Buddy Platform Limited
Optimizing Resource Consumption through IoT

What is the outcome of highlighting a building’s energy, water, and gas consumption to all of its occupants? Perhaps it can change the occupants’ behavior toward using resources more efficiently. Buddy Platform Limited is a company that looks beyond the IoT hype and builds tangible solutions to solve real-world problems. Through its solution, Buddy Ohm, the company makes it possible to monitor the consumption of resources such as electricity, gas, water, steam, and solar power generation. “We deploy a suite of sensors in the electrical, water, and gas meters or distribution panels of a building to measure the total consumption of resources. Much like a wrist worn activity tracker, the device monitors and shares the information with the building managers and occupants, creating awareness of usage and helping to trigger behavioral change,” says David McLauchlan, CEO and Executive Director, Buddy Platform. With the world on the brink of resource crisis where every unit of power, water, and gas is critical, organizations have realized their role in conserving energy by optimizing their consumption and reducing waste. Buddy Platform’s IoT solution can help save resources, reduce the impact on climate change, and improve the efficiency in managing buildings.

While the outcome of Buddy Ohm is significant, the installation process is simple, owing to its non-intrusive nature. Consequently, Ohm can be used in both old buildings as well as new ones, with installation durations ranging from a few hours to a couple of days. Using a dedicated hardware unit that connects to any TV using an open HDMI port, building displays can be converted into live web-based resource monitoring dashboards to give real-time feedback to building occupants. The dashboards can be customized to display output from the sensors installed in the building. Additionally, it can give a comprehensive reading from different buildings under a single owner.

Buddy’s vision is to make every living space smarter, “Our solutions make it easy to gain insights and make smarter decisions that positively impact businesses, communities and the environment,” states McLauchlan.

Our solutions make it easy to gain insights and make smarter decisions that positively impact businesses, communities and the environment

While Buddy Platform’s solutions are widely used by commercial establishments, restaurants, institutions, theatres, and grocery stores, McLauchlan emphasizes their role in the food industry where refrigeration is crucial. The energy footprint-tracking tool monitors not only energy consumption but also the efficiency of the refrigeration system. While there is a consistent level of energy consumption for a constant temperature, a gradual or sudden increase in consumption could signify a strained compressor, indicating a possible equipment failure. The solution will also send real-time alerts to mobile phones and emails should temperatures or electricity usage goes outside safe zones. This ability is extremely critical for the food industry to ensure compliance with FDA requirements, failing which a significant financial and inventory loss is imminent. Upon failure at night, the food can be stale by morning, leading to a massive loss for the retailer.

Serving clients across the globe, Buddy Platform has offices in the U.S. and Australia. Besides releasing firmware updates to its solutions consistently, the company offers Buddy Ohm as a monthly service making it easy for smaller organizations to embrace the cutting-edge energy monitoring technology. In addition, McLauchlan is in pursuit of connecting Buddy Ohm with other existing sensors, meters, or devices to expand its versatility. McLauchlan concludes, “Organizations are becoming leaders in community responsibility as they follow the path of maximizing efficiency and minimizing resource consumption; this takes their mission beyond just saving cost, but also being better stewards of the planet.”