to be able to track energy use as well, Young said.
“For the end user, they think of water and electricity as sort of part of the same thing,” Young said. “What we do is not necessarily only useful for water. That was kind of our starting point.”
Businesses and employees will be able to sign up for a subscription to MeterHero and track their workplace’s water and energy consumption. The app will also allow consumers to monitor their water and energy use at home.
For a business, signing up for MeterHero is a simple add-on that could lower utility costs without requiring a significant investment in retrofitting old HVAC systems or buying new, energy-efficient light bulbs. But if they do make those investments, MeterHero makes it easier to quantify the impact, Young said.
H2Oscore has signed up a few businesses for its pilot, but it is also forming partnerships with schools and nonprofits that would use MeterHero as a learning tool for students, Young said. The youths would take meter readings at school and/or at home, talk about the findings in class, graph the data, and more.
“The schools [and organizations] were just ecstatic about it,” Young said. “[Students] have a firsthand sense of how we get our water, how we measure our energy, the kinds of things that cause it to go up or down. That’s really powerful for kids in terms of education.”
Young recognizes that H2Oscore, which is currently raising a financing round and participating in a Milwaukee water-startup accelerator program, runs the risk of taking on too many things at once.
“The tension we face is spreading ourselves too thin, versus finding the true identity of H2Oscore and finding a set of products that have enough revenue associated with them and that complement each other and allow us to really develop as a company,” Young said. “But if you don’t try, the other option is just to sit around and fail.”
