How LOCAL Improved Real-Time Energy Monitoring and Tenant Transparency Using Qube Smart Meters
LOCAL operates modern co-living spaces across India, serving young professionals with fully furnished homes and shared amenities. With properties live in five cities and growing, the team needed real-time visibility, tenant-facing transparency, and seamless API access to run billing at scale. Qube delivered a connected metering platform that keeps every building in sync.
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Executive Summary
LOCAL adopted Qube’s real-time smart metering to unify energy management across 15+ buildings, achieving:
- Live visibility refreshed every five seconds across room, floor, and building loads
- Tenant-facing dashboards that eliminate billing disputes and improve trust
- API-driven automation powering LOCAL’s internal billing and analytics tools
- Standardized energy governance for multi-city expansion
Background & Challenges
LOCAL manages a mix of single-occupancy rooms, shared apartments, and high-usage common areas. As new cities came online, legacy meters couldn’t provide the data depth or agility the brand required.
1. Need for near real-time monitoring
Facilities teams wanted to detect spikes, faulty appliances, and building-level anomalies within minutes—not after monthly reconciliations.
2. Limited tenant transparency
Residents lacked clarity on daily usage, peak hours, and shared-area consumption, leading to support tickets and distrust.
3. Integration with internal billing systems
LOCAL’s finance stack already handled invoicing. The team needed reliable APIs to pull raw readings, historical logs, and usage trends directly into their applications.
4. Scaling across five cities
Every building required consistent metering behaviour, centralized dashboards, and dependable connectivity regardless of location.
The Qube Solution
LOCAL deployed Qube smart meters and gateways across each property, connecting thousands of data points to a unified cloud platform.
Key capabilities unlocked:
- 5-second sync intervals for live load visibility and anomaly detection
- Public Device Pages allowing tenants to monitor EB vs DG usage, recharges, and history
- REST and webhook APIs feeding LOCAL’s billing and analytics workflows
- Tamper detection, outage alerts, and remote controls for proactive operations
- Multi-site dashboards offering a single view across all cities
Implementation Timeline
Phase 1: Rollout Planning (Week 1)
- Audited wiring layouts across Pune, Hyderabad, Bengaluru, Mumbai, and Chennai
- Prioritized high-load areas and tenant types for phased deployment
- Finalized data schemas for API integration
Phase 2: Deployment & Connectivity (Weeks 2–4)
- Installed Qube meters in rooms, common areas, and utility panels
- Configured WiFi and LTE gateways with automatic failover
- Linked meters to the Qube cloud and validated 5-second sync
Phase 3: API & Tenant Experience (Weeks 5–6)
- Integrated Qube APIs into LOCAL’s billing platform and analytics stack
- Embedded consumption widgets inside the LOCAL resident app
- Launched anomaly alerts, tamper notifications, and energy budgets per property
Results Achieved
1. Real-time visibility across 15+ buildings
Operations teams monitor load, spikes, and outages within seconds, enabling proactive maintenance and energy budgeting.
2. Transparent tenant experience
Residents access self-service dashboards for usage and billing history, dramatically reducing support tickets and disputes.
3. API-based automation
Finance now pulls raw readings, generates invoices, and analyses trends without manual exports or spreadsheet merges.
4. Standardized multi-city governance
Every new building launches with a consistent metering playbook, ensuring compliance and faster go-lives nationwide.
Key Insights for Co-Living Operators
- Live data enables proactive operations—teams spot issues before tenants call.
- Self-service transparency reduces friction and builds long-term trust.
- APIs future-proof billing systems by eliminating manual uploads.
- Standardization keeps expansion efficient even when cities, teams, and loads differ.
Conclusion
By partnering with Qube, LOCAL replaced fragmented metering with an API-driven energy intelligence layer. Facilities teams gain live insights, tenants enjoy clarity, and leadership scales confidently using accurate, real-time data across every city.
What’s Next for LOCAL
- Extend analytics to water and gas metering for a holistic utility view
- Automate ESG reporting with carbon-intensity tracking
- Introduce energy-saving nudges inside the resident mobile app
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