technology

A. O. Smith has taken its design and industry expertise and applied it to a mobile app that will revolutionize the process of selecting the right residential water heater.

Available at Hotwater.com/Xpert or on the A. O. Smith App for iOS and Android, the Xpert™Water Heater Selection Tool is designed to help contractors lead their customers through theprocess of choosing a water heater by asking eight easy-to-answer questions about hot waterusage, available space and power sources.

The app uses proprietary algorithms to provide estimates for performance and energy cost by incorporating localized information for the homeowner, such as area groundwater temperatures and state energy prices. Analyzing user responses and local data, the Xpert then matches thosedata points to hundreds of A. O. Smith water heaters from a broad range of technologies including: gas, propane, electric, tankless and hybrid. The A. O. Smith Xpert then recommends the top three water heaters in three categories: “Meets Your Needs,” “More Hot Water,” and“Lower Energy Cost.”

Already the leading innovator in water heater technology, A. O. Smith’s Xpert app is the mostcomprehensive mobile application of its kind, according to Matt Southards, director of digitalengagement at A. O. Smith.

“The Xpert Water Heater Selection Tool is the smartest, most dynamic product recommendation engine in the industry because its analysis considers local variables that effect performance, such as energy costs and water temperatures, both of which can vary widely across the country,”Southards said. “The Xpert also translates the characteristics of each water heater into practicalbenefits homeowners understand like energy cost savings, the length of a shower a model candeliver and the number of showers a model can provide simultaneously.”

To recommend only models that meet the homeowner’s lifestyle and needs, the A. O. SmithXpert asks a series of eight questions, such as “How many showers would your household like to take at the same time?”, “How many showers would your household like to take back-to-back?”and “What size is your largest bathtub?”

The Xpert inserts seamlessly into the conversation a contractor has with a homeowner who’sconsidering a new or replacement water heater. It’s an app that can help contractors deliver top performing products and grow their business, according to Jeff Storie, director of marketing at A.O. Smith.

“A. O. Smith works closely with our contractor partners to develop the sales tools they need tobe more effective in the field and deliver a superior customer service experience,” Storie said.“With the Xpert, a contractor can easily guide homeowners to the right A. O. Smith product for their home, educate that customer about the benefits of that model and make a personalized recommendation with confidence.”

The Xpert function bolsters the already impressive A. O. Smith App, which provides a robust product cross-reference tool, as well as warranty check functionality.

KMC Controls, a leader in building automation announces the general release of its award-winning KMC Commander™ Internet of Things (IoT) appliance for building automation.

Commander was launched in limited quantities at KMC’s annual partner conference in San Antonio, Texas in late September.

The Commander IoT platform as a service (PaaS) makes system inter-connectivity, data visualization, and energy optimization for small and medium buildings easier and more cost effective than ever before. The platform is based on Dell Edge Gateway 5000 Series hardware and features Intel® processors and a specialized Ubuntu Snappy Linux software stack. Commander’s analytics are powered by an enhanced data tagging and visualization framework from J2 Innovations.

“The IoT market is saturated with solutions that claim to be cutting-edge, but which end up being clunky and hard to use,” said Andy Rhodes, executive director of Commercial IoT Solutions at Dell. “KMC Commander, built with Dell’s IoT Gateway, provides a truly open and secure platform to connect building automation systems seamlessly to the decision-making power of IoT. Our partnership is a perfect example of solutions that are specialized enough for the data demands of operational technology (OT) yet seamlessly manageable in an information technology (IT) environment.”

As more and more devices are connected to IoT, purpose-built appliances such as KMC Commander are vital to ensuring secure cloud connectivity and fully unlocking the power of cloud analytics. “KMC Commander will revolutionize the way buildings and building portfolios are managed,” Richard Newberry, strategic advisor to KMC’s board of directors said. “IoT connectivity is the future of the building automation industry, and KMC Commander is the only IoT solution designed from the ground up to meet the demands of this market.”