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Blynk clients are doing so many great things with our platform!
In this new Q&A series we will be featuring some of the projects and products running on Blynk, as well as discussing challenges and learnings real businesses face in the fast evolving IoT space.
Today we are interviewing Jorge and Peachie from Raypak, long time clients of ours who are building some seriously innovative IoT solutions in the HVAC space.
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Peachie Hytowitz
Senior Product Manager at Raypak
Jorge Gamboa
Manager, Controls & Electronics Engineering at Raypak
– So what is Raypak and how are you working with Blynk?
Raypak (a Rheem company) is a leading US based company that has been manufacturing boilers, water heaters and pool heaters for over 70 years. Raypak partnered with Blynk to build a complete IoT solution, Raymote, to offer remote monitor and controls of their commercial product lines. Our first connected products running with Blynk went live in 2019 and we are currently working on extending the solution to other product lines and to expand features and functionality.
– Why did your company decide to invest into IoT technology? What business goals were driving this decision?
Raypak is focused on innovative products and in today's advanced technology environment much of that innovation comes from our controls platform. It was a natural next step to invest in IoT to support our customers' ability to remotely monitor and control their equipment. This technology also gives us the ability to better serve our customers during maintenance and service troubleshooting as our service team can directly access the real time operation of connected systems.
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– What were you looking for in an IoT partner and why did you choose Blynk?
Raypak chose to partner with Blynk for IoT based on their ability to offer fast development speed and their extended portfolio of product offerings. Blynk allowed us to take an idea and make it a real product offering quickly and efficiently.
– What stage are you at with your project?
Our IoT product offering, Raymote, has been launched and is being utilized on our products nationwide. But our innovation has not stopped and we see this as a platform that will continue to grow and develop.
– Have you seen any positive effect on your business from your IoT solutions yet? Any challenges you can share?
In the market IoT is becoming an expectation on equipment, and we have been able to offer our customers a lot of benefits with our Raymote platform. Our equipment is often installed in remote locations and the ability to monitor systems without having to travel is a great selling feature. Internally, our IoT platform enriches our service and R&D efforts dramatically as we now have access to real time site data.
The challenge with any new technology is training to ensure that all users understand the benefits, and so we have created an entire 3 part training course to ensure our customers understand the benefits this technology can provide.
– What have you most enjoyed in working with Blynk so far?
Blynk has a committed team of developers and UI design coaches. Deliverables were received on time and we had support and a development partner on all features we wanted to offer.
– Oftentimes, we hear in the industry that IoT projects stop at a pilot stage and never make it to "real world". Maybe you could share a specific example of how the IoT solution was used in your day to day business?
Recently, one of our customers was having trouble reaching full speed capacity with their device and complained about it to our district sales manager. The manager reached out to my team for help - we were able to identify the user in our system very quickly.
The historical data from his device was analyzed and the problem was discovered on the spot. It turned out to be an issue with one of the hardware parts. The replacement part was immediately ordered for overnight delivery, arrangements with the local contractor were made and the problem was solved without the customer's having to lift a finger. Needless to say, the customer was very happy with our service.
– Great, thanks so much, Jorge and Peachie. We look forward to further discussing your IoT journey as the solution evolves and sharing more with our readers.
