action. From free consultation to grants and subsidized loans, sev‐
eral initiatives exist that small businesses can leverage to seize these
opportunities.
Small Business, Big Impact | 3

CHAPTER 2
Barriers and Opportunities
If small businesses represent such a large opportunity for environ‐
mental savings and they can benefit financially by going green, why
are they less likely to be engaged in sustainable business endeavors
than their larger counterparts?
Consider the Cox Conserves Sustainability Survey published in
2015. It gauged perceptions of small and medium-sized businesses
toward sustainability and the actions they have taken. In the sur‐
vey, only 57 percent of companies with less than $10 million in
annual revenue reported implementing environmentally conscious
steps like using energy-efficient lighting and equipment or conserv‐
ing supplies, compared to the 90 percent of companies with $100
million or more in annual revenue who reported doing the same.
That’s a significant difference.
Small businesses are less engaged because they have been over‐
looked and underserved. This situation has resulted from a combi‐
nation of factors. In part, small businesses have not been the focal
point for external forces like environmental non-government organ‐
izations (eNGOs), analyst ratings for investors, government audits
and voluntary programs, consultants, or solutions providers.
The other key factor is internal inertia. Without a sense of why these
endeavors are worthwhile, how to begin taking action, what resour‐
ces are required, and when they will see a return on their invest‐
ment, it’s easier for a small businesses to stay the course—especially
when the organization’s sheer survival requires unwavering attention
day to day.
5

The Focus on Big Business
While self-enlightenment can be a motivator, most companies begin
examining the sustainability of their business based on outside
influences. One very notable case is McDonald’s. In the late 1980s, it
was receiving substantial public pressure to reduce the impact of
packaging and waste in its restaurants. Then, in August of 1990,
McDonald’s teamed up with the Environmental Defense Fund, an
eNGO focused on industry transformation. Together, they found
ways to reduce McDonald’s solid waste—most famously switching
the packaging for sandwiches like the Big Mac from polystyrene
foam “clamshells” to paper-based wraps. This decreased their pack‐
aging volume by 70–90 percent and reduced the operational
cost, landfill space consumed, energy used, and pollutant releases
over the life of the packaging.
So why did the Environmental Defense Fund choose to work with
McDonald’s rather than a local restaurant or a small franchise? The
answer is scale and brand awareness. By focusing its limited resour‐
ces on a major organization, one that had more than 8,500 restau‐
rants in the US alone at the time, it could impact a significant
portion of the waste stream. Because McDonald’s is a national insti‐
tution, its work with this leading chain would also garner a lot of
public attention and hold considerable sway with other organiza‐
tions it approached. That’s why eNGOs tend to focus on large com‐
panies with major brands.
Fast forward 25 years, and the same holds true. In 2015, Greenpeace
updated its report entitled "Clicking Clean: A Guide to Building the
Green Internet.” In this ongoing exposé, it discloses the energy foot‐
print of major Internet companies (e.g., Amazon, Apple, Google,
and Facebook) and scores them based on action taken to reduce
greenhouse gas emissions. The report could have featured a wide
range of smaller, less well-known Internet companies, but that
approach would have had several drawbacks. It would have required
a tremendous amount of research into data that may not be tracked
or even publicly available. The combined contributions of these
companies toward climate change would barely register. Also, few
Internet users would be aware of these companies or regularly
encounter them. In short, focusing on major corporate brands gives
eNGOs the biggest bang for their buck.
6 | Chapter 2: Barriers and Opportunities

Likewise, government agencies and regulators also need to deploy
their resources judiciously. While environmental legislation at the
city, state, and federal levels tends to apply equally to all businesses,
small and large, within a jurisdiction, enforcement is another matter
altogether. In the US, a desire for “less government” often leaves
public agencies perpetually operating in an atmosphere of financial
austerity. With few resources to deploy when auditing and prosecut‐
ing businesses for compliance, they have to be selective about where
they focus their efforts.
Most public agencies tend to concentrate on companies that could
have a large impact, are highly recognizable to constituents, and
possess deep pockets that can accommodate sizable fines or settle‐
ments. Case in point, the state of California has been actively inves‐
tigating and prosecuting companies for hazardous waste disposal
infractions. In recent years, Walmart, Target, Rite Aid, and CVS
have all fallen under the state’s scrutiny. Two of the latest, Comcast
and AT&T, were cited primarily for improper disposal of electronic
waste. Altogether, these companies have agreed to pay more than
$200 million in fines.
This approach leaves major companies in the crosshairs, while
smaller businesses tend to fly under the radar. Occasionally, infor‐
mation about a particularly egregious violation by a small business
arises through a whistle blower, non-governmental watchdog, or
media investigation. Executive Recycling is an excellent example.
Two executives of this small business were fined and sentenced for
falsely advertising environmentally friendly recycling practices and
then exporting electronic waste containing toxic materials to devel‐
oping countries for disposal. Authorities received a tip and evidence
from a watchdog group, the Basel Action Network. Notwithstanding
these exceptions, regulators usually strive to keep all businesses
in line, including small ones, by making public examples of the big
guys.
An entire sustainability industry has emerged in response to the
focus and attention that enterprise-sized businesses have received.
Initially, these green consultants, service providers, and product
developers helped large companies comply with environmental reg‐
ulations and cope with increasing public pressure to adopt more
eco-friendly operations. However, the breadth and depth of their
offerings have evolved. Today, they enable major corporations to go
above and beyond mandatory efforts. They help identify and
The Focus on Big Business | 7

address natural resource constraints that could disrupt supply
chains; analyze and optimize the use of energy and raw materials to
offset rising prices; drive process and product innovation that cre‐
ates business value while reducing environmental impact; track, ver‐
ify, and report performance in these areas; and wrap the story of this
sustainable approach into their client’s brand.
The good news for small businesses is that big businesses have done
much of the heavy lifting in this space. Their deep pockets and
urgency to put solutions in place has spawned a rich and fertile mar‐
ketplace for sustainability solutions. It has also given rise to a vast
body of case studies highlighting the positive return on investment
(ROI) associated with many of these solutions. As a result, sources
of funding and financial incentives from the public and private sec‐
tor have become commonplace and continue to grow.
This puts small businesses in an enviable position. They can essen‐
tially leapfrog over the lengthy development process and learning
curve that the marketplace and their larger counterparts had to
endure. Small businesses can tap into many of today’s resources for
achieving a more environmentally sustainable and profitable busi‐
ness just as they are. Many of the remaining resources can be modi‐
fied to fit the needs of a small venture with relative ease.
Overcoming Inertia
Understanding that much of the groundwork has already been done
to enable their green transformation, what prevents more small
businesses from taking action? REV, a consultancy that helps organ‐
izations accelerate the impact of their sustainability efforts, has iden‐
tified several challenges.
In a 2015 white paper, "“Bringing Sustainability and Profit to Small
to Mid-Sized Businesses,” REV offers this insight:
Though critical to a thriving, sustainable economy, small to mid-
sized businesses are considered a hard-to-reach market. Current
obstacles include lack of awareness, misperception that sustainabil‐
ity comes at a high cost; belief that sustainable practices are relevant
to large companies only; uncertainty around the process and ‘how-
to,' not knowing who to turn to in a crowded and confused market‐
place; and lack of funding.
It should come as little surprise that awareness and applicability are
two of the primary obstacles. Even though terms like climate change

and recycling have permeated society and daily conversation, small
business owners, who are often operating in start-up or growth
mode, are all-consumed with advancing the business. Most have
developed an extraordinary ability to tune out anything that seems
to be immaterial or that might add questionable value to their com‐
pany—things like sustainability or being green.
Yes, a growing number of small businesses are being founded on
environmental principles (e.g., offering products that are local,
organic, or nontoxic; or donating a portion of profits to nature
restoration). However, many are coming from a different frame of
mind. Sustainability can seem like something big companies do
because they have the luxury of reliable cash flow, a nice financial
cushion, and specialized employees who can pursue it solely for PR
value. That’s far from the reality in which most small ventures are
immersed. Since they usually operate under lean conditions, focus is
paramount. Anything that siphons attention from delivering on the
core business can be seen as a threat to the company’s survival—a
real concern given that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reports just
about half of companies are still in business five years after their
inception, and only about a third survive beyond 10 years.
Important advancements in perception can come from simply
reframing terms like sustainability, though. Daniel Hill, cofounder
and president of the Green Impact Campaign, has done just that. He
brings it home in a way that likely resonates with all small business
owners when he says, “The term ' sustainability’ has begun to mean
many things. Most people associate it with composting and environ‐
mentalism. I’m unsure how many small businesses are focused on
those things, but when it is defined in business terms—reducing
operating costs through things like reducing utility costs and
increasing profits—then yes, I believe most small businesses are
focused on sustainability. I don’t think the problem is getting small
businesses interested in sustainability. The problem is that those
businesses are not getting the tailored services they want. We need
to create more small-business-focused services and outreach to give
them what they need to start reducing their energy use.”
The good news is that interest is on the rise. According to a study
conducted by Office Depot, more small businesses are engaging in
sustainability than ever before. The study reports that 51 percent of
small businesses planned to be greener in 2016, a sizable increase
from the 34 percent that said the same in 2013. While organizations
Overcoming Inertia | 9

