India is at a standstill due to the lack of sources of electricity production such as coal, oil, and natural gas. Moreover, these resources also contribute to greenhouse emissions. Therefore, many companies in India contribute to energy-saving initiatives through different approaches and methods. The contribution of tech has been massive, and IoT is one such technology that can help automate Indian homes, make day-to-day lives more accessible and more convenient, and allow the remote control of all electrical appliances. It enables the populous to save energy from wherever they are through technology.
About Zunpulse
Founded in 2016, ZunRoof under the brand 'Zunpulse' is one such startup riding the advanced tech growth curve and reaching Indian households to help them save energy to smart utilisation of electrical appliances. It educates Indian families to save better and make the best out of existing resources. The startup has saved over 50 crores in electricity bills for their customers through IoT devices and has smartified over 1,00,000 Indian households. It further aims to power five million Indian Homes with advanced home tech by 2025.
Pranesh Chaudhary, Founder & CEO, Zunpulse, was born to a government clerk father and home-maker mother in Bihar's small-town Muzaffarpur. The entrepreneur was quite good at studies, especially Mathematics, which led him to prepare for IITs. Eventually, he did his engineering from IIT Kharagpur in 2009, after which he worked at the Essex Lake Group, London and Capital One, Bangalore as a Management Consultant. After garnering years of experience in Risk Analytics & Management, Marketing & Acquisitions Strategy, Customer Segmentation, Expense Re-engineering, and Operations Management before, he decided to start his own business.
"In 2016, I started the company with my long-time close friend Sushant Sachan. We had set out to solve the major problem of demand and supply of electricity by creating an impactful market space for solar rooftop installation and an IoT-based automation solution for efficient electricity utilisation," Chaudhary told The Logical Indian.Smarter Choices For Electricity Needs
Zunpulse is now India's fastest-growing IoT and AI-enabled home-tech company that aims to deliver smarter choices for all electricity needs in every home.
Chaudhury traces back to the times when life seemed to come to a stop because of power cuts in Muzaffarpur. "I felt a strong desire to solve something," he recalls.
"Having experienced this personally and realising that electricity expense is a costly affair for households inspired us to ensure that no house in India lives without affordable electricity. We have come a long way in this quest, and it has inspired us to move towards the smart utilisation of this available electricity," he said.Utilising Energy Efficiently
Zunpulse solves energy issues by using a renewable energy source but believes that it is not enough if people waste the same clean energy with outdated tech and appliances. So, the startup helps Indian homes automate and utilise power efficiently through in-house developed IoT-enabled hardware and accompanying apps.
An IoT-enabled hardware range includes 11 smart devices under four categories—lighting, security, control, and purifiers. They all work with one app over Wi-Fi and do not need any wiring change in homes (a major limiting factor in usual home automation firms). These plug-and-play devices include smart bulb, smart plug, smart TV remote, smart AC remote, energy monitor, smart camera, smart video doorbell and smart plug, among others.
"For instance, with our IoT device, a homeowner can now schedule their AC to automatically turn off at 3:00 am every night and thus save energy bills, check if they forgot to turn off the AC while leaving for the office, and identify energy-saving opportunities through the energy monitor. Today, Zunpulse has impacted over 1 lakh homeowners across the country," Chaudhary stressed.What Are The Products Offered?
Smart appliances are divided into four categories. What binds all the products is that they all operate through the 'Zunpulse App' and require a stable Wi-Fi internet connection.
Lighting: It includes smart bulbs, smart downlights, and smart strip lights, where along with having the ability to switch on and off remotely, consumers also can change their colours (approximately 16 million colour options) and offer mood lighting depending on the occasion whether it's a party with friends or reading a book.
Lifestyle elements are attached to these devices because one can't force-feed energy efficiency to people as it is imperative to cater to their needs.
"If you've forgotten to switch off the lights, all you need to do is get on the app and switch them off. You can also schedule these appliances to switch on or off automatically at a given time through the app," Chaudhary explained.Control is the most critical category in the Indian context. There are smart plugs and smart remotes, which allow consumers to convert their older appliances into smart ones.
These are retrofit products for Indian homes, for lack of a better word. It is where Zunpulse's smart plug and remote come into play. The smart plug looks like any regular three-pin plug that people use. A person can take the smart plug, insert it into the socket, and attach a geyser or AC plug. The smart plug pairs with the Zunpulse app, and then it gives all the control over the geyser. One can remotely switch the geyser on and off through this app or schedule it to switch on at a given time. For example, one can schedule a geyser to run from 8 am to 8.10 am every morning, following which it automatically switches off.
"You don't have to think about manually doing them. Besides energy savings, the task at hand is already done for you. Similarly, our smart remote allows you to control your AC or TVs," the entrepreneur shared.Similarly, regarding ACs, a person can schedule it to run at a specific temperature for a given time, following which it runs at a higher temperature or switches off altogether.
Another product under the 'Control' category is the smart brushless DC (BLDC) fan. It uses a brushless DC motor and consumes 40% less electricity than conventional fans. One can use the app to control the speed of the fan.
Last month, the company also launched smart water heaters in the Delhi-NCR region.
The company houses an expanding range of products in its portfolio to help customers smartify their homes at the most feasible price. These IoT-based devices are compatible with Alexa and Google Play to make things easier. In addition, the company has come up with adequate Zunpulse chat support, built to address the consumer queries within two minutes and is available seven days a week.
More Than 1 Lakh Customers Impacted
"Zunpulse is already becoming a household name where we have impacted more than 1 lakh customers across India. We have attained a steady month-on-month growth of 10% on the number of products sold in 2021. In 2021, we launched over 20 SKUs, for which we are receiving an enthusiastic response from the customers," Chaudhary shared.Given the growth and customer's zeal for India's own IoT brand, Zunpulse aims to impact five million homes by 2025.
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