Root by Sepura: Award-Winning Composting Bin, Now with a Connected Experience to Match

When Great Technology Needs a Connected Experience to Match

Root hides a fair amount of engineering behind a simple sink hookup — and all of it operates completely out of sight, under the counter. Owners can't see bin fill level, filter health, or cycle status just by looking at the device, and without a companion experience, there was no way to get it onto a home network, keep its firmware current, or give users any real-time read on what it was actually doing.

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Sepura wanted to solve several challenges at once:

• Deliver seamless, user-friendly device activation — connect to home Wi-Fi without requiring any technical steps from the homeowner
• Ship a sleek user-facing branded experience to match the product's premium positioning‍
• Give users intuitive control over the device and automate maintenance — simple actions done via app interface.
• Provide real-time visibility into device status for a unit that's physically out of view
• Eliminate service visits for keeping device up to date — firmware updates pushed over the air to units already installed under a sink‍
• Cut down on support calls by surfacing troubleshooting and calibration directly in-app

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Choosing a Practical Path to Connectivity

Sepura's team didn't want to build a software department. They were looking for an IoT platform that would let them move fast — iterating quickly on both the underlying connectivity and the app interface — while their own team stayed focused on the hardware.

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Beyond the practical fit, the values lined up too — Root is built around removing friction from a messy task, and that same obsession with a clean, effortless user experience is what Blynk brought to the table.

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The Solution: Effortless Setup, Full Control, Real-Time Visibility

Hardware: Sepura proprietary hardware: ESP32 module driving servo motors, stepper motors, LEDs, and a sensor array

Connectivity: WiFi, provisioned through Blynk's device provisioning flow

Software: Blynk IoT Platform, Native iOS and Android Branded Apps, Enterprise Plan

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Using Blynk's managed platform, Sepura brought Root online without building activation, infrastructure, or a control layer themselves. The resulting app offers extensive list of functionality for their customers and the team, translated into a polished, branded experience:

• Seamless device activation — any homeowner can activate a new Root unit in three simple steps, no technical skills required.
• Over-the-air firmware updates — Sepura's team can push firmware updates and ship new features to units already installed under a sink, without a service visit
• Full control at a tap — owners can run different modes like Separation, Cleaning, and Flooded Mode directly from the app, without ever touching the hardware
• Real-time visibility — carbon filter health (tracked automatically), and bin fill level, shown as both a percentage and estimated volume
• Eco Insights — cycle counts (monthly and year-to-date), pounds of waste diverted, and CO2-equivalent emissions prevented, calculated using the EPA's WARM tool
• Calibration and pairing tools — sensor and valve-position resets, plus wireless button pairing, handled entirely in-app
• Built-in support — troubleshooting guides and help resources surfaced directly in-app

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Why Blynk Worked for Sepura Home

Blynk fit Sepura's reality as a small, product-driven team building complex hardware without a software department to match.

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What stood out:

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Low-code, no-infrastructure burden: No need to hire developers or backend team to maintain servers.

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Fast, professional UX delivery: Early prototypes and rapid iteration through Blynk’s design process.

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Enterprise-grade capabilities: OTA firmware updates, advanced automations, and multi-tenant device management – out of the box.