like the Green Impact Campaign can help these small businesses
identify opportunities for greater sustainability and savings at no
cost (more about that in Chapter 7), technology, like solutions pow‐
ered by the 3IoT, can help them exploit those opportunities. IoT-
enabled solutions can also address another major obstacle that
prevents small businesses from pursuing sustainability—not having
enough people with sufficient time or expertise to figure out how to
optimize the company’s use of natural resources.
IoT with the Assist
By now, you understand that much of sustainability is about operat‐
ing more efficiently and using fewer resources. Small businesses that
operate leanly can save money, lighten their impact on the environ‐
ment, and still delight customers. They can benefit just like the big
guys, and maybe more so. Proportionally, their business is likely to
have more low-hanging fruit to pursue, and there are more products
and services available than ever before to help them succeed. This
includes IoT-enabled solutions that can monitor, track, and analyze
resource data within their business. The question is, “Where do
you start?”
The next three chapters showcase a wide range of IoT-enabled solu‐
tions that can help small businesses streamline their use of natural
resources like energy, fuel, and water. These solutions can address
the shortage of people and time by augmenting staff and acting like
virtual employees dedicated to specific tasks. Many of the solutions
also draw from a vast body of online intelligence (e.g., data, algo‐
rithms, and expertise) to automate certain operations and to help
owners and employees to make more informed decisions about
resource deployment.
Knowing that cost and a relatively swift payback are important to
small businesses, each solution is accompanied by a dashboard. This
image will make it easy to visualize the initial investment, payback
period, cost savings, and effort involved with installing the solu‐
tion. Where possible, a brief case study accompanies the solution
overview as well. It highlights how the solution has been imple‐
mented and how the results can provide a competitive edge.

CHAPTER 3
Reduce Energy with IoT
From buildings and lighting to equipment and electronics, every
business requires energy to run. Today, most of that energy comes
from burning fossil fuels. For instance, in 2015, two-thirds of the
electricity in the US was generated from coal, natural gas, and petro‐
leum. Additionally, natural gas remains the standard fuel source
used for heating in this country.
Generating power from fossils fuels releases greenhouse gases
(GHGs); primarily, water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous
oxide, and fluorinated gases. Water vapor dissipates in a few days,
but the rest are more persistent. As they accumulate in the atmos‐
phere, they absorb the sun’s energy and slow or prevent the loss of
heat to space. GHGs act like a blanket, making Earth warmer than it
would otherwise be. Rising global temperatures can cause signifi‐
cant, and often unpredictable, shifts in climate and weather. As a
result, this can increase risk for businesses—potentially constraining
or interrupting the flow of resources in their supply chains, imped‐
ing their own ability to operate, and reducing the capacity of some
customers—because they are dealing with these changing condi‐
tions—to buy goods and services.
A sustainable response to this situation is for businesses to become
more energy efficient and shift to non-carbon-based power sour‐
ces. Optimizing energy use and adopting renewable energy can gen‐
erate short- and long-term financial savings and help to slow, and
eventually reverse, the effects of climate change. These shifts are rel‐
atively easy to make. They can come through changing policies and
11

behavior, upgrading equipment and buildings, and even implement‐
ing IoT-based solutions that enable greater energy efficiency and
help maximize investments in renewable energy. The key is knowing
where to begin.
The first step is learning what drives energy use within the business.
With that knowledge in hand, it’s easier to prioritize which effi‐
ciency measures to pursue. While the energy profile of each busi‐
ness is unique, industry averages can provide general insights.
The Business Energy Advisor website, developed by E Source, is just
such a resource. Drawing upon data produced by the US Energy
Information Administration, it freely publishes average energy
profiles for businesses ranging from farms to ice rinks. It also rec‐
ommends actions, tailored by business type, for enhancing energy
efficiency.
To illustrate how energy profiles differ between industries, consider
the three types of commercial buildings compared in Figure 3-1:
restaurant, grocery store, and small-to-midsize office. As the chart
shows, restaurants and grocery stores use the majority of their elec‐
tricity for refrigeration. Thus, refrigeration should be a top priority
for energy efficiency projects, followed by lighting and cooling. Gro‐
cery stores can also target heating for additional savings. It accounts
for most of their remaining electricity and natural gas use. For res‐
taurants, it’s about food preparation. Cooking, water heating, and
ventilation comprise most of their remaining electricity and natural
gas use. The primary focus for small-to-midsize offices should be
lighting, heating, and cooling, which represent their largest end uses
of electricity and natural gas. Offices also use more electricity to
power computer and office equipment than restaurants and grocery
stores. This is an additional area to plumb for energy savings.
12 | Chapter 3: Reduce Energy with IoT

Figure 3-1. Average profile of electricity and natural gas use by build‐
ing type (source: E Source analysis of US Energy Information Adminis‐
tration data)
In general terms, here’s what each stands to gain:
• Office buildings in the US spend an average of $1.34 per square
foot on electricity and 18¢ per square foot on natural gas each
year. This makes them the least energy-intensive of the three
business types compared. However, electricity and natural gas
amount to nearly 20 percent of total expenditures for a typical
Reduce Energy with IoT | 13

office building annually. Reducing that cost can make a sizable
contribution to the bottom line.
• Restaurants have nearly 2.5 times the energy intensity of office
buildings and, in the US, spend an average of $2.90 per square
foot on electricity and 85¢ per square foot on natural gas each
year. Although energy accounts for only 3 to 5 percent of a typi‐
cal restaurant’s total annual operating expenses, it’s a reduction
worth pursuing as the profit margin for most restaurants is thin.
In May 2015, Sageworks, a leading source for financial data on
privately held companies, estimated net profit for restaurants
and other eating places to be 4.6 percent. Since ENERGY STAR
estimates most small businesses can easily cut energy costs by
10 to 30 percent without sacrificing service, quality, style, or
comfort, assume that the restaurant in this scenario shoots for
the middle—a 20 percent reduction. For a typical 15,000-
square-foot restaurant, this would return $11,250 to the bottom
line. With a profit margin of 4.6 percent, a restaurant would
have to increase its sales by nearly a quarter million dollars
($244,565) per year to make a similar contribution to the busi‐
ness’s profitability.
• Grocery stores have 2.76 times the energy intensity of office
buildings, the highest of all three business types compared. On
average, grocery stores in the US spend an average of $3.95 on
electricity and 24¢ on natural gas per square foot annually. This
accounts for just 1 percent of total business costs. Seemingly lit‐
tle, unless one considers that grocery stores operate on an even
thinner net profit margin than restaurants—1.7 percent, accord‐
ing to Sageworks, in March 2015. Assuming that the typical
46,000 square-foot grocery store achieves the same 20 percent
reduction in energy costs as the restaurant above, this would
return $38,548 to the bottom line. With a profit margin of 1.7
percent, a store would have to sell nearly $2.3 million more gro‐
ceries each year to make a similar contribution to the business’s
profitability.
It’s clear that strategic investments in energy efficiency can yield sig‐
nificant savings. The key for a small business is finding affordable
solutions that are easy to install, operate, and maintain. This is
essential as there are limits to the venture’s money, staff, and “know-
how,” and these existing resources are usually laser-focused on deliv‐

ering the core business. Now consider how technology can assist,
especially product enhancements and IoT-enabled solutions.
Saving on Illumination with Smart Lighting
Start with the small-to-midsize office just highlighted. One of every
five dollars spent on its operating cost is allocated to energy. One
third of that covers lighting—the largest single line item in its
energy profile. The easiest way to begin reducing energy in this cate‐
gory is to upgrade the lamping and bulbs in the office. Advances in
product design have created a new generation of products that offer
the same level of illumination, last many times longer, and use just a
fraction of the electricity required by traditional lighting. Basic tips
on how to capture those energy savings can be found in the
free office lighting checklist developed and published by the
National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). Many utilities and
cities across the country offer rebates to make lighting upgrades
more affordable. In Chapter 7, several resources are identified that
can help small businesses reduce the financial cost of pursuing this
and similar energy efficiency projects.
What if the lighting system were self-aware? What if it could detect
whether light was needed in a space, and if so, provide just the right
amount of illumination to complement the natural light that is
already present? Imagine how much more energy could be saved if
the system had this capability. Enlighted, represented in Figure 3-2
and the first of many IoT-enabled solution providers that will be
covered in this report, has introduced an Intelligent Lighting Con‐
trol System that does just that.
Figure 3-2. Dashboard for Enlighted’s Intelligent Lighting Control
System
Saving on Illumination with Smart Lighting | 15

