Author Archive

Aquacue Opens the Kimono

January 30, 2012

We’re staking the claim that no one makes real-time water data more compelling than Aquacue. And we’re delivering on that claim by releasing Wave 1.0 dashboard for single Barnacle users (i.e. residences and Pilot Pack customers.) Wave 1.0 has a simply beautiful, interactive interface loaded with features and attractions.

But don’t take our word for it, experience it for yourself.

To access a real live Aquacue Wave account go here and have at it: zoom into the charts, double click the bars, toggle the overlays, and scroll around the map view.

Sign in frequently to track this user’s water consumption and you’ll see the vicissitudes of daily life, represented through water. We think it’s fascinating.

While it’s always fun to snoop at someone else’s water data, imagine how much more rewarding it would be to look at your own!

If you are a large commercial water user or facility manager and you need to get a handle on your water expenses try Aquacue’s Pilot Pack. You’ll get a single Barnacle with three-month access to Wave analytics software for a low, low price of $997.

It’s a simple to install, easy to use, low-risk trial, and we’ll bet money you’ll discover a leak. (It happens every time.)

Email info@aquacue.com to learn how to get your Aquacue Pilot Pack.

Wave 1.0 dashboard is browser compatible with Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Safari, and Internet Explorer 9. Internet Explorer 8 users, please download Google Chrome Frame plugin for optimum results.

Welcome Reza!

January 27, 2012

It takes a quite a bit of ingenuity to bring simple, easy and innovative solutions to big, real-world problems. Towards that end Dr. Reza Kassayan has recently joined Aquacue’s advisory board as an engineering consultant and technical advisor.

Reza’s specialty is designing ultra-miniaturized embedded computing devices and applications for medical, aerospace, and telemetric industries. Reza brings his broad expertise and brilliant inventiveness to assist Aquacue’s engineering efforts. We look forward to implementing his design contributions and making our products more simple, easy and innovative. Welcome, Reza!

Announcing the Aquacue Pilot Pack

January 25, 2012

We’re offering qualified customers an easy way to try our water management products and services: the Aquacue Pilot Pack. It’s a short-term, low-commitment way to experience our innovative products first hand.

The Pilot Pack comes with one Barnacle, a measuring and monitoring device that attaches to any meter in minutes and transmits water data to our servers in the cloud. Along with the Barnacle customers get 3-months access to Aquacue’s Wave analytics software that reports and displays real-time water data via any web browser.

So what’s unique about Aquacue’s approach to water management?

1. Real-time water data delivered in 15-minute increments so customers can investigate leaks, find inefficiencies and reduce water expenses.

2. The Barnacle works with any installed meter; there’s no pipe cutting, digging, or meter upgrade.

3. Water data is transmitted by the Barnacle via the existing cell network. It’s not only wireless, it’s wire-free. No external power supply needed.

4. Aquacue Wave’s simple, graphical dashboard is accessed securely over the Internet so there’s no software to install or manage. Real-time water data starts from the meter and ends up on any browser or smart phone.

If you’re a large commercial or institutional facility manager and you want to experience Aquacue’s simple, easy approach to water management contact us at info@aquacue.com. The Aquacue Pilot Pack is $997 for a 3-month trial run. Start learning about the water flowing through your pipes; there’s nothing to lose and water to save.

Water Guru on Board!

January 24, 2012

Marty Laporte—one of our earliest adopters and top among our loyal customers—has recently agreed to join the Aquacue Advisory Board. Marty is a seasoned water professional versed in all manner of water management. She has initiated many water efficiency and water conservation studies and programs at Stanford University in her role as Associate Director, Environmental Quality & Water Conservation in the department of Sustainability and Energy Management.

She’s a leader among state, regional and urban water/sustainability managers, and has published and presented on conservation measures and many best management practices. We look forward to a long and enriching collaboration with Marty. You can read her brief bio on Aquacue’s website but we wanted to be a little bit more effusive about her here. Welcome, Marty!

Farvel Morten!

January 6, 2012

Today is Morten’s last day as an Aquanaut. He’s going back to the land of the Vikings to finish his Master’s Degree. His sunny personality kept the clouds away from Northern California, making it the driest December on record! He also made many valuable contributions to our worthy endeavor. Here he is raising a glass to the future of Aquacue! We raise a glass in return.

Farewell, Morten!

