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Airex has developed a smart ventilation control – an intelligent air brick – that automatically regulates air flow using sensors to monitor temperature, humidity and air quality.
Tens of millions of homes in the UK were built with low energy efficiency standards, with poor insulation leading to cold rooms and uncomfortable draughts, with traditional air-bricks or vents being responsible for up to 15% of heat loss in the home. This means occupants often need to turn up the heating, which in turn drives up energy bills.
Energy Systems Catapult is using its Living Lab of over 4,000 real-world homes to help innovators test new products, services and business models with real consumers connected to a cloud-based digital integration platform by an array of in-home IoT sensors/actuators.
London-based technology start-up, AirEx, are utilising the Living Lab to test their a smart ventilation control.
London-based technology start-up, Airex, developed a smart ventilation control that uses sensors to monitor temperature, humidity and air quality in the home. It uses advanced algorithms to manage airflow and ventilation, while also considering local weather and air quality data. Airex opens the vents to reduce underfloor humidity and closes them to reduce heat loss and improve overall comfort, leading to:
Airex believe up to 40 million homes across Europe could benefit from an intelligent airbrick. However with their initial target market being UK social housing, the obvious beneficiary is the tenant rather than the landlord.
Research suggests that traditional air-bricks or vents are responsible for up to 15% of heat loss in the home. However residents that block air vents permanently, can suffer condensation and damp problems, with an average repair bill of £3,000.
The real-time data provided by Airex would be of significant value in enabling landlords and facility managers to carry out preventative maintenance. For example, providing indicators of damp via an interactive dashboard and simple alerts, rather than carrying out expensive repair works.
While the academic trials were very useful to validate the initial hypothesis, Airex realised that larger scale trials were needed. If their customer proposition was going to exhibit clear value, real-world evidence was required to enable landlords to build a business case for investing in the product.
Energy Systems Catapult helped Airex accelerate their innovation to market with product validation via test and demonstration, exploiting data from the trial for further product development, support with business planning, and extending the monitoring period in the Living Lab to a larger scale.
“We are grateful for the Catapult’s support of AirEx over the last few years – from allowing us to use the Living Lab to collect and analyse data for product validation, through the capturing of consumer insights to refine our value proposition, all the way to conducting co-creation workshops to develop a service blueprint that helps identify efficiency improvements as we scale” – Agnes Czako, Founder & CEO of AirEx.
For start-ups, getting orders right and delivered on time can be the difference between building a loyal customer base and losing business – as customers lose trust in your service. And it’s not always easy – especially when you’re planning to scale up your operations.
Airex knew that their manual process of managing stock and fulfilling orders would not last forever. Through the government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio programme, we helped them map out a scalable order fulfilment journey, integrating with their current tools and resources, to support their next stages of growth.
Since Airex began working with Energy Systems Catapult, they have gone on to:
Through a partnership with AirEx, Warmworks introduced the Floorvent system.
Read moreDesign, market-test and launch innovative products, services and business models for Net Zero with real people in over 4,000 real homes.
Find out moreFind out more about how Energy Systems Catapult can help you and your teams
Find out more about how Energy Systems Catapult can help you and your teams