The Enlighted system involves three main elements:
• Smart sensors and their powerpack control units; one pair for
every lighting fixture within the building
• Communications gateway; typically one per floor
• Energy manager device; one per building
The system can easily be deployed with new lighting upgrades or the
lighting that already exists. No new wiring is required for the build‐
ing, and installation can be done without the need to design, pre-
engineer, or even hire certified technicians. The first step is
installing the smart sensors and their power packs to each lighting
ballast. They work with all types of lamps, including fluorescent and
LED. Enlighted estimates that this will take about 20 minutes per
fixture. Once installed, the sensors can detect the occupancy, tem‐
perature, and ambient light in a space and manage the lights to pro‐
vide just the right level of illumination. Tying the sensors to
individual fixtures also enables illumination just where its needed.
For instance, when one or two employees are working, it can auto‐
matically provide a comfortably lit workspace for each while dim‐
ming unoccupied areas, rather than illuminating the entire office
work row.
Data is gathered in the following way. All of the smart sensors relay
their detection and energy usage data through an encrypted, wire‐
less connection to the gateway installed on their corresponding
floor. Those gateways then pass it along to a server-class device
called the Enlighted Energy Manager. It tracks and analyzes the
energy savings, which building managers can view through a web-
based interface. It also provides real-time input on occupancy, light,
and temperature for other building energy efficiency systems.
Examples include demand-response systems that help shift or shave
building electricity use during times when overall use is peaking on
the electrical grid resulting in higher prices per kilowatt hour
(kWh), and intelligent heating, ventilation, and air conditioning
(HVAC) systems that strive to provide warmth, cooling, or
improved air quality within a building just where it’s needed.
Based on customer installations to date covering more than 30 mil‐
lion square feet of commercial real estate space, Enlighted estimates
that the system can reduce energy use for lighting by more than
half. For example, one business deployed the solution for 150 light

fixtures in its 35,000-square-foot office building and achieved a 70
percent savings over an 18-month period.
Managing Light and Heat with Smart
Windows
Another way small businesses can save on lighting and reduce
HVAC costs in buildings is by using smart windows. Brandon Tinia‐
nov, vice president of business development for View, Inc., frames
the opportunity well when he says, “Glass is the gateway to energy
flow in a building—both light and heat.” Glass window panes bring
the sunshine indoors. As more natural light passes through, a build‐
ing needs less artificial light to provide a comfortable experience for
its occupants. Likewise, as solar heat is transmitted through win‐
dows, it impacts how much heating and cooling a building requires
to keep occupants comfortable. The Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory estimates that 34 percent of the total annual energy used
to condition spaces inside commercial buildings is in response to
the amount of heat entering or leaving through window panes.
View Dynamic Glass, represented in Figure 3-3, is an IoT-enabled
solution that helps businesses reign in the energy consumed via
HVAC and lighting. This intelligent window is similar to the photo‐
chromic Transitions lenses used in eyeglasses that darken or lighten
based on their exposure to specific light (i.e., photo means light;
chromic means color). Here’s how dynamic glass differs. Sandwiched
between panes of glass in the window are thin layers of metal oxide
that form an electrochromic ceramic coating (i.e., electro means elec‐
trical). By applying a tiny amount of voltage to the glass, the window
can be darkened or lightened to just the right level. This technology
offers businesses the freedom to automatically or manually control
the tinting, which can prevent uncomfortable glare and excess solar
heat from passing through the glass while still transmitting as much
natural daylight through the window as possible.
Figure 3-3. Dashboard for View Dynamic Glass
Managing Light and Heat with Smart Windows | 17

The View Dynamic Glass system achieves this balance through a
network of devices that communicate with each other and draw
from embedded, predictive, and real-time intelligence. Each window
has its own unique IP address and is equipped with a controller. It
delivers electronic signals to the glass, changing its state from trans‐
parent to the desired level of tint. Windows can be changed individ‐
ually, in predetermined groups (or zones), or on one side of the
building all at once. All of the individual window controllers com‐
municate with a master controller on site. This apparatus provides
guidance for all of the windows in the building and serves as the
central communication point for the rooftop light sensor, the wall-
mounted and mobile device interfaces (which enable employees to
manually control the tinting), the manufacturer’s automatic control
system, and even an existing building automation system that con‐
trols HVAC and lighting, if one is already in place.
Like a living system, the state of the building’s windows changes flu‐
idly throughout the day when in automatic mode. A light-sensitive
weather mast on the roof detects clear or cloudy skies from every
direction, providing real-time feedback for the glass. In addition,
View continuously runs a series of algorithms that analyze streams
of relevant data to optimize the windows performance. For example:
• Astronomical data is analyzed to determine the exact angle of
the sun at any time during the year in relation to the building’s
location to help prevent glare.
• Predictive weather feeds are assessed to determine when cloud
cover may require a change in tinting to help maximize natural
daylight.
• Based on predetermined heat loads for different spaces within
the building, algorithms constantly calculate the sun’s energy and
how much solar heat to deflect to help control indoor tempera‐
tures throughout the day.
A system like this is a solution worth considering for any small busi‐
ness that is planning new construction, a remodel, or even replacing
an aging HVAC system. The product has been deployed in buildings
as small as 30,000 square feet. View has also conducted a 12-month
energy-monitoring comparison between two identical office rooms
—one equipped with dynamic glass and one with low-e glass (a
standard, energy-efficient glass that has a low thermal e, or emissiv‐
ity coating). Overall, the room with View Dynamic Glass saved 39

percent of the total energy consumed for heating, cooling, and light‐
ing compared to the low-e glass room. The savings was as high as 87
percent on the weekends when the office would be unoccupied, the
set point for temperature was higher, and the tint was automatically
adjusted to its darkest setting.
View customers typically experience a return on their investment on
energy savings alone in less than five years, and some within 36
months. Other financial benefits include saving money on structural
elements on the building’s exterior that provide shade, as well as
blinds or curtains inside that are no longer needed.
Cooling Expenses with Smart HVAC Solutions
It’s clear. Smart windows can be a smart decision for a small business
that wants to achieve energy savings and improve the indoor experi‐
ence, but how else might you drive down energy costs associated
with heating, ventilation, and air conditioning for a building?
Start with the basics. When buying new systems or replacing ones
that have reached their end of life, choose energy-efficient equip‐
ment. The EPA and US Department of Energy (DOE) have teamed
up to help you find it easily. They have established a program called
ENERGY STAR that identifies some of the most energy-efficient
products for sale in the US. To carry the ENERGY STAR label, a
product must undergo an expert analysis and testing by a third party
to prove its quality, performance, and efficiency. A quick and easy
way find products that have passed the test with flying colors, like
HVAC products for light commercial applications, is by visiting the
ENERGY STAR website.
Another step you can take is checking whether any conditioned air
is leaking from the facility in which your business operates or its
HVAC ducts. Whether you’re heating or cooling air, it’s a significant
expense. When some of that air is siphoned off as it circulates
indoors or slips through poorly insulated spots of your building’s
exterior, part of that investment is lost. The ENERGY STAR website
offers tips on sealing and insulation that can help. While the advice
was written with homeowners in mind, much of it applies to small
businesses as well. Using information from the site, create an action
plan to make air ducts and the envelope of your building airtight.
Then turn your attention to two other areas of low-hanging fruit for
Cooling Expenses with Smart HVAC Solutions | 19

energy efficiency: air filters and thermostats. Both can be optimized
using IoT technology.
Whether an HVAC system is heating, cooling, or humidifying the
air within your building, it relies on one common denominator to
get the job done—circulation. It needs to cycle conditioned air
throughout the building or specific zones to achieve desired indoor
temperatures. The harder a fan motor in your HVAC system has to
work to move the air around, the more energy it consumes. For
example, filtration is one aspect that can impede airflow, but it’s a
trade off that most of us are prepared to make. HVAC systems use
air filters that clean the air as it circulates. The minimal resistance
these filters present to airflow is worth all of the health benefits that
come from breathing clean air. The challenge is that air filters need
to be regularly cleaned or replaced, which often goes overlooked.
“Clogged, dirty filters block normal airflow and reduce a system’s
efficiency significantly,” according the US Department of Energy.
“Replacing a dirty, clogged filter with a clean one can lower your air
conditioner’s energy consumption by 5 to 15 percent.”
One simple IoT solution that can help small businesses pocket those
savings is a product that monitors airflow and sends alerts when an
air filter is ready be cleaned or changed. FILTERSCAN, produced by
CleanAlert and represented in Figure 3-4, does just that. Available
for $99, this battery-operated device monitors the difference in air
pressure around the air filter to determine when it’s getting clogged.
It then notifies anyone locally with an audible beeper and a green-
yellow-red LED status light. Since the device is WiFi-enabled, it can
also send texts and emails to designated personnel. It even has
an optional wired output to route the alert through an existing
building automation system. The device recalibrates after the filter
has been serviced so it can begin monitoring the filter’s status
through its next cycle.
Figure 3-4. Dashboard for CleanAlert’s FILTERSCAN
Beyond airflow, the most crucial job an HVAC system performs for
your business is maintaining an optimal indoor temperature for

everyone and everything inside your facility. That’s where thermo‐
stats come into play. They monitor air temperature in an entire
building or zones within a building. When the temperature varies
from a point set by the user, the thermostat signals either the fur‐
nace or air conditioner to run until the indoor temperature reaches
the set point. Historically, thermostats were manual devices. They
were adjusted physically by the user and remained at a single set
point until the user adjusted them again. Today, smart thermostats
abound. They can be programmed electronically to achieve different
temperatures at different intervals and can be operated remotely.
For a small business that has only one building with a single zone
and a solitary HVAC system, energy management can be easily
achieved with a smart residential thermostat. Many electric and gas
utilities will provide and install a WiFi-enabled programmable ther‐
mostat for free upon request. The thermostat enables the user to
save energy by scheduling changes in temperature based on when
and how the building will be used around the clock and throughout
the year. This programming can be done in person or, in many
cases, remotely through a web-based interface on your computer or
a mobile app on your smartphone or tablet.
Through an upfront agreement with the user, the utility may also
use the WiFi Internet connection to slightly adjust the thermostat’s
set point during times of high demand or peak power usage. Want
to maintain full control? Or is this offer is not available through
your utility? Never fear. Smart, residential-grade thermostats are
affordable and easy to install.
For instance, the 3rd gen Nest Learning Thermostat, represented in
Figure 3-5, is available for a retail price of $249. Installation is sim‐
ple and straightforward. Nest estimates that it takes just 20–30
minutes to replace an old thermostat with the new one, which is
WiFi-capable. After it’s installed and connected to the Internet, there
is no programming required. Just adjust the Nest thermostat man‐
ually or via a mobile app on your smartphone for the first week. It
learns your preferences and patterns, then starts adjusting itself
automatically. It also uses input from a built-in motion sensor to
determine when your business is occupied. When no one is there,
the Auto-Away feature activates for additional cost savings. At any
time, the user can adjust the system. It continues to learn.
Cooling Expenses with Smart HVAC Solutions | 21

