Launched last week at CES in Las Vegas, Tewke's smart light switch has a whole energy control system running in the background.
Smart grids are all about using data to make electricity networks as efficient and sustainable as possible. An essential part of that equation is being able to monitor and control how households use energy. This is where startup company Tewke hopes to make a difference, by rethinking two of the commonest elements of household electrical systems: sockets and light switches.
"By reinventing these two devices, which have not essentially changed for more than a hundred years, you can control almost all the energy in the home, and do a lot of other very interesting things," says Rowan Dixon, chief operating officer of Tewke and lead product engineer when the company was set up in 2020.
Tewke's founder, the entrepreneur Piers Daniell, first made contact with Mr Dixon just as he was completing a Master's degree in design engineering at the Dyson School of Design Engineering at Imperial. "Like a lot of students on my course at Imperial, I had a website describing my work and interests," he recalls. "Piers saw that and invited me for a chat. We got on really well, and later on I became one of the first technical hires at Tewke."
Jump forward four years and Tewke is ready to launch Tap, its intelligent light switch. After a private preview for investors and industry contacts last year, the device will make its public debut this month at the prestigious Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. "The US is a massive market and usually ahead of the UK and Europe when it comes to adopting smart home technologies," says Mr Dixon.
Lightbulb moment
A light switch is not only a key element in a house's electricity system, but the ideal place to site a control system. "Switches are placed in easy-to-use locations, and they usually have a great 'view' of a room," says Mr Dixon. That view means they are good sites for motion sensors and sensors for factors such as temperature, humidity and air quality.
Combining this information about the home environment with what the switch can learn about electricity usage allows Tap's AI-driven software to analyse daily life in the house and to optimise energy use. The system can also change electricity use to low-cost times of the day if the house is on a flexible tariff plan, saving consumers money. And of course, Tap can also be used to turn the lights on and off.
The main challenge in building Tap was finding a way to keep the device powered up when the light it controls is turned off. Only very new houses in the UK have the neutral wires that make that straightforward. "We were told it couldn't be done without a neutral wire, but we have successfully overcome that technical challenge, and thoroughly patented our solution," says Mr Dixon.
We wanted our light switch to be as simple and intuitive as the on-off product it is replacing, but with lots of autonomous capabilities in the background. Rowan Dixon Tewke
Tewke is unusual in building both the hardware and the software for its system. Partly that was a business decision, creating an obstacle for potential competitors, but mainly it was because there was no existing hardware on the market that met its needs. "We wanted our light switch to be as simple and intuitive as the on-off product it is replacing, but with lots of autonomous capabilities in the background," Mr Dixon says.
Making its own hardware has also allowed Tewke to design a product with high privacy and security capabilities. "As much data as possible is stored on the device, so it never leaves the home," says Mr Dixon. "And we don't need an internet connection for the devices to communicate with each other, although this is unavoidable if you want to use functions such as remote control from outside the home."
Growing concern
Shortly after the private launch of Tap in October last year, Tewke announced that it had completed a £2.6 million seed funding round. This will enable the company to continue developing its system, adding new capabilities to Tap and advancing work on Port, its smart socket. Devices are also under development to control boilers and other electricity-consuming appliances.
The cash will also help the Tewke team to grow. Currently it has around 12 full-time employees, a mix of university leavers and people with industry experience. According to Mr Daniell, design engineering is a good background for the kind of people Tewke needs.
Design engineering produces well-rounded graduates who are used to problem-solving and applying their knowledge in new and diverse ways. Piers Daniell Tewke
"In a startup, every job is at least three jobs," he explains. "It's difficult to hire people with narrow expertise and then ask them to work on lots of problems that might be outside their experience. Design engineering tends to produce these very well-rounded graduates who are used to problem-solving and applying their knowledge in new and diverse ways."
Tewke has also recruited Professor Peter Childs as an advisor. The founding head of the Dyson School is the professorial lead in engineering design at Imperial and a director at the startups BladeBUG and Q-Bot. "He is a great mix of sceptical and optimistic," says Mr Dixon. "His mentorship ensures we've really thought through what we're doing, and he encourages us to explore all different avenues."
Main picture credit: Oscar Jones
