Tang: Our vision for Habitap One is to drive up the utilisation rate of smart home management systems among Singapore households so that more people can enjoy the benefits of smart technologies.
SINGAPORE (EDGEPROP) - Habitap, a homegrown provider of smart home features for new condominiums and developments, has snared a comfortable share of the smart home market in Singapore.
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Last month, the tech firm announced a new product called Habitap One, its first subscription-based access management solution. This smart home and office management system is geared towards older residential and commercial developments that find migrating to a digital solution expensive and challenging.
“Among older residential developments, there is a perception that common areas are usually under-serviced, and residents are left on their own to tend to their own space. A large proportion of the residential market is still utilising outdated methods such as paper-based log-books,” says Habitap founder and CEO Franklin Tang.
Habitap has established itself as a smart home provider for high-end and mass-market condominiums. (Picture: Samuel Isaac Chua/The Edge Singapore)
He adds that the current model of home and office management needs to be more adaptable to new technologies, and it must be more ecologically sustainable.
Tang explains: “We need to move away from the wasteful cycle of replacing systems every five to 10 years. This generates a lot of electrical waste and is an unnecessary large capital expenditure to residents.”
A more sustainable model
Each residential or office development that signs up with Habitap One will access the management ecosystem through its mobile application. The company says this cloud platform makes it easier to keep pace with fast-moving smart technologies, while being relatively inexpensive.
For homeowners, there is Habitap One Home — a flexible pay-per-use subscription that starts from $3.99 monthly. The company says that this is an all-in-One management portal with features like resident access, visitor management, visitor intercom and instant pass for residents to manage security and access systems. Habitap will also provide an Apple iPad to each development for use as a visitor web intercom system.
A screenshot of the visitor intercom system under Habitap One Home. (Picture: Habitap)
A screenshot of the limited time visitor pass on Habitap One Home.
Meanwhile, Habitap One Office is an office management app designed for businesses. It includes features like staff access, visitor access and a visitor web intercom for business owners and building managers. The access management system comes with real-time updates to ensure that users are promptly attended to.
According to Habitap, companies will have to pay a subscription-based fee that starts from $1 per company employee per month, and a one-time cost of $800 per hardware reader per door.
With the introduction of both systems, condominium management councils, office building managers and managing agents will be able to move away from utilising physical access cards. It also means that guest registrations do not need to be managed manually, thus reducing entry waiting times.
A screenshot of an example town hall meeting event that will be pushed out through Habitap One Office.
Another example function of Habitap One Office.
From a cost perspective, Habitap One reduces traditional hardware maintenance costs and paper-based logbooks by migrating building management electronically.
Since Habitap One was launched at the start of September, at least 10 Management Corporation Strata Title (MCST) bodies have approached Habitap and are keen to explore the system, says Tang. He expects Habitap One to garner interest from more MCSTs over the coming months.
Meanwhile, the company also says that two building managers — which operate facilities that accommodate about 1,000 office workers each — have signed up to the Habitap One Office subscription plan.
The five-year plan
Tang has big plans for Habitap One, and he believes the product is well-placed to capture a large proportion of the market ahead of its competitors.
Habitap aims to reach at least two million office users under Habitap One Office over the next two years. Plans are underway to introduce it into neighbouring countries like Malaysia, Australia and the Philippines before eventually venturing into the US and Europe.
He has set an equally ambitious target for Habitap One Home. “In Singapore, we want to be in a position where we command 50% of the market share of condominiums built before 2020. This represents about 150,000 condominium households,” says Tang. The company hopes to achieve this in five years, he adds.
Ultimately, he hopes that Habitap One will make the adoption of smart home technologies more accessible to all segments of the market, and not just newly completed condominiums.
Tang adds: “Our vision for Habitap One is to drive up the utilisation rate of smart home management systems among Singapore households so that more people can enjoy the benefits of smart technologies. This will translate to better overall liveability.”
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