Figure 3-5. Dashboard for Nest Learning Thermostat
What kind of energy savings can be experienced? Based on the
results of independent studies, Nest thermostats saved users on
average about 10–12 percent on heating and about 15 percent
on cooling. Typically, that’s enough to pay for itself in less than two
years.
If your business operates in several buildings or has multiple zones
within a building, it would be more effective to implement
commercial-grade thermostats. One such solution is the ecobee
EMS (Energy Management System), represented in Figure 3-6.
Figure 3-6. Dashboard for ecobee EMS
It’s a good fit for small businesses where a basic programmable ther‐
mostat is not enough and a full-scale building automation system is
too complicated and costly. The fully loaded thermostat, which has a
touchscreen control and the ability to interact with up to four
remote sensors, can be purchased online for around $400. Its instal‐
lation is more complex than the Nest, so be prepared to hire an
HVAC contractor to get it connected.
Here’s how it works. In most cases, multiple ecobee EMS thermo‐
stats are deployed. They are directly connected to the HVAC sys‐
tems in different facilities (e.g., in each store owned and operated by
the same retailer) or in different zones throughout a single
facility (e.g., in an office building as large as 25,000 square feet that
has multiple rooftop units for handling air).
All of the thermostats are WiFi-enabled, so they can be managed
remotely through a single web portal or smartphone app. Settings
for each device can be programmed individually or in groups to
standardize operations across zones and locations. Ranges can be

programmed that allow employees to adjust the thermostat on site
within a few degrees of the target temperature that you set. ecobee
EMS thermostats also have built-in algorithms that can do the work
for you. Drawing from the space’s energy profile and its occupancy
patterns, live weather feeds, and an array of other data points, the
system can adjust indoor temperatures for optimal comfort and
energy savings. The web portal also offers diagnostics and reporting
tools that can alert you about issues with equipment performance
and help you remotely isolate and assess the cause—saving you
administrative time and money on service calls.
Since there are no recurring fees associated with ecobee EMS ther‐
mostats beyond the cost of purchasing, installing, and powering
them, the average payback period is less than one year. According to
ecobee, customers have reported energy savings between 8–50 per‐
cent month over month.
Deploying Total Energy Management
Solutions
On their own, each of the aforementioned solutions are powerful
tools that can help a small business focus on one aspect of energy
use and savings. What if you’d like to address them collectively?
For example, earlier in this chapter, it was noted that restaurants and
grocery stores use a considerable amount of energy for refrigeration,
cooking, and water heating in addition to lighting, heating, and
cooling. Is there a comprehensive solution that monitors
and controls energy usage for lighting, HVAC, and other equipment
in a facility, while also optimizing operations and maintenance
schedules?
The answer is yes. Holistic solutions exist that allow a small business
to visualize and optimize energy use at a granular level throughout
and entire organization’s operations. While some solutions offer
analytics and insights, others go beyond to provide control as well.
Panoramic Power, represented in Figure 3-7, is an example of the
former.
Deploying Total Energy Management Solutions | 23

Figure 3-7. Dashboard for Panoramic Power
At the heart of the Panoramic Power solution are low-cost, self-
powered wireless sensors with an innovative design. When closed,
they look like long cubes that are slightly smaller than a pill bottle.
They’re hinged on one side, so when opened, they resemble a block-
like version of Pac-Man, mouth wide open. The sensors snap and fit
around an electrical wire that leads out of the control panel into the
equipment you’d like to monitor. The fitting is noninvasive and does
not cut through the wire’s conduit.
The sensor fits just snugly enough to do two things. First, it senses
how much electricity is flowing through the wire to the equip‐
ment. Second, it harvests enough energy from the wire’s electromag‐
netic field to power itself perpetually. This design makes it simple,
quick, and easy to deploy sensors across your operations, and they
are virtually maintenance-free.
The sensors, each with their own unique ID number, relay data on
energy usage in real time to a communications bridge via a wireless
connection. Each bridge device can receive data from up to 200 sen‐
sors. It then relays that collective data every 10 seconds to a cloud-
based analytics platform, called PowerRadar, which monitors,
measures, and reports electricity consumption. Users can view this
platform via a web-based dashboard or smartphone app, making
it easy to understand how electricity is being used at the individual
circuit level throughout an entire facility and across multiple loca‐
tions. It also alerts users of peaks and anomalies in energy consump‐
tion caused by a range of factors, including inefficiencies, improper
usage, and early signs of equipment failure. All of these point to
opportunities for savings.
What might that look like for restaurant owners? “By implementing
device-level monitoring of energy consumption, owners and their
employees gain unmatched visibility into the devices running their
restaurants and can easily identify systems that are inefficient or
improperly used,” says Yaniv Vardi, chief executive officer for Panor‐
amic Power. “For example, managers can be alerted when lighting

systems operate during off hours, if cooking equipment idles super‐
fluously, if a fryer needs maintenance, or when cooling and heating
systems inadvertently work concurrently. Armed with this informa‐
tion, a restaurant can immediately take action to eliminate their
energy waste, improves processes, and reduce their expense.”
A sampling of Panoramic Power case studies across industries
shows that customers have been able to save 5–15 percent on energy
bills and experience tens of thousands of dollars in operational
improvements by implementing the solution. They also have experi‐
enced ROIs ranging from 6–18 months.
While sensors, backed by a cloud-based analytic platform, can offer
valuable insights, some businesses may want to go a step further.
Rather than just receiving actionable intelligence, they may want to
remotely or automatically control their building’s electronic equip‐
ment in response. One energy management solution that offers this
type of comprehensive package is GridPoint. It’s represented in
Figure 3-8.
Figure 3-8. Dashboard for GridPoint
In addition to providing submeters that can track the energy used
by each electric-powered asset in your facility; sensors that can
monitor variables like temperature, light, humidity, and CO2; and a
cloud-based software platform that can collect, analyze, and help
make sense of all this data, they also provide control devices for
HVAC systems and indoor and outdoor lighting.
For one restaurant franchise owner, here’s what the GridPoint
deployment looked like in each of the six Burger King locations
where it was piloted:
Controls and submeters
Connected to five HVAC units as well as parking, kitchen, din‐
ing, and signage lights
Deploying Total Energy Management Solutions | 25

Submeters
Also added to cooler/freezer, ovens, fryers, fryer fans, broiler
fans, biscuit ovens, egg cookers, and water heaters, plus ice,
milkshake, and slush machines
Monitors
Sensing HVAC runtime, zone and supply temperatures, cooler/
freezer temperatures, and cooler/freezer door position
The franchise owner, TOMS King, was able to view and assess all of
the wirelessly collected data through a cloud-based platform called
GridPoint Energy Manager, which is accessible through a web portal
or smartphone app. The platform enabled TOMS King to adjust lev‐
els and program schedules for heating, cooling, and lighting at each
location. It also provided algorithms to help avoid sudden surges of
electrical demand when bringing overnight temperatures back to
normal levels at the start of each day and alerts to indicate when
monitored items, like the HVAC system and cooler/freezer, were
operating outside the normal range. Additionally, through a sub‐
scription to GridPoint’s advisory services, the company also received
assistance with setting controls for HVAC and lighting and identify‐
ing opportunities to save more energy and operational expenses
based on further data analysis. Gridpoint has helped clients like
TOMS King save up to 30 percent on energy, operational, and main‐
tenance expenses with an 18–36 month payback period.
While the examples offered here have focused on restaurants, Pan‐
oramic Power, GridPoint, and similar energy management solutions
are versatile. They can be used in a wide range of businesses from
retail, grocery, and convenience stores to offices, data centers, and
health clinics. Energy management solutions can help you under‐
stand your business in a whole new way. It can be like removing a
veil. For the first time, you can see usage, patterns, inefficiencies,
and behavior that may have always been there but were unknown.
Not only is this a real rush, it’s empowering. Decisions are often only
as good as what’s known when they are made. As your knowledge
grows, your ability to make smarter decisions about the direction of
your business improves as well.