Water Battle Redux

December 20, 2011

Wow-wee! The hits just keep on coming! Aquacue has been wondering about the lingering effects of last October’s Water Battle among student residence halls at UC Merced. We just compared the nine Valley Terraces halls’ water consumption from November to October and found that students continued to reduce their water consumption by an additional 6% month over month!  (Note: the students achieved a 14% water savings during the month-long water battle—and now have a two-month water savings of 20% since the beginning of the school year.)

In calculating the numbers we normalized 6 days of water usage to account for the long Thanksgiving holiday and for the extra day in October, and the residents still came in 30,200 gallons UNDER their water use in October. Amazing!

Our conclusion: the Water Battle did what it was supposed to do—help student residents reduce their water use and improve UC Merced’s water efficiency. The numbers prove it. Congratulations, UC Merced! Stay dry!

Glad Tidings

December 7, 2011

What’s up at Aquacue? A new release of Wave, our reporting and visualization dashboard! In fact, it’s such an important developmental milestone that we decided to give Wave an integer: Wave 1.0

In addition to the version number, Wave 1.0 also has a new visually appealing design so users can view their water data in an almost Zen-like state of calm. Functionally, Wave 1.0 has vastly improved navigation tools so it’s easier to see data views like these, for instance:

If you’re a facility or water manager and would like to be mesmerized by your own water data, contact us about our Pilot Program for Campuses and Facilities at info@aquacue.com.

Congratulations go out to our software and design team who, after much coding and cogitation, got it done and Aquacue’s mission continues: to deliver simple, easy-to-use water management products and services!

Happy Holidays!

Welcome, Morten!

October 21, 2011

Next in our series of intrepid interns: Morten Skovgaard who hails all the way from Denmark. Morten is in graduate school at Aarhus University studying for a Masters in Business with a focus on Strategy, Organization and Leadership. Morten has already distinguished himself here at Aquacue by his off-hours adventures. A few weekends back he rents a muscle car, loads up on cheap gasoline, tears out on the wide open spaces (to Oregon and back in a weekend) and gets a whopper of a speeding ticket. We like this story at Aquacue.

Morten is helping to analyze market opportunities for Aquacue, and we all enjoy his enthusiasm, his willingness to work hard or to have a beer!  Here’s a picture with his latest Hertz upgrade. Welcome, Morten!

UC Merced Water Battle 2011

October 15, 2011

Our most recent project at Aquacue has been developing and co-sponsoring a water-saving competition at University of California Merced. This opportunity came about as a result of a 40+ Barnacle installation throughout the central valley campus. A subset group of nine residence halls (565 students) provided the perfect arena to stage the first biannual UC Merced Water Battle 2011 in a one-month, inter-hall, water-saving competition.

Aquacue partnered with the Office of the Chancellor and student groups: Green Campus/Alliance for Saving Energy and Engineers for a Sustainable World. We provided the back-end tools—web & mobile-accessible dashboards tracking  real-time rankings and water metrics—while the student leaders were the eyes, ears, mouthpieces and feet-on-the-ground at UC Merced. And they’ve been awesome, tireless advocates.

Our goal for the competition is to achieve a 10% overall reduction in water consumption for all nine residence halls. Our strategy: use the Aquacue water-monitoring technology to quantify the real-time impact of the students’ water conservation efforts. We’re also using social encouragement through a Water Battle Facebook page, leveraging resident hall affiliations (us vs. them) to juice the competitive mindset, and employing both self-interest (pizza party) and altruism (a $1000 donation to a nonprofit on behalf of the winning dorm) as prize incentives. It’s working beautifully, so far.  We’re on day 16.

The latest news is: we’ve just published the first 16 days of consumption data into new field reports. These charts track rank change over time, track water consumption and water leaks by hall, and the Aquascore chart posted here.

This chart tracks a hall’s gallons/person/day value against their baseline G/P/D over time and it’s designed to show improvement in a residence hall’s water efficiency, regardless of the hall’s ranking.

The good news is: a 13% reduction overall in water consumption!

The interesting news is: when we added leak alerts to the Battle Site, the leaks got fixed. Students have since been saving more water by their own actions (32,000 gallons) than was lost due to leaks (21,000 gallons.) By eliminating the leaks’ countereffect, the competition’s now all about true grit.

Poke around on the UC Merced Water Battle 2011 site.

Here’s the article from the UC Merced Website.

Don’t forget to like the Water Battle’s Facebook’s page!


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