Amphiro
Amphiro
In 2009, Thomas Stiefmeier and Thorsten Staake founded Amphiro AG as an ETH spin-off together with their