CHAPTER 4
Save Fuel with IoT
Small ventures rely on electricity in a wide variety of ways, but for
many, it’s not the only thing powering their business. A lot of
companies with 500 or fewer employees rely on transportation or
delivery for their operations. Think of couriers, shuttle services,
brewing companies, furniture stores, florists, landscapers, painters,
plumbers, electricians, and towing firms. What do they have in
common? Each depends on company-owned vehicles to get the job
done. It could be a single car, truck, or delivery van, or even a small
fleet. Regardless of the type, almost all of those vehicles are being
fueled by gasoline or diesel. With an average price of just over $2.30
per gallon for both fuel types when this report was written, small
businesses can generate significant savings by becoming more fuel
efficient.
A report published by the Environmental Defense Fund and PHH
Arval does a wonderful job of sizing up this opportunity. It states,
“Medium-duty trucks, identified as Classes 3–6, are the workhorses
of the American economy. These vehicles deliver food and bever‐
ages to restaurants and convenience stores, drop off packages at
homes and offices, serve as mobile workshops for all types of techni‐
cians, and perform thousands of other daily tasks. They also use a
lot of fuel—over 8 billion gallons a year.” That’s an annual cost
of $18.4 billion dollars at the aforementioned price. The report goes
on to say that medium-duty trucks emit more than 13 metric tons of
carbon dioxide per vehicle per year on average. To put that in per‐
spective, it would take more than 12 acres of US forests just to
27

absorb the emissions from one truck for one year. So, being fuel effi‐
cient can also reduce stress on the environment.
The good news is that any business can take some simple steps to
conserve fuel, retaining cash and reducing greenhouse gas emissions
in the process. Following are several areas where you can take
action:
Out-of-route miles
Shorter trips save your business time and money. That’s why it
pays to avoid excess miles when possible. Using GPS technology
is an easy way to optimize routes. The Carbon War Room notes
that it’s especially advantageous for intracity trucking, reducing
mileage by 5–10 percent. Businesses can also benefit from
knowing where field personnel are relative to the next job that
needs to be serviced. Ideally, the closest individual who’s best-
suited for the occasion would always be sent. Using GPS-
powered, location-based solutions can optimize dispatching and
reduce vehicle miles as well.
Idling
Argonne National Laboratory studied commercial trucks and
found that all sizes idle for extended periods (30 minutes or
more) during workdays. Often, it happens as their drivers are
waiting to pick up or drop off a load. For instance, a basic
enclosed van that drives under 40,000 miles annually averages
600 workday idling hours per year. That wastes an average of
381 gallons of gas per year. Knowing when idling occurs and
setting company policies to restrict how long it happens can
save money and lower your environment impact.
Speeding
The fuel efficiency of vehicles differs by make and model, but
one thing is certain. As soon as you go beyond 50 miles per
hour (mph), you get fewer miles per gallon (mpg). Oak Ridge
National Laboratory studied increasing highway speed and its
effect on fuel economy. Based on a test of 74 light-duty vehicles,
mpg decreased by 12.4 percent from 50 to 60 mph, 14.0 percent
from 60 to 70 mph, and 15.4 percent from 70 to 80 mph. Mod‐
erating speed can improve your triple bottom line, while reduc‐
ing risk for your driver and vehicle.
28 | Chapter 4: Save Fuel with IoT

Aggressive driving
Speeding, rapid acceleration, and forceful braking are hard on
your vehicle and waste gas. According to FuelEconomy.gov, this
can lower your gas mileage by 33 percent at highway speeds and
5 percent around town. Driving sensibly reduces vehicle operat‐
ing costs and GHG emissions. It’s also safer for the driver and
everyone else on the road.
Tire pressure
When tires are low on air, they spread out under the vehicle’s
weight and create more rolling pressure. It can reduce gas mile‐
age by 0.3 percent for every 1 pound-per-square-inch drop in
pressure of all four tires according to FuelEconomy.gov.
Improve your mpg and lower fuel emissions by up to 3.3 per‐
cent by keeping your vehicle’s tires inflated to the proper pres‐
sure.
Engine maintenance
Does the system under your hood need attention? FuelEcon‐
omy.gov points to engine maintenance as another opportunity
to increase mileage. Repairing a car that is out of tune or has
failed an emissions test can improve its mpg by an average of 4
percent. Fixing a faulty oxygen sensor can improve mileage by
up to 40 percent. Stay on top of preventive maintenance to
reduce visits to the pump and fuel-related air pollution.
What If Your Fleet Manager Had ESP?
These actions are easy to take when it’s just you behind the wheel.
But it becomes more challenging when your business has multiple
vehicles and you rely on others to do the driving. Typically, it’s hard
to know how a vehicle is being driven unless you’re riding along in
the passenger seat. It’s also challenging to know what mechanical
issues may be undercutting your vehicle’s performance at any given
time. It’s not as if the company truck or delivery van can schedule a
one-on-one meeting with you once a week to provide a status
update. That’s when ESP, or extrasensory perception, would come in
handy. Without being there, you could instantly know what was
happening and address it. Though few, if any, of us have this power,
IoT-based solutions can give everyone these superhuman insights.
Just as Internet-enabled solutions can imbue a building with sensory
intelligence, telematics can do the same for vehicles. Telematics devi‐
What If Your Fleet Manager Had ESP? | 29

ces relay data generated by computerized systems or sensors over
long distances. They tend to rely on signals provided by wireless
carriers, instead of WiFi, making them ideal for cars, trucks, and
vans that are constantly on the move. There are two types of tele‐
matics solutions that can benefit your business, especially if you own
and operate a small fleet and have several employees in the field pro‐
viding deliveries or on-site service to a set of customers that changes
by the day. Both can reduce fuel costs and vehicle emissions. The
first is a fleet management solution, such as FleetLocate, as repre‐
sented in Figure 4-1. The second is a mobile workforce management
solution, such as StreetSmart Workforce.
Figure 4-1. Dashboard for Spireon’s FleetLocate
FleetLocate from Spireon is a solution that can track of all the vehi‐
cles in your fleet, monitor their health, and gauge how they are
being driven. The solution consists of two components: 1) a telemat‐
ics device, equipped with a wireless data plan, that is installed in
each vehicle, and 2) a cloud-based system, Spireon Fleet Mange‐
ment, that receives and analyzes real-time data from your vehicles
and can be viewed through a web dashboard.
The FleetLocate telematics device, the FL7, is a bit smaller than a
pack of playing cards. It has built-in GPS technology that can track
the vehicle’s location and an accelerometer that can sense how much
gravitational force the vehicle encounters while it’s in motion. It also
contains tracking algorithms that can retrace trips and analyze inci‐
dents, and even features an audible buzzer that can provide the
driver with feedback on harsh braking, harsh acceleration, harsh
corners, over-revving, excessive idling, speeding, and seatbelt viola‐
tions.
The FL7 plugs into the vehicle’s on-board diagnostic (OBD II) port.
Think of this as the gateway to the engine’s computer system. The
OBD II comes standard in most vehicles built for the US market
since 1996. It’s always positioned within three feet of the steering
wheel and can usually be found under the dash on the driver’s side.
This port is where your mechanic will connect the repair shop’s digi‐

tal equipment to diagnose issues with the engine’s performance.
Once the FL7 has been plugged in, you also have access to all of that
data and more.
Spireon offers a mid-tier service that has most of the features a small
business likely needs. Each FL7 you purchase under the plan comes
with a one-time activation fee of less than $100 and a recurring
monthly fee of about $40, which includes connectivity for wireless
data. With this plan you can monitor, analyze, and generate reports
on the following features by logging into the Spireon Fleet Manage‐
ment web portal:
Location-based
Tracking, breadcrumb trails, stops, various map views, and
alerts on unauthorized movement and when vehicles enter des‐
ignated areas
Diagnostics
Tire pressure, idling, fuel usage, miles, CO2 emissions, predic‐
tive maintenance, engine diagnostic codes, and notification on
vehicle safety and roadside breakdowns
Behind the wheel
Driver identification, hard breaking and hard acceleration,
coasting, swerving, speed compared to posted limits, and driver
safety scoring
Spireon customers have experienced up to a 50 percent reduction in
accidents by helping drivers identify and reduce risky behaviors.
They also have saved money and vehicle emissions by reducing their
fuel purchases and idle time as much as 15 percent and 50 percent,
respectively. With those results, it’s easy to see how a fleet manage‐
ment solution like Spireon can pay for itself.
The other type of telematics product to consider for your small busi‐
ness is a mobile workforce solution. If you have a team of people in
the field who regularly drive to clients to provide service or trans‐
port goods for your company, you know that it’s essential to opti‐
mize logistics. The more quickly you can get the right personnel to
the right job, the more revenue-generating services you can squeeze
into the day. Likewise, the more swiftly and efficiently you can get
products to your customer’s doorsteps, the more deliveries there are
during the day over which your business can spread fixed costs, and
the lower variable costs (like fuel) can be per delivery. However, to

pull this off, it’s essential to know where the members of your field
team are at any give time relative to the next assignment. That’s
where a mobile workforce package, like StreetSmart from Xora (rep‐
resented in Figure 4-2), can come in handy.
Figure 4-2. Dashboard for Xora’s StreetSmart Workforce
StreetSmart Workforce is a telematics solution that uses the smart‐
phone or tablet your team members already carry as the IoT device,
rather than an ancillary device or sensor. Since this handheld wire‐
less communication equipment already has GPS tracking built into
it, along with a range of other features that can be leveraged for
delivering a better customer experience, it’s an easy way to get even
more out of an existing investment.
StreetSmart Workforce can be licensed for a little more than a dollar
a day per user. That amount covers a mobile app that can be down‐
loaded and installed on each field employee’s hand-held device. It
also includes access to the cloud-based platform that receives and
analyzes data from each of those devices. Your field dispatcher can
access this control center and manage operations through its web-
based portal. Back-office integration for bookkeeping and reporting
is also available.
With this solution, you can view where your mobile workers and
jobs are located at any time, as well as optimal driving routes, all on
Google Maps. You can also see who’s on shift, when they entered or
left or a location, how soon they’ll arrive at the next assignment,
and how many hours they’ve worked this week. Having all of this
information at your fingertips helps you make better field dispatch
decisions.

