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Vijender Reddy Muthyala, Co-founder & CEO and Manas Ranjan Hota, Co-founder & COO, DrinkPrime use IoT and sensor techs in their water purifier products. They talk to us about using Smart techs in their business.
What sensor technologies do you use in your products?
DrinkPrime is a smart water purifier customised based on input water quality. Unlike traditional water purifiers that are not connected to the internet, DrinkPrime is IoT-enabled and is in sync with a subscriber’s DrinkPrime mobile app allowing them to monitor water purifier health at all times. We utilise AI to proactively schedule maintenance checks for our subscribers.
The TDS and temperature sensors in each water purifier allow us to monitor the input and output water quality received by our subscribers. These sensors send data directly to our servers helping us customize our water purifiers efficiently. Our purifier has a flow sensor to measure the output water quantity. With this, we provide the drinking water consumption data to our subscribers on the mobile app helping them track their water usage.
How does IoT help the efficiency of products?
The Internet of Things (IoT) helps us improve our purifier's efficiency by providing us real-time data on the water quality our subscribers receive. With this, we monitor and proactively schedule free maintenance checks for our subscribers to ensure they get perfectly purified water at all times. Given that our maintenance checks are proactive and not reactive, we are able to reduce the service cost by 30-40% helping us make our product more affordable.
Our IoT-enabled water purifiers help us map area water qualities in every city we service. We analyse more than nine parameters, including total dissolved solids (TDS), turbidity and Chlorine levels, to determine the area water qualities. Based on the data we receive from water purifiers during our technician visits, we understand the location and the water quality enabling us to identify the useful filters.
How have the sensor techs and IoT been received by your clients?
With products like Alexa, Google Home etc. the awareness about sensor technology and IoT has increased. It’s no longer new to our subscribers. They know and appreciate the convenience we offer when it comes to recharging the purifier, monitoring its health and tracking water consumption using the mobile app.
Unlike many other home appliances, a water purifier requires regular maintenance checks and filter replacements. Traditional water purifiers that cannot be controlled by a mobile app either don’t indicate when it’s time for a maintenance check or alert at the last minute giving no time for the user to schedule a technician visit.
On the other hand, we proactively schedule maintenance checks based on the water quality data we receive from our IoT-enabled water purifiers. Our subscribers don’t have to worry about their water purifier maintenance or health because they can easily track it on the mobile. They can also monitor their drinking water consumption.
Our subscribers feel that the integration of technology into a water purifier, which is a hardware product, helps them easily control everything.
How has your business fared in the last 2 years?
Our startup was launched in 2016 and has been disrupting the 30-year-old water purifier industry by making safe drinking water accessible and affordable to more people. The past two years have been testing times for the majority of businesses, especially startups.
Despite the pandemic, we expanded to Hyderabad in 2020 and to Delhi NCR in 2021. We have grown by 500% between 2019 and 2021. Currently, we provide clean, safe and healthy drinking water to more than 1 lakh users across seven cities in India - Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Delhi, Faridabad, Ghaziabad, Gurgaon and Noida.
Our team, consisting of about 250 members including direct employees, contractors and vendor partners, will significantly grow in the next few months. We are hiring aggressively trying to expand the team.