(upbeat music) >> Announcer: From the Fairmont Hotel, in the heart of Silicon Valley, it's theCUBE. Covering, When IoT met AI: The Intelligence of Things. Brought to you by Western Digital. >> Welcome back everybody. Jeff Frick here with theCUBE. We're at Downtown San Jose at the Fairmont Hotel at a small little conference, very intimate affair, talking about IoT and AI, The Intelligence of Things. When IoT met AI. Now, they've got a cool little start up, kind of expo hall. We're excited to have our next guest here from that. It's Mike Wilson, he's the CEO of BriteThings. Mike, welcome. >> Good to be here, Jeff, how you doin'? >> Absolutely. So, BriteThings. What are BriteThings? >> BriteThings are intelligent plugs, power strips, wall sockets, anything that fits into the plug load space. It learns users behavior and then provides them an intelligent on-off schedule. The goal here is to turn stuff off when it's on and not being needed. >> Right. >> So wasted energy. Nights and weekends in the workspace, for example. >> It sounds like such a simple thing. >> Totally. >> But we were talking before we turned the cameras on, this actually has giant economic impact >> It does. >> in building maintenance, which is a huge category >> Yup. >> as you said, I'll let you kind of break down the numbers as to where >> Sure. >> that energy's being spent and the impact that you guys are having. >> Well our customers are building owners and operators, and they pay an electrical bill to run that building. It's a cost of running the building. About 27% of it goes to lighting, about 38% goes to heating and cooling, and all the rest goes to plug loads. And where we come to the market it, of course there's huge lighting companies, famous names, same with HVAC, but no one's doing anything about plug loads, and the reason is is because plug loads are distributed, they're hard to control. And so what we bring to the market is a product that is small, inexpensive, and can suddenly give owners and operators all the control that they enjoy with lighting and HVAC over their plug loads. >> So it's kind of like Dest, in that it takes a relatively simple function, now because of the cloud, because of the internet, you can add a lot more intelligence into a relatively, I don't want to say dumb device, but the device itself doesn't have to have that much power 'cause you can put the application somewhere else. >> Exactly, so if you just imagine, you're sitting here with me right now. Probably at your workplace and at home there's a bunch of stuff turned on, you're not using it, >> Right >> but you're spending money to keep it powered up, and that's causing CO2 to be generated at power plant down the road. So that's bad for your pocket, it's bad for the environment. So if we can automatically turn that stuff off, then people don't have to worry about it. We can measure it, so here's where the money is. >> Right. >> Not only energy savings, but data. So I can tell you when you turned your stuff on and off, so that means human presence. When you're at work, there's a value to that. If you're going to put a floor of an office building out there and heat it or light it, we can tell you if people are there or not. So you can look at that and make, and save even more money. >> Jeff: Right. >> We've got one customer that uses our product for inventory management. If it plugs in, you can see it on our screen, and you can see if it's on or off, if it's connected and how it's running. So that kind of data ends up being valuable, not only for energy savings, because we turn stuff on and off, but human presence, inventory control, the list goes on and on. Our customers actually every year are coming up with new ways to use our device. >> Right. And just for the baseline savings, you just basically plug it in and turn it on, and you're reporting some huge savings just by just the basic operation of your strips versus a regular strip. >> Exactly. So just imagine, this device is learning your behavior, so that's part of our, you know, that's kind of our core competency here, is these devices measure the amount of energy you're using. When you're not using something, it goes into standby mode, or sleep mode. Then we turn that off to save you the money. But the way we're able to do that is using artificial intelligence to learn patterns, and take those patterns and you can basically guess the best optimized schedule for your devices to be turned and off. >> Right. >> On and off. So if you imagine you've got 100,000 employees, 100,000 different schedules, this thing has to be smart and it can't affect worker productivity. >> Right. >> So we have to be smart enough to know when to turn it on before you come into work, when to turn it off to save you the max amount of money, and be able to measure all of that so you can roll that up and see how much money you're saving. How much CO2 are you reducing? >> Right. >> You know, so sustainability officers love our product too. >> So do you integrate with other types of intelligent systems in that space? The lightings, and the HVAC? >> Yeah. Exactly. So one of the most important things is, I've got a portfolio, my office building is a portfolio of devices and systems, so just one of them is our plug load management, right? So I want to be able to see my plug load in my current control panel. So we've got APIs where our cloud technology is able to take that reporting and stick it into, for example, a Lucid control panel. We're working with Trane right now to integrate their BACnet solution for their building control management. >> Right, right. >> So that their customers are able to see lighting, HVAC, and plug load, >> Just what I was going to say. >> right off the same old screen and operating tools that they've always used. >> Right, right. What's kind of the typical ROI that you pitch people just for the straight-up money savings that they're going to get? >> We got our foot in the door by saying we can reduce your plug load cost a minimum of 30%, and what we're seeing on average is about 40 to 45%. >> Wow. >> It's a huge huge reduction. >> Now where do you go next? >> Well, conquer the world. (Jeff laughs) You know, so imagine this, anywhere in the commercial office space where there's a plug, so let your mind go, how many power strips are out there? >> Right, right. >> How many of those-- >> We're using about 20 of them right here. >> Yeah, so, just, you know, every person at every desk is a potential customer. Every time there's a coffeemaker or a break room, a fax machine, you know, any piece of equipment that's plugged in, we can save you money. Vending machines. We have a customer with these, you know, raise and lower desks. Crazy, they want to just see, they don't want to save energy, they want to know who's using that and how often. >> Jeff: Right, right. >> Our device can do that, too. >> Right. >> And that's that data I was telling you about. Once you start collecting data of how people use plugged-in devices, I'm collecting information about you, how you use your laptop, how you use your charger, how often. >> Because the signature on the draw is different depending on the activity of the device. >> You got it. Exactly. >> I love this. You know, it's so funny because the second-order impact of all these types of things is so much more significant than people give it credit, I think. >> It's about the data. >> Jeff: Yeah. >> And our customer's just love that, because the data gives them control, and when you have control, cost savings. >> And is it just commercial, or you sell them for regular retail customers as well? Or do you-- >> I imagine some day in the future that's a potential, but you know, our focus right now, 'cause the big problem out there is that buildings use 40% of all the energy generated in the United States, and commercial space is the big opportunity, because nights and weekends. >> Right. >> Stuff should be turned off, and we can do that right now. >> Right, right. >> We're the market doing it. >> Buildings with big, big POs. >> Yup. (Jeff laughs) >> Alright, Michael, sounds like exciting stuff, can't wait til I can get one at Best Buy or Office Depot, or something. >> Coming to a store near you, or www.britethings.com. >> Alright, thanks a lot, he's Mike Wilson. Save some energy, get one of these things when they're available, or at least tell the boss to get one at the office. (Michael laughs) >> Definitely. >> Alright, I'm Jeff Frick, you're watching theCUBE. When IoT meets AI in San Jose, California. Thanks for watching. (upbeat music)