Xora has found that this additional business intelligence has enabled
most customers to reduce fuel and mileage expenses by up to 15
percent, and overtime by 25 percent or more per mobile
employee. Interested in seeing what this might mean for your busi‐
ness? Check out Xora’s savings calculator online.

CHAPTER 5
Conserve Water with IoT
In addition to energy and fuel, water is another key input to small
businesses that carries financial and environmental costs. Whether
it’s being used to irrigate crops or landscaped grounds, keep people
and equipment cool, manufacture goods, clean items, prepare food,
offer refreshment, or provide sanitation, businesses depend on water
in ways that often go unnoticed. It’s a resource that’s easy to take for
granted in a country like the US where, historically, supplies have
seemed boundless. With many of today’s changing conditions—a
warming climate and increased demand to support growing popula‐
tions and economies, freshwater supplies are in decline and the
price of accessing them is on the rise. That’s why more businesses
are prizing solutions that enable them to optimize water use, main‐
tain operational continuity, and keep expenses in check.
It’s hard to believe that access to water is even an issue on our planet.
This big, blue orb circling the sun that we call Earth is covered with
water. However, the issue is real. To put it in perspective, it may be
helpful to look at some statistics provided by the US Geological Sur‐
vey. Nearly all of the planet’s water, more than 96.5 percent, is in
oceans, seas, and bays. This is salt water, and without treatment, it’s
not viable for human consumption. It’s also difficult to use in most
commercial and agricultural applications because of its corrosive
nature and the contaminants it leaves behind. Freshwater is ideal for
these uses, though. It makes up a little more than 2.5 percent of the
total water that remains. Of that small slice, nearly 69 percent is
frozen in the world’s ice caps, glaciers, and permanent snow.
Another 30 percent is in the ground. Freshwater contained in rivers
35

and lakes—the supply that’s most easily accessed and that we rely on
for much of daily life—represents less than 1 percent of all freshwa‐
ter sources and less than 1/100th of a percent of the planet’s total
water supply.
While readily accessible freshwater is a precious resource under nat‐
ural conditions, human activity is further contributing to its scarcity.
For instance, modern lifestyles and business practices are adding
more greenhouse gas emissions to the atmosphere, exacerbating cli‐
mate change. This, in turn, affects freshwater supplies. As the US
Environmental Protection Agency puts it, “The water cycle is a deli‐
cate balance of precipitation, evaporation, and all of the steps in
between. Warmer temperatures increase the rate of evaporation of
water into the atmosphere, in effect increasing the atmosphere’s
capacity to ‘hold’ water. Increased evaporation may dry out some
areas and fall as excess precipitation on other areas.” As the world’s
population grows and the standard living across the globe continues
to rise, demand for water-intensive goods, including food and
energy, increase as well.
These combined factors place our freshwater supplies under signifi‐
cant stress. We are drawing from them faster than they can be natu‐
rally replenished. If the status quo prevails, the United Nations
estimates, “By 2025, 1.8 billion people will be living in countries or
regions with absolute water scarcity, and two-thirds of the world’s
population could be living under water-stressed conditions.”
It’s likely you are already experiencing one effect of increasing stress
on water supplies—higher costs. To view that trend, look no further
than an annual study conducted by Circle of Blue, a nonprofit that
provides information on the world’s resources, especially water.
Each year the organization surveys utilities in 30 major US cities to
determine the latest price of water. In 2016, they found that rates
were of water. In 2016, they found that rates were up an average of
five percent from the year before and had increased by nearly half
(an average of 48 percent) since 2010.
This upward trend in price is expected to continue as utilities seek to
manage the increasing cost of providing freshwater. As the study
notes, the cheapest sources of water have already been tapped. Exist‐
ing infrastructures for conveying water to businesses and homes are
aging and in need of repair. Also, new investments need to be made
36 | Chapter 5: Conserve Water with IoT

in water treatment and recycling facilities to meet the ongoing needs
of growing communities.
As utilities restructure their rate plans, one element most keep in
mind is equity. As Brett Walton, reporter for Circle of Blue, states,
“Utilities must ensure that rates are fair: affordable for the poorest
and punitive for the water-wasters.” That’s important for a cost-
conscious small business to know. The first gallons of water will
be relatively cheap. As you use more, your unit cost for water will
likely grow.
It’s clear that using less water makes economic sense and can help
conserve a limited resource, but how much are we actually with‐
drawing and who’s consuming it? The US Geological Survey estima‐
ted that the United States used about 355 billion gallons of water per
day in 2010. Most of it was freshwater, 86 percent of the total; the
rest was saline water. Also, the majority came from surface water, 78
percent of the total; the remainder came from ground water sources
that we have to drill down to reach. Once withdrawn, most of the
water was consumed for energy and agriculture. Here are the top
five uses: thermoelectric power (45 percent), crop irrigation (32 per‐
cent), public supply for households (7 percent), public supply for
commercial, industrial, and other (5 percent), and self-supplied
industrial (4 percent). The largest percentage, water used to generate
electricity with steam-driven turbine generators, can be set aside as
it has little relevance to small businesses. However, as every family-
owned farm or vineyard can tell you, irrigation is highly relevant to
their business.
Optimizing Irrigation for Healthier Crops
Rain is a major contributor to crop health, but farmers know that it’s
too risky to assume Mother Nature will always deliver just what’s
needed. Most rely on local sources of freshwater to supplement
nature’s bounty from above, along with a system of pumps and other
irrigating equipment to deliver it to their crops. In its 2013 Farm
and Ranch Irrigation Survey, the US Department of Agriculture
found that about three-quarters of the country’s irrigating farms (73
percent) were small to mid-sized. They sold agricultural products
that had a total annual market value of less than $250,000, with the
average farm bringing in roughly $48,000 per year. Each farm in this
category irrigated a mean of 57.5 acres. How much the farm spent
Optimizing Irrigation for Healthier Crops | 37

on irrigation varied depending on where its water was sourced. As
shown in Table 5-1 below, the average total irrigation expenses for
small mid-sized farms nationally ranged from about $8,000 to
$10,000 per year.
Table 5-1. Annual irrigation expenses for US small-to-midsize farms
(derived from USDA 2013 Farm and Ranch Irrigation Survey)
National average for small-to-
midsize farms (annual ag products
with market value < $250,000)
National average for all farms
Source of
Irrigation
Percent
of farms
Number
of
irrigated
acres
Total
energy
expenses
for
pumping
per
irrigated
acre
Expenses
for
irrigation
water
from off-
farm
suppliers
Expenses for
scheduled
replacement
or
maintenance
per affected
acre
Average
total
annual
expenses
on
irrigation
Water from
wells
45% 57.5 $54.75 $101.29 $8,972
Surface
water
13% 57.5 $34.18 $101.29 $7,790
Water from
off-farm
42% 57.5 $74.62 $101.29 $10,115
Saving 10–30 percent on the cost of pumping water and maintaining
an irrigation system can make a significant difference to a farm’s
bottom line. That’s why more and more farmers are finding it help‐
ful to have an eye in the sky and sensors in the soil. Through the use
of an aerial drone or soil moisture probes, these small business own‐
ers are gaining a competitive edge. They no longer to have to rely
solely on regular, in-person visits to the field during the growing
season to check on crop health and ground conditions. Now, they
can gather deeper insights in ways that save time, reduce the labor
costs, and minimize expenses for inputs like water and nitrogen for
irrigation and fertilization.
Take the field’s moisture conditions, for instance. To determine how
much water a crop currently needs, a farmer might traditionally
drive to spots throughout the field to check, or hire others to scout
the crops. Once there, the scout could see firsthand whether the
plants are showing stress from lack of water and whether the soil is
wet or dry. If the soil looked dry, kicking the ground or scooping up

