Summer is over and fall is here. You’ve stopped worrying about your electric bill because you’re not running the air conditioner anymore, but you’re worried about how much it’s going to be in the winter. In the aftermath of the Ukraine-Russia war and the international commodity crunch, electricity prices are skyrocketing. It is not just electricity that’s rising, but other energy resources as well, most notably LNG, which is used for heating, whose imports soared to $56.7 billion last year. This has led Korea Gas Corporation to raise rates four times in the past year.

As this situation repeats itself, more and more people are looking for ways to save energy on their own. But in the case of heating, we do not find out until our utility bill comes out in the middle of the next month, so we have no choice but to just not use it. In order to manage energy more efficiently, there is a need for a solution that allows you to instantly see what you’re spending on heating and help you manage your energy accordingly.

Save money on your heating bill with real-time check

Introducing an intelligent smart meter app ‘Energy Low’

Energy Low is an AI-powered service that uses wireless IoT to convert heating usage into bills that you can check on your mobile. Typically, you’ll get a bill a month after you’ve already used your heating bill, so you can see how much you’ve spent. Because of this, even if you find a way to save money on your heating bill, you won’t know until a month later. To combat this inefficiency, HOSOME developed an app inspired by cell phone data usage that provides real-time, tangible numbers and data on heating usage.

The company secured big data on heating bills for more than 18,000 apartment complexes nationwide and developed a technology that integrates 12 types of heating calorimeters into a single protocol and uploads the calorimeter data to a web server. It also has a function that calculates the appropriate rate based on big data and converts it into a fee, reflecting the different rates applied to each apartment complex. 

Energy Low, developed in this way, can be easily used by simply installing an IoT converter. By installing the IoT converter next to the heat meter, the data on heating usage recorded by the heat meter is transmitted to the cloud server via Wi-Fi communication, and you can easily and conveniently check it on your smartphone.

In addition to instantly seeing your heating bill, you can also set a goal for your heating usage and receive push notifications at 50%, 70%, and 100%. This means you’ll be able to see how you’re doing without having to open the app. This is a great way to save money on your heating bill, especially since these push notifications can help you catch wasted energy when you least expect it.

Fix your heater with Heating Doctor

Working on a way to monitor air conditioning usage also

One of the main culprits behind rising heating bills is heating-related equipment failure. While you’ll notice if your appliance is completely broken and inoperable, you won’t be able to tell if there’s a minor breakdown unless you inspect it every day, and then you’ll only realize it’s broken when the bill comes in and you’re hit with a bill surprise or a complete breakdown.

To avoid wasted heating costs and inconvenience, Energy Low has a Heating Doctor feature that alerts you when your heating system is on the fritz. And if it does need to be checked, you can get it fixed by experts nationwide who are connected to HOSOME.

“We currently have 12 dealers nationwide, and we plan to expand to about 30 by the end of this year,” said Jaewoo Baek, CEO of HOSOME. “Our service allows customers to monitor the status of their heating system via Wi-Fi 24/7 and receive notifications, rather than relying on reactive fault checks.”

The company also provides big data using the K-Heating Fee Map. As we mentioned earlier, heating bills tend to vary a lot between apartment complexes. If you don’t check this when you need to move and use the same heating system as your previous home, this can also cause a price bomb. To help you avoid this, HOSOME provides big data on the heating rates of apartments in your neighborhood, so you can get an idea of how much your new apartment will cost for equilibrium. In addition to Energy Low, HOSOME also plans to provide a solution to monitor air conditioning usage, providing a total solution for energy not only in winter but also in summer. HOSOME’s technology received great attention at the 2023 World Smart City Expo and won the 2023 Minister of Land, Infrastructure, and Transport ‘Startup Idea Grand Prize’.

CEO Baek says “The goal is to provide a total energy solution. Beyond the heating and cooling platform, we want people to think of HOSOME when they think of smart metering, monitoring, and control.”