Water is one of the key necessities for our collective survival. Now, more than ever, we need to carefully evaluate how we use water for a better future for all.
There are a variety of reasons why water has become so valuable, including climate change. Climate change is impacting fresh water availability around the globe and is one of the main reasons we’re facing problems managing our water sources.
If water is not managed properly, it creates wasted water. This is where HydroPoint steps in. With the combination of technology and extensive experience, they are changing the future of how people manage their water use.
Featuring for The Enterprise World’s this issue is HydroPoint – Top Smart Water Management Solution Providers in 2023.
The Company:
For both indoors and outdoors, HydroPoint is the proven leader in smart water management solutions. They have garnered 20+ years of experience helping people and organizations conserve water and save money.
They offer smart irrigation systems, along with leak detection and water use analytics services. Their WeatherTRAK®, Baseline™, and WaterCompass® product lines help companies maximize water savings, reduce operating costs, minimize business risks, and achieve sustainability goals.
An EPA WaterSense® Partner of the Year, HydroPoint combines IoT technology, data analytics, and automation to optimize irrigation, flow management, and leak detection. Their solutions deliver visibility and control to commercial, government, education, and community sites, helping eliminate their water blindness.
What Sparked Their Growth:
HydroPoint has been growing continuously for the past 20 years, but has seen exponential growth in the past few years alone.
The combination of improving upon existing products like WeatherTRAK, introducing innovative new solutions like WaterCompass, and acquiring other top-tier products like Baseline is what has made this growth possible.
HydroPoint is also seeing growth as more and more sectors take notice of the negative effects of climate change and seek out ways to be more sustainable.
What Has Changed Since The Beginning:
In the last 20 years since it was founded, HydroPoint has grown significantly. In 2021, they managed 86.5 billion gallons of onsite water, saving their customers 16.1 billion gallons of water and more than $119 million in avoided water expenses.
Why They’re Successful:
HydroPoint is successful because its products and services truly help their customers and provide measurable outcomes in water, money, and time saved. They have identified water management pain points and developed products and services that solve them. HydroPoint’s systems have a rapid ROI — their smart water management is win-win for everyone.
Their water use analytics and leak detection service WaterCompass is a great example of how they have identified everyday problems and created solutions to solve those. The concept for WaterCompass originated from HydroPoint’s 20+ years of experience, helping customers manage their water use. In doing so, they realized that nearly every site faces a huge amount of water waste, but can’t exactly pinpoint where that waste comes from. This is known as water blindness.
The HydroPoint team began to see a pattern — there was a huge gap between customer’s recommended water usage and their actual water usage. They realized this was the water waste they needed to help customers harvest.
Out of this need to identify and eliminate water blindness, WaterCompass was born. The team at HydroPoint is not afraid to get their hands dirty, dig into problems, and create innovative, out-of-the-box solutions to solve them.
HydroPoint’s Suite of Solutions:
WeatherTRAK, a weather-based irrigation system, includes flow products and cloud-based central management to save water and deliver operational savings.
Proven in 25 independent studies, including perfect scores on the EPA’s WaterSense certification, WeatherTRAK achieves 95% of maximum water conservation potential.
Baseline is a sensor-based irrigation control system able to dynamically respond to real-time data using algorithms to make better irrigation decisions. With cloud-managed controller platforms utilizing modern communication and networking options, Baseline has earned the EPA WaterSense label for both weather-based and soil moisture-based control and has an engineered solution for all sites.
WaterCompass is a comprehensive flow monitoring, leak detection, and water use analytics service that gives customers visibility of their water usage in real time. Utilizing flow-monitoring IoT sensors, data use analytics, and a full-time team of water experts to provide water use visibility across an entire site, WaterCompass enables site owners and managers to finally overcome the systemic water blindness that plagues properties across the country.
From sensing leaks and breaks and notifying appropriate team members as they happen, to working with onsite facility managers to solve water use anomalies, customers from retail to multi-family housing, government entities, and others have benefited from the 24/7 visibility of water use on their sites. Water Compass minimizes the risks that come from unmanaged water such as increased water costs, property damage, disruption to operations, brand damage, and liabilities.
What Makes The Solutions Special:
HydroPoint is the only smart water management provider that offers solutions for both indoors and outdoors – with smart irrigation and water use analytics and leak detection. No other organization provides a full 360 degree view and monitoring of water use across an entire site or property. Plus, the solutions are scalable and can be implemented across a portfolio of properties, providing complete transparent water management across hundreds or thousands of sites.
Technology For The Greater Good:
While smart technology is at the core of what they do, what sets HydroPoint apart is the blend of water management solutions and its team of water use experts overseeing the water use profiles of all their customers.
HydroPoint’s solutions combine onsite sensors and control systems, with real-time cloud connectivity supported by an IoT platform designed to deliver indoor and outdoor smart water management solutions.
This powerful combination of specialized onsite hardware, 24/7 wireless connectivity, and advanced data analytics is managed and monitored by their team of water management specialists, world-class customer support, and water use experts.
Customer Success Stories:
Lowe’s —
To reduce their environmental impact and increase operational efficiency, Lowe’s kicked off a HydroPoint smart irrigation pilot, which was quickly rolled out to a few hundred stores by the end of the following year. Lowe’s has since expanded the program to 939 retail facilities. The impressive results include annual water savings of over 650 million gallons, resulting in $5 million cost savings. Because most of Lowe’s stores use water from their local municipality, the company created annual downstream GHG savings of about 750 metric tons CO2e, which is comparable to over 84,000 gallons of gasoline.
Target —
Target is reducing water scarcity and improving water quality outcomes across their retail stores and supply chain facilities. They have deployed WeatherTRAK at 200 of their sites, to water plants only when necessary, find underground leaks quickly, and pause irrigation when it’s raining or rainfall has been sufficient. Using HydroPoint smart irrigation is currently saving Target over 60 million gallons of water per year and helping them achieve their ESG goals.
Chris Spain – Leading the Way:
CEO and President
Chris Spain cofounded HydroPoint in 2002. Chris has over 20 years of experience managing emerging growth technology and information services companies. Previously, he was the president and founder of Shaman Corporation, providing mission-critical IT data services to organizations focused on secure and stable 24/7 IT operations. Shaman Corporation’s customers included Intuit, United States Department of Education, Hambrecht & Quist, and other leading financial institutions.
The company was sold to Corporate Software & Technology in 2000. Prior to Shaman Corporation, Chris was President of Accelerated Media, a digital and broadcast media company that produced award-winning, innovative and interactive projects for Pacific Bell, Discovery Channel, Chronicle Broadcasting, Colossal Pictures, and Francis Coppola’s Zoetrope Studios, among others. Together with Peter Carlson, Chris holds a patent on Controlling a Resource Demand System. In his free time, Chris participates in numerous outdoor sports, including rock climbing, whitewater paddling, telemark skiing, and backpacking.
What Makes HydroPoint’s Team Unique:
The employees at HydroPoint receive competitive salaries, 401k enrollment, and stellar healthcare packages. HydroPoint ensures that they have the necessary tools, training, and support their employees need to excel in their careers.
The work environment is such that every individual can not only work hard and feel proud of their accomplishments, but can also laugh and have fun together.
What makes this team unique is that it consists of people from all over the country who carry a broad range of experience, skills, and backgrounds — all working towards a common goal of eradicating water waste.
