Bringing Self-Service to Energy

Quicker and cheaper: the rise of self-service in retail

Until the 1930s it was common practice in retail that a shop assistant behind the counter served each customer individually. The customer indicated the items and amount they wanted and the assistant measured and wrapped the requested volume. While many viewed this way of shopping as a social occasion and enjoyed the exchange with the assistant, the process had two major drawbacks: it was slow and it was labor-intensive.

Self-service stores could serve customers cheaper and quicker than traditional incumbents and so they became the norm by the middle of the last century – only a few decades after the concept had been pioneered.

Going beyond retail – self-service in other industries

The advent of information technology enabled self-service to spread far beyond retail. Take insurance, for example. Just 20 years ago, this service was only available through brokers. Nowadays, even in Germany – not a country known for quick adoption of digital services – half of all consumers have taken out at least one insurance online.

And even in B2B we see self-service spreading. The company Zapier, for instance, offers task automation connecting more than 4,000 different apps or Webflow (the tool that powers this website) enables users to independently create and host completely customizable websites. Both, Zapier and Webflow, allow users to build custom solutions tailored to their specific use case in a matter of minutes – without ever talking to a sales rep or writing a single line of code.

Bringing self-service to energy

So why are we – an IoT-company from the energy sector – lecturing you on the history of self-service? Well, because we are bringing self-service to our product. We want to make building clean energy solutions as simple and quick as building a website. Without compromising on customization.

Build in days. Not months.

Our self-service platform makes development of smart energy applications quicker and easier than ever. Sign up, set up a system, start building – without any lengthy processes or upfront costs.

Build with or without devices in the field.

Start building whether you already have devices in the field or not. Set up a virtual system to develop and test your application. Once you are ready, move it into the field with a few clicks.

BYOL – bring your own logic, keep your IP

Build your own logic. We provide the infrastructure, the digital interface to energy appliances. This makes XENON extremely flexible and allows you to apply it to any use case. Once you have set up a (virtual) system in XENON you can build your own logic on top.

So if you are an expert in home energy management systems, for example, and have come up with an optimization algorithm you can implement it on XENON without worrying about the underlying IoT-infrastructure – reducing your development effort by up to 95%.

Build without a single line of code

Or if you want to go even quicker and without a line of code use our pre-built modules. These cover common use cases from dynamic load management to remote maintenance. Use and combine them to build energy management applications without writing a single line of code.

Become a beta user

Sounds interesting? Help us build it. We opened our waiting list this week and will start onboarding first beta users over the coming weeks to gather feedback before the public launch.