The Challenge
Wattwatchers previously required customers to install their own 4G SIMs to connect its IoT devices, which introduced implementation complications and significant costs.
The Solution
Wattwatchers teamed with Thinxtra, so its devices can be easily implemented, monitored without interruption, and provide untapped insights on energy efficiency.
The Benefits
Teaming with Thinxtra gives Wattwatchers fingertip control of its devices with reliable connectivity and unprecedented insights that customers can leverage for data-driven decision-making for energy consumption.
Wattwatchers is an Australian energy technology company which provides compact Internet of Things (IoT) devices that monitor and control electricity use in real time. The solution is designed to improve energy efficiency, drive net-zero strategies and reduce costs – core tenets of Wattwatchers’ business strategy.
Combining Wattwatchers’ IoT devices with Thinxtra’s network connectivity results in flexible and scalable energy monitoring to underscore sustainability strategies and bring down costs.
Challenges with traditional 4G SIM cards
In the past, Wattwatchers connected its solutions to cellular networks by embedding a subscriber identity module (SIM) card in its IoT devices during manufacturing. While effective, this traditional approach came with several challenges for both Wattwatchers and its customers.
For Australian customers, using 4G SIM cards at scale came at a significant cost. Meanwhile, international customers had to acquire their own SIM, arrange a local carrier, send the SIM to Wattwatchers to include in manufacturing, then conduct testing. The process was expensive, slow, complex and error-prone. In some instances, customers faced additional roadblocks when SIMs were tied to specific carriers, with coverage too inconsistent to support business needs.
Wattwatchers partnered with Thinxtra to overcome these challenges, and subsequently offer customers a Massive IoT solution with greater flexibility for connectivity, improved operational management, and transparency through comprehensive data insights.
Simplifying measuring energy consumption
The partnership combines Wattwatchers’ devices with Thinxtra’s IoT network, so customers anywhere in the world can simply install the devices and turn them on to have their energy consumption measured. The implementation process is faster and ongoing management is reduced.
“Thinxtra’s IoT solution offered the most strategic long-term benefit to our business. Its connectivity management platform gives Wattwatchers fingertip control of our device fleet, and allows us to rapidly scale our operations globally as more and more organisations look for a simple but comprehensive way to monitor their energy consumption as part of their sustainability strategies while managing the costs of their utilities.”
Gavin Dietz,
CEO at Wattwatchers
With electricity generation the largest single source of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions, at nearly a third of the total, how it’s managed at the grid edge where it’s used – including homes, commercial and industrial buildings, and utility operations – is hugely important for Net Zero across decarbonisation, energy efficiency, electrification and decentralised renewables optimisation.
Households are responsible for 26 per cent of electricity use, the services sector 27 per cent, and industry 33 per cent. Digitalisation and real-time data to track, analyse and report – and increasingly to help automate remote control of loads and consumer energy resources like solar – are critical.
Unlocking the advantages of Thinxtra’s cellular solutions
By ensuring secure and reliable connectivity and data transmission from IoT devices to the cloud, Thinxtra’s cellular solutions give Wattwatchers and its customers clear advantages over alternatives, especially cabled communications in commercial and industrial settings, and trying to piggyback off the customers’ Wi-Fi in residential and small business. The Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) has reported that solutions with independent cellular connections, like Wattwatchers, outperformed those relying on home Wi-Fi for solar export curtailment in South Australia to protect the electricity grid.
Whether for consumers with a single small site, or enterprises with fleets of often large sites, this enables access to unprecedented and untapped insights in real-time for data-driven decision-making to manage electricity for energy efficiency, cost allocation and control, renewables optimisation, carbon management, sustainability reporting and electrification.
For companies, which increasingly face mandated sub-metering requirements and external scrutiny on their performance, this ultimately enables validation of their sustainability initiatives, supporting progress towards net-zero emissions targets.
“Soaring operating costs combined with seemingly never-ending economic uncertainty make it evermore crucial for companies to better understand how they are consuming energy, where efficiencies can be unlocked, and how to bring down both emissions and costs. The Thinxtra-Wattwatchers partnership is built to make this possible.”
Nicholas Lambrou,
Chief Executive Officer at Thinxtra
Wattwatchers is Australia’s leading digital energy platform, enabling fast, powerful and scalable solutions to monitor, analyse and control electrical circuits in real time – maximising the benefits from renewable energy, green building, carbon and energy management, and electrification.
