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App To Control Your Home Appliances

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VoicenData Bureau
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By Gagandeep Kaur

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If you have been dreaming of a device, which can control the ever-increasing number of home appliances, then your wait comes to an end with the launch of PluggxSwitch by the end of this month.

Launched by a team of highly qualified professionals, Pluggx is a smart device that allows the user to control home appliances and electronics from smartphone.

Entrepreneurial bug bit Srihari BT early in life, who launched his first entrepreneurial venture Tiszta Services at the age of just 20 years. This venture basically focused on mechanized training.

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“It was my first successful startup. It taught me about the difference between businessman and an entrepreneur. As an entrepreneur you have to be different but at the same time meaningful,” says Srihari BT, founder and director, Pluggx Labs.

He followed it up with his second venture, Torquel Electronics, which is a system integrator for home automation. It was this expertise in home automation, which is specifically beneficial to the entrepreneur in his third and latest venture, Pluggx Labs.

The company was formed in September 2013 and is now ready to launch its first product, Pluggx Switch. It was formed in partnership with two other entrepreneurs. All three of them —Srihari BT, Nikhil Srivastava and Hari Narayanan— are IIM-B alumnus.

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“It is an indigenous product and extremely simple to use. It is basically a small device, which doesn’t require any infrastructure, it doesn’t even require Internet,” explains Srihari. The product was developed in the last one year.

All one needs is a Pluggx Switch, which comes with a smartphone application to manage the appliances connected. Srihari claims that it takes just 15 minutes for the installation of the product. The product is Blutooth and Wi-Fi/Cloud enabled that the customer can control with his/her smartphone. Customer support is offered through WhatsApp and Gmail.

A key-differentiating factor of the product is that is it offers a huge cost advantage when compared with other products available in the market. It is available for just `5,000, which would be affordable to a significant chunk of population. “It is a misconception that these products are only for the rich. We believe that at this price point, they would be used by a lot of people,” says Srihari.

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First year of the company has been eventful. One of the partners, Nikhil Srivastava decided to move on recently. Besides, Pluggx has now decided to totally rebrand itself as Airfye for various legal reasons.

The company plans to launch two more products: Airfye Sense and Airfye Bot. Airfye Sense is a Bluetooth and WiFi-enabled motion sensor, which can save energy when nobody is using it. It has huge potential in commercial places, apartments, residential complexes.

On the other hand, Airfye Bot is a WiFi enabled, video doorbell that allows the user to see and talk with visitors through his/her smartphone. It also has an inbuilt motion sensor, which switches and alerts the home owner by capturing the photo of the visitor.

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The Bottom Line

Though the company was self-funded in the first few months of the venture, it has acquired funding worth $2mn from Capital Group recently. “We plan to go for a second round of funding in February 2015. We hope to get funding of $2-3 mn at that time,” says Srihari. The company hopes to break even in the coming 12 months.

It expects to have sold 8,000 units by then. It has already procured few orders from distributors in West Bengal and Karnataka.

Being a serial entrepreneur, Srihari has just one advice for the budding businessmen. “Main advice to entrepreneurs is that they should work harder than anyone else,” he says. This effectively sums up the company’s mantra.

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