Rehau protects against water damage with intelligent smart home product
Smart protection against water damage
about Rehau
Rehau Group: Tradition and innovation
The automotive sector remains one of the most important business areas, supplemented by products for building services, in particular durable plastic pipes, which used to be made of copper or steel. Rehau is also the global market leader in turf heating systems for sports stadiums and supplies numerous preliminary products for the furniture industry.
RE.GUARD 2.0: Intelligent solution for leakage protection
With RE.GUARD, Rehau has further developed a modern product for water safety. The focus of product development for the second generation was particularly on the user experience and the additional benefits for customers, such as analyzing water consumption and water hygiene.
Customer quote
"Good project management and a motivated team are essential for the product development process, especially when agile development is used. What counts is the result, the product and satisfied users. Grandcentrix is exactly the right partner to achieve this goal."
Toni Felsner
Product Manager Smart Home – Rehau Building Technologies
Highlights
Onboarding at its best
In contrast to the previous solution, it quickly became clear to Rehau that the new device should be networked via WiFi and that the onboarding process should also be supported via Bluetooth. This combination makes it possible to guide customers with no prior technical knowledge through the onboarding process in just a few steps in order to connect the device to the internet. As a benchmark for intuitive usability, grandcentrix and Rehau looked to the products of a well-known Californian company that is known for its exemplary user guidance.
The app was consistently developed platform-specifically for Android and iOS in the respective programming environment in order to support all native features and ensure the best possible stability and response speed of the app.
Real-time alerting of all water leakage types
RE.GUARD detects various types of leaks: drip leaks are detected by monitoring the water pressure, which triggers an alarm if the pressure in the pipe system gradually drops. This is particularly important as such leaks are often detected late and can cause serious structural damage. Water pipe bursts are detected by an integrated ultrasonic flow meter.
The app allows individual settings for alarm limits based on time and water volume. A self-learning algorithm distinguishes regular from exceptional events. In addition, the system offers external moisture sensors that can be installed in various locations, such as under a sink or in the washroom, for comprehensive monitoring.
Added value beyond leakage detection
The smart device provides consumption statistics based on the recorded flow rate. This provides the customer with a graphical overview of consumption by time of day and trend over time. As a result, the user develops a better awareness of resource-conserving behavior.
RE.GUARD also informs users about potential contamination of pipes and sends water hygiene warnings as push notifications. This is important in buildings that are unoccupied for long periods, such as vacation homes. The product and app thus become a regular companion for users.
Data security and reliability
The cloud backend developed by grandcentrix is hosted in Germany. With AWS, a service provider known for the highest standards, grandcentrix has set up an instance in the Frankfurt data cluster that meets the highest security requirements. This means that Rehau's customers can be sure that their data will not fall into the wrong hands and that no external access is possible.
Agile development for optimal customer orientation
On this basis, the user interface of the app was streamlined and the design optimized. The app is now clearly divided into three sections: a dashboard for an overview of all important parameters, a section for notifications and another section for user settings.
Continuous innovation and customer focus
technical highlights
Cloud Backend Development