a handful of soil to squeeze could reveal how saturated it is just
under the surface. But inspecting a field this way takes lot of time
that could be spent in other ways. It also does nothing to reveal
what’s going on more than a few inches underground. That’s where
an IoT-enabled solution like the EnviroSCAN Probe from Sentek,
represented in Figure 5-1 can help a farmer reclaim that time and
gain actionable insights.
Figure 5-1. Dashboard for Sentek’s EnviroSCAN Probe
The EnviroSCAN probe is shaped like a rod. It fits inside a plastic
access pipe that gets drilled into the ground. The probe comes in
lengths ranging from about 1.5 to 6.5 feet. The longer the probe, the
more sensors it can accommodate—essentially five sensors every
foot and a half, with a maximum of 16 total. These water sensors
emit a high-frequency, electrical field that extends through the
access pipe into the soil. By measuring the change in the electrical
field (its capacitance), the sensor determines the soil’s moisture level.
Water, which has a higher polarity than soil, decreases the electric
field between the charge points. So, the more water that’s present,
the greater the change in the field.
Each sensor measures moisture at a depth the user assigns. It can
range from less than four inches to more than 130 feet. Multiple
sensors enable the probe to track trends as water levels recede or
grow through different depths. The data logged by each Enviro‐
SCAN probe can be transmitted using a mobile broadband radio
and connectivity provided by a wireless carrier. The destination can
be Sentek’s cloud-based platform or a range of similar third-party
applications that enable users to view and analyze the data and gen‐
erate reports from a web-based portal accessible by computer or
smartphone.
For example, Verizon Wireless teamed up with Sentek in the US. In
the fall of 2015, the carrier piloted a precision agriculture project for
Hahn Family Wines. Among other goals, it sought to conserve water
by placing an EnviroSCAN probe in each of five, six-acre tracts of
land selected in the vineyard. Based on early estimates, data collec‐

ted from the probes and analyzed via Verizon’s self-service, cloud-
based portal was expected to help Hahn Family Wines increase crop
yield while reducing water used for irrigation by 30 percent.
An EnviroSCAN solution with a wireless radio transceiver costs
about $2,000 per probe. Keeping that in mind, how many probes
would be appropriate for a small-to-midsize farm? The answer
depends on how many soil types it has. As George Vellidis, a Uni‐
versity of Georgia precision farming specialist, explained in an arti‐
cle for Successful Farming Magazine, a 100-acre field with the same
soil could fare well with two probes. However, if a field has three
main soil types, he recommends two probes for each soil type (or six
in a field). The second probe for each soil type offers redundancy
and helps balance variability.
Since the average small-to-midsize farm has 57.5 acres, the two to
six probes described in this scenario would be apropos. Total cost
would be approximately $4,000 – 12,000. Assuming that this netted
a 30 percent reduction in the annual cost of irrigation and mainte‐
nance ($2,400 – 3,000 = 30% × $8,000 – 10,000), the payback period
on the solution would range from 1.3 to 5 years. Add the value of
time regained and an increase in crop yield, and the payback comes
even faster.
What if a farmer wants to assess her entire crop? Water moisture
probes can provide valuable insights in spots, but they are currently
too expensive to deploy throughout the field in great density. For a
growing number of farmers, the answer lies in using unmanned aer‐
ial vehicles. Commonly called UAVs or drones, the term used in this
report, these remote-controlled aircrafts usually take two forms—
fixed-wing or multirotor.
Fixed-wing drones look like miniature airplanes. Typically less than
10 pounds with a wingspan of about five feet, these drones are faster,
fly longer on a single battery charge, and cover more territory, mak‐
ing them ideal for large farms. The second type of craft is the multi‐
rotor drone. Operating on the same principle as a helicopter, these
drones are lifted and propelled using multiple-winged rotors on a
frame that can range from about two to five feet across when its
arms are fully extended, depending on the model. While slower than
fixed-wing drones with a shorter flight time in between charging,
the multirotor drone is less expensive to buy and much more
maneuverable for tasks like surveying fence lines at near eye-level,

tracking livestock, or other remote dispatches around the farm. The
range, cost, and versatility of this solution is well-suited to a small-
to-midsize farm.
PrecisionHawk is a provider of aerial analytics in the precision agri‐
culture business. They have teamed up with DJI, a leading manufac‐
turer of multirotor drones, to offer a solution called the Smarter
Farming Package (represented in Figure 5-2. The package includes
the buyer’s choice of a ready-to-fly, multirotor drone—either DJI’s
Matrice 100 or Matrice 600 model. The 100 model, which holds two
batteries, is just right for the small-to-midsize farm. It has a remote
control range of two kilometers and can easily cover up to 250 acres
in a single flight. At about half the price of the package with the 600
model, it’s also the more affordable option. In addition to the
Matrice 100, the package comes with this DJI hardware—one visual
and one multispectral sensor (each is essentially a camera with a
gimbal that attaches to the drone), extra batteries, and a professional
travel case for all the equipment.
Figure 5-2. Dashboard for PrecisionHawk’s Smarter Farming Package
The package also includes the following software and cloud-based
services from PrecisionHawk:
• A mobile app that helps users plan, map, and safely control the
drone’s flight path for capturing data
• Desktop software that enables the user to see captured data
from the drone in the field from a laptop before uploading it to
the cloud
• A one-year subscription to DataMapper, a cloud-based, analytic
platform that contains a library of on-demand tools for visualiz‐
ing the data
Using the drone to scout crops and assess their health is relatively
simple. A farmer starts by attaching the appropriate visual sensor to
the drone and then selecting the area for the drone to survey using
an aerial view on the mobile app. With that done, the drone can be
sent on its flight to collect the data. After the drone has landed and

the mission is complete, the captured data can be transferred to the
farmer’s laptop or PC by connecting a USB cable to the drone’s cam‐
era data port. Another option is to remove the camera’s Micro SD
card and insert it into a computer. From there, an Internet connec‐
tion is required to upload the data to PrecisionHawk’s DataMapper.
The DataMapper solution provides precise insights on where addi‐
tional inputs like irrigation, fertilizer, and weed control can be
applied to improve the health of crops.
The drone’s multispectral sensor can help assess whether crops are
stressed. It uses light in the visible spectrum and near-infrared light
to gauge plant health. Here’s how. Chlorophyll in the plant’s leaves
absorbs visible light to aid in photosynthesis. However, near-
infrared light cannot be processed for photosynthesis. Absorbing its
substantial yet unused energy could also damage the plant. That’s
why the leaves’ cell structure has evolved to reflect near-infrared
light. It’s the contrast between the reflection level of these two differ‐
ent types of light that provides an indication of vegetative vigor.
Healthy, green leaves show low reflectance of light in the visible
spectrum and very high reflectance of near-infrared light. As crops
become stressed from lack of water or nutrients, photosynthesis
begins to wane and reflectance of visible light increases. In addition,
the leaf cell structures begin to collapse, decreasing the reflectance of
near infrared light. The DataMapper platform offers users various
algorithms, like the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI),
that can contrast these reflectance levels captured by the multispec‐
tral sensor. The result of the analysis is a visual representation of
areas of concern in the field.
“Most of our users are seeing the highest return on investment by
charting plant health and progress throughout the season, but there
are other applications for irrigation, too,” says Lia Reich, senior mar‐
keting and communications director for PrecisionHawk. “With the
multispectral sensor, there are a couple of use cases we see. For
example, in the off-season, you can use it to determine whether
what you are spraying or watering stays in the field and whether it’s
channeling/pooling into a single area rather than being evenly dis‐
tributed. It also can identify water pooling in season, which will help
to expose water or runoff inefficiencies. We recently launched the
water pooling algorithm within DataMapper for this purpose.”

Together, the whole solution can help users deploy valuable inputs
like water, nitrogen, and weed/pest control more efficiently. At a
price of $8,300, this Smarter Farming Package pays for itself in short
order. Assuming a 20 percent reduction in the annual cost of irriga‐
tion and maintenance for the average small-to-midsize farm of 57.5
acres ($1,600 – 2,000 = 20% × $8,000 – 10,000), the payback on this
aspect alone would be 4–5 years. That timeframe decreases quickly
when you include the savings on fertilizer and other applications. To
get a more accurate estimate for your farm that includes increased
crop yield, check out the ROI Calculator. Developed by American
Farm Bureau and Measure, it quantifies the benefits of using drones
in precision agriculture for purposes like crop scouting.
Reducing Water Use in Commercial
Applications
Per the US Geological Survey data cited earlier in this chapter, more
than three-quarters of the water used nationwide each year goes to
generate thermoelectric power and irrigate crops. In comparison,
the public supply of water for commercial, industrial, and other uses
represents only five percent of total consumption. That still accounts
for a lot of water, though—nearly 6.5 trillion gallons annually. That’s
the equivalent of a river nearly 600 feet wide and 100 feet deep
stretching from New York to Los Angeles. Visualizing it at that scale,
it’s easy to comprehend why this portion merits conservation and
the opportunity it represents for cost savings.
If a small business wants to conserve water and cut costs, where
does it start? The company’s monthly utility bill can provide a great
springboard for this effort. It will likely state how much water is
being used overall. Records on the utility’s website may also provide
seasonal trends for the company’s account. Yet even with these
insights, it’s unlikely that details will emerge showing how much
water is being used for specific purposes. To begin breaking it down,
a small business could refer to research in its industry. This might
illuminate what drives water consumption in similar businesses and
benchmarks for the most efficient use. The company could then lev‐
erage IoT-enabled solutions to help track and measure specific uses
in its own business for comparison and future action.
One study that looked at a range of businesses is the Commercial
and Institutional End Uses of Water. It was commissioned by the
Reducing Water Use in Commercial Applications | 43

