Talking Heads

TALKING HEADS Pilgrim Beart

Pilgrim Beart is chief executive officer and founder of DevicePilot

The world is getting connected

As device interconnection continues to grow apace, Pilgrim Beart, the man behind the Hive smart thermostat, believes that the lines between product manufacturer and service provider are becoming increasingly blurred L ives may feel as though they have been put on hold in the last few months but Pilgrim Beart believes that COVID-19 has been speeding up the Beart recalls that one of DevicePilot’s early customers was Pod Point, the EV charging point supplier. “They had deployed their equipment and it wasn’t working quite as it should have,” added development of new technology to connect Beart. By using Device Pilot they could see the devices in our buildings and homes. for the first time exactly what was going

“If you are an existing hardware wrong and solve the problem. It drives manufacturer, connecting your product up quality. Then when you’ve solved the isn’t just another feature, it can totally technical problems you can move onto reshape your business model,” the chief the business problems. You can see if the executive and founder of IoT management charging points are all in use and customers company DevicePilot, a service monitoring aren’t able to charge. So you can do platform for connected devices, told EiBI. something about it.”

Beart’s excitement stems not from It is this transformation from being a seeing specific applications arrive but when product supplier to a service provider that they are connected to others to maximise will be a feature of the future. Suppliers their potential. “You have devices like that sell a product and forget it will find solar panels and electric vehicles that can that controlling it remotely will transform be connected. I’ve had solar panels on my their business. “It will lead them to become home since 2011 and now have a smart a service provider. The Internet of Things meter and an electric vehicle. I now have an Beart: 'incumbent and service are very much two sides of the agile tariff where the price changes every suppliers have been same coin.” half hour based on the retail price. The doing the same thing and nobody And the provision of energy as a service joining up to be done is to charge the car has challenged' is part of this growing wave, believes when the electricity is really cheap. All the Beart. “It seems strange that it hasn’t been hard work has been done.” Beart believes that a similar trend will be ‘The Internet of Things and service are thought of before. Councils are now buying light as a service. They are realising that seen in commercial buildings. “BEMS and very much two sides of the same coin’ a few companies do it better and more HVAC systems are incredibly old fashioned economically.” and very hard to understand. Almost every installation, devices going off line. Devices not working properly is This is a change Beart can see extending building you go into is either over-heated or just not good enough. Managing them becomes difficult. That was to the home. “It’s part of a massive trend in under-heated, let alone energy efficient. It’s the big learning curve.” everything. Increasingly, people don’t want the worst of all worlds and you just wonder And that was the inspiration to set up DevicePilot. “Our to buy a car. They just want the convenience how we managed to get here. I think it’s customers are companies that deploy the technology. As they of using one when they need it. People because it’s just because there have been deploy more they have this operational challenge and they discover are happy to pay a fee for their security incumbent suppliers doing the same old that DevicePilot can help them. The great thing about connected but not energy at the moment. But what thing and nobody has challenged.” devices is that you can see what is going on. If occupants are people want is a comfortable home, not a

Beart looks to his own experience with fiddling with heating controls then they are probably not happy. thermostat. What needs to happen is that smart thermostat, Hive. Back in 2006 he Instead of reacting then you can see to take action before the heat and light are provided as a service.” founded AlertMe which was sold to British customer knows there is a problem. That transforms the customer Beart can see a rapid evolution in the Gas in 2015 and became the basis for a experience.” market in the coming years. “A whole product that has become a household eco-system starts to develop when you join name. “Before Hive and Nest came along Devices increasing by a factor of ten every decade things up,” he adds. “The more connected very little had changed for many years.” Beart believes that this demand can only increase. “The reason is devices you have the greater the needed

But as Hive developed and the customer because we are deploying more and more of this technology. The for a single pane of glass to give you the base grew so the operational problem was number of devices is increasing by a factor of ten every decade big picture of what is going on. It is a really growing exponentially. “When you supply and it’s going to carry on. If they don’t work then the world is in interesting place to be. Our purpose is to devices into the world managing becomes trouble. You want to get to a point that the device is so reliable you shine alight to show everyone what is going difficult,” said Beart. “You need to deliver take it for granted, like a light switch. But it takes a lot to get to the on in a building. This is as valuable to the system availability. There are the same mainstream in the same way as smartphones. They are reliable and end user as it is to the service provider. general problems of management – correct easy to use.” Things are really beginning to join up.” 