Shower Canary: The Innovative Solution to Water Wastage

What inspired you to start the business? Just for a bit of background, I’m an international airline pilot by trade. I’ve got two teenage boys and after I finished flying I was around home more and became really concerned about the amount of time that I was spending in the shower. The water and energy and money that was going straight down the plughole was quite alarming. I had a look around and there was just nothing available that really addressed the problem. It didn’t work physically or it didn’t change behaviour. At the time I was doing a master’s in renewable energy, as I originally studied engineering, and one of the projects was on energy efficiency. Learning more about hot water and energy consumption, I decided to try to design a product that would actually address the problem and change behaviour in a really friendly way. How does the product work? So in the little unit that straps on the wall is an internet of things (IoT) SIM chip, which transfers all of the data to the cloud without the need for Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. The sensor that straps to the shower itself just measures whether the water is on or off. In our app, users can set their shower head flow rate, whether it’s low, medium or high, and then put in their kilowatt per hour charge for their electricity bills. They also put in their water costs as well, as not everyone around New Zealand pays the same amount for their water. The app does all of the calculations and shows you how much each shower is costing you based on that information. Why is changing behaviour so important? I’ve got an engineering background, so I understand that side of it. What I didn’t really have a good handle on was the behavioural science side and that’s probably where I’ve done my most learning. In order to change behaviour in the energy environment, you have to do it in a lifetime. You have to show people why they are doing it while they are having the shower. It’s no good to tell them afterwards because they’ve already done it. I did some work with Watercare and in 2018 when there was a drought in Auckland they gave away 30,000 little egg timers to stick in the shower. The thought was that it would help people change their habits. They didn’t do anything because it was asking the user to do it, rather than have it be automated. It also helps to show the cost of that shower, because money matters to people. Are there plans to take the product overseas? Yes definitely. There are a couple of universities in the UK that are doing a trial with it at the moment. I think it’s particularly relevant to water-stressed regions because you can’t create water, desalination is very hard. I’ve been doing work with the Singapore Government as well because we know they’re trying to get their water usage per person per day down from 165 litres to 130 litres by 2030. In places like the United States, the Colorado River and dam systems that feed California and Arizona are at the lowest levels they’ve ever been. We need some additional funding to help us get to that stage and scale up. At the moment we have to sell and manufacture products and put the money back into the system, so there’s a big lag between what we’re doing. Investment takes that out. There’s a desire to expand but we just don’t have the resources to do it. We did bring on Barry Polson as an investor, which has been great as that got us through to the manufacturing phase, but now we need to reach the next step. What would be your advice to a budding entrepreneur wanting to start a business? I think so much about being a successful entrepreneur is just the blatant determination stuff. So much of what it’s about is death by 1000 no’s until you get a yes. It’s a lot of talking, time, effort and input that doesn’t seem to go anywhere, but you have to have a very strong self-belief that if you’ve got something that you’re confident is going to work, just sit through and make it happen. Do you have a small business story you want to share? Send your pitches to tom.raynel@nzme.co.nz.