DYAMAND, a new imec and Ghent University spin-off, launches ‘eSave’ – reducing building owners’ heating costs by up to 30%

LEUVEN (Belgium), JUNE 23, 2022 — Imec, a world-leading research and innovation hub in nanoelectronics and digital technologies, proudly introduces DYAMAND – a spin-off from imec and Ghent University. DYAMAND officially kicks off its venture by addressing the smart building market with its ‘eSave’ solution. eSave leverages its unique middleware to seamlessly connect radiators with a heating management application and its related dashboard. Using eSave, owners of hotels, office buildings, and student housing can reduce heating costs by up to 30% without affecting residents’ comfort.

Amidst economic and geopolitical tensions, gas prices continue to soar, compounded by growing concerns about humanity’s CO₂ footprint and its impact on climate change. These factors cause building owners to wonder how they can economically and ecologically heat their buildings. DYAMAND, a spin-off from imec and Ghent University, leverages its unique middleware platform to provide them with a quick and easy solution that instantly pays off.

DYAMAND: making any application communicate with any digital device

Everyday hardware – from traffic lights to radiator valves – is becoming increasingly smart, potentially interworking with and/or being controlled by other sensors, devices, and applications. In practice, however, vendor-specific hardware implementations – and using different standards and communication protocols – prevent interoperability. It makes mixing and matching hardware and applications from multiple vendors a complex, costly, and time-consuming exercise.

“That is where the DYAMAND platform kicks in,” says Andrei Neagu, CEO of DYAMAND. “Our vendor-agnostic middleware platform has the power to make any application communicate with any digital device, quickly and seamlessly – no matter the underlying standards, communication flavors, or use-cases.”

The platform has already been tested with a wide variety of potential applications. For example, one scenario included a smart building setting, where the blinds open and the lights switch on automatically as a person parks their electric car in the garage. Similarly, DYAMAND has proven its worth in the context of City of Things, a research program exploring how technology can make our cities more livable, for instance, through smart street lighting and air quality monitoring.

“What these cases have in common is that devices and applications from different vendors need to talk to one another to perform their magic. And that is exactly what DYAMAND facilitates,” Neagu adds.

DYAMAND’s eSave solution reduces building owners’ heating costs by up to 30%

The first pre-integrated plug-and-play solution that has been built on DYAMAND’s middleware platform targets the smart building market.

Andrei Neagu: “Gas prices are soaring. Yet, meanwhile, a large percentage of buildings in Belgium and Europe are still poorly insulated and equipped with old radiators. Think of schools, public buildings, factories, hotels, and student housing. Renovating those buildings seems like the logical thing to do. However, building material prices and construction labor costs are rapidly increasing as well, making this a less ideal scenario for many building owners.”

“That is why we are introducing eSave. It seamlessly connects smart radiator valves, which are compatible even with old radiators, with a heating management application and its related AI-based dashboard. This allows building owners to eliminate heating waste and plan and optimize the temperature in each room in real time, e.g., eliminating heating waste when windows or doors are left open for a longer time. eSave has proven to reduce heating costs by up to 30 percent without affecting residents’ comfort – while shielding building owners from all underlying technical complexity,” he concludes.

DYAMAND is supported by imec.istart – imec’s business accelerator program which offers a broad range of services such as an initial financial injection, personal coaching and mentoring, access to technology and working facilities, access to a broad (inter)national network of partners and investors, and more.