1 Plumbing includes lavatory faucets, toilets, urinals, and showerheads.
American Water Works Association Research Foundation and
remains a seminal study cited by the EPA’s WaterSense program
today. A variety of site types were examined, including restaurants,
office buildings, and hotels.
Notice in Figure 5-3 how different businesses tend to use water in
different ways. The chart highlights the percentage of total con‐
sumption each end use represents for each business type (e.g., as a
weighted average, plumbing equals 31 percent of total water use for
the restaurants audited in the survey). An overview of the findings
for each business type is summarized after the chart.
Figure 5-3. Weighted average of water end use by building type1
(source: EPA WaterSense; Water Efficiency in the Commercial and
Institutional Sector, Appendix B)
Restaurants
The median restaurant in the study was 4,825 square feet, had
149 seats, and served an average of 700 meals per day. When
looking at all of the restaurants that were audited, 80 percent of
their water was used by the kitchen (e.g., meals/preparation,
drinks, dishwashing, ice making) and plumbing (e.g., lavatory
faucets, toilets, urinals, etc.). Restaurants consumed less water

than the office buildings in the study—a weighted average of
6,773 gallons per day. Yet, restaurants are more water-intensive.
Even the most efficient restaurants, the top quartile for water
conservation, used 130–331 gallons of water per square foot
annually. That breaks down to 6–9 gallons of water per meal
served. Those are the targets for which restaurateurs will want
to strive.
Office buildings
Median areas for building space and irrigated landscape for offi‐
ces in the study were 57,785 square feet and 4,000 square feet,
respectively. Overall, the top three end uses of water in the
office buildings examined were: plumbing (37 percent), cooling
(33 percent), and landscaping (20 percent). The amount of
water used by the office buildings in the study, a weighted aver‐
age of 139,150 gallons per day, was significantly higher than res‐
taurants. However, the most efficient office buildings, the top
quartile for water conservation, had a much lower intensity
rate—26 to 35 gallons of water per square foot annually for all
use, including irrigation. For a small businesses operating in an
office setting, that’s the target to pursue.
Hotels
The median hotel in the study had 168 rooms and 5,510 square
feet of irrigated landscape. The drivers of water use were more
varied for hotels than restaurants or office buildings. Based on
all of the hotels audited, the top five end uses of water were:
plumbing (24 percent—e.g., lavatory faucets, toilets, urinals,
and showerheads), landscape (22 percent), kitchen (13 percent),
laundry (12 percent), and sanitation (12 percent). Like the office
buildings, the hotels in this study used a lot of water—a weigh‐
ted average of 131,390 gallons per day. For hoteliers who want
to be on par with the most efficient hotels, the top quartile for
water conservation, the sweet spot to achieve is 39,490–53,960
gallons per occupied room per year.
Once a small business has identified standard uses of water in its
industry and attainable targets for efficiency, the next step is getting
better acquainted with water use in its own business. IoT-enabled
solutions can provide those insights, right down to a specific fixture
or appliance. For instance, here are two affordable, up-and-coming
solutions offered by the same team of entrepreneurs: Fluid (shown
in Figure 5-4) and Water Meter Solutions. Both can help businesses

remotely monitor water flow, isolate it to specific end uses, track
trends to encourage continuous improvement, and alert designated
personnel if leaks are detected.
Figure 5-4. Dashboard for Fluid
Fluid, which was developed primarily as a residential solution, can
also be used in light commercial settings like a small office, restau‐
rant, retail shop, or convenience store. Described as a learning water
meter, Fluid can do something pretty amazing. It can identify how,
and how much, water is being used in a small business just by secur‐
ing a single meter around the main water pipe servicing its facility.
The Fluid meter is about the size of a paperback book and uses
ultrasonic waves to measure water flow. It clamps snugly onto a
three-quarter-inch water pipe, much like the Panoramic Power
wireless sensors covered earlier in this report snap and fit around an
electrical wire. Here’s the difference, though. Where a Panoramic
Power sensor needs to be attached to each dedicated wire in order to
monitor the electricity use of specific applications, you only need to
install one Fluid meter on the main pipe to monitor water flow. It
then uses algorithms to disaggregate all the data it senses and logs. It
essentially learns the signatures of various water-using fixtures and
appliances based on their flow profile and assigns usage accordingly.
Let’s bring it to life with an example. A restaurateur decides to use
the Fluid meter to get more insights on water use in her eatery.
Installation is as simple as clamping it onto the main water pipe,
plugging it in, and connecting it to the restaurant’s WiFi network. It
uses this Internet connection to transmit recorded data to Fluid’s
cloud-based, analytics platform. Once installed, the user can help
the meter recognize what water use looks like for each appliance or
fixture in the establishment. Whether it’s the kitchen sink, the dish‐
washer, an ice machine, service at the bar, flushing a toilet, or irri‐
gating a small garden outside, a signature profile for each can be
built on Fluid’s web-based portal, which is accessible through any
connected device.

Using the portal, the restaurateur will prep Fluid’s meter to antici‐
pate an appliance or fixture’s specific signature, then begin using
it (e.g., running the dishwasher, flushing a toilet, etc.). The meter lis‐
tens to the water-flow pattern and run cycle to establish the profile.
After signatures have been created for all of the appliances and fix‐
tures, Fluid will continue to refine its understanding. For instance, if
multiple signatures happen at once, Fluid will guess what’s going
on, pose a question to the user (e.g., are the dishwasher and the
kitchen sink both running?) and give her the opportunity to con‐
firm or clarify what’s actually taking place. Our restaurateur can see
the results of her response in real time through the portal, along
with the way that water usage is distributed across her business and
when it occurred. She also can set goals for conservation through
the portal and compare future water usage and costs against those
targets.
Lastly, Fluid can help her to avoid one of the most expensive water
scenarios a business can encounter—leaks. The meter can sense the
persistent loss of water associated with a leaky faucet or toilet. It can
also sense a major change in water flow that happens suddenly and
continues due to a failed valve or a burst pipe. Costs from the first
scenario can add up. In one year, a restaurant in the study cited pre‐
viously paid for 200,000 extra gallons of water due to a malfunction‐
ing toilet flapper and a kitchen faucet that would not completely
shut off. Even so, it’s the latter scenario that can cause the most dam‐
age to property, inventory, and records if not immediately
addressed. If a leak is detected, major or minor, Fluid will send an
alert to designated personnel so action can be taken quickly to rem‐
edy the situation.
The Fluid solution will be available in the fall of 2016 for a price of
$259. Given the insights it can yield and the substantial cost it can
help a small business avoid via leak detection, this is an easy invest‐
ment to justify.
Some businesses may find it helpful to receive even more granular
information on their water use. Fluid can tell you how much water
was used by toilets, based on their general signature. However, it will
be unable to pinpoint the specific toilet that may be leaking. That’s
okay if you only have two lavatories in your restaurant. For a pro‐
prietor of a hotel or motel, who runs an establishment with more
than 50 rooms, it’s a different matter. A solution that can identify the

exact location of the leak is more fitting. That’s where Water Meter
Solutions, represented in Figure 5-5, comes in.
Figure 5-5. Dashboard for Water Meter Solutions
The same team that developed Fluid is partnering with Logic PD to
bring Water Meter Solutions to the market in early 2017. These are
wireless, water-flow meters that get installed at the point of use.
About the size of a tube of toothpaste, the meter simply connects
between a fixture or appliance (e.g., showerhead, sink, toilet, etc.)
and the water supply line. Each meter is individually barcoded and
labeled so it can be mapped to specific locations for ease of tracking.
It also requires no batteries or electricity. Water flowing through the
meter will generate enough power to record and wirelessly relay
water usage data to a gateway located on site. The gateway (or
router), which can connect to the Internet through the facility’s
WiFi or ethernet network, sends data from the flow meters to a
cloud-based platform where users can monitor and analyze water
use throughout the facility. The platform will also be able to generate
performance reports and send leak alerts, which users can receive
on their mobile device as a text message, email, or in-app notifica‐
tion.
Meters like these offer several benefits. The first is leak detection. All
of the hotels audited in the aforementioned survey were found to
have leaks ranging from 439 to 8,007 gallons of water wasted per
room per year. The leaks were primarily due to stuck or poorly
functioning flaps in toilets that went unnoticed or unreported. Being
able to learn of a leak, zero in on its location, and quickly fix it can
help a user hold on to valuable dollars.
A hotelier can also use the data to learn more about room-level
water use—seeing what the average usage is and what the outliers
are. The hotel may already be in league with the most efficient
industry benchmarks. If not, these meters can provide a “call to
action” to pursue greater water conservation through behavioral
and/or physical changes. For instance, one behavioral concept might
be rewarding guests who are water-conscious during their stay.

Smart business

Empfohlen

Empfohlen

Weitere ähnliche Inhalte

Ähnlich wie Smart business

Ähnlich wie Smart business (20)

Kürzlich hochgeladen

Kürzlich hochgeladen (20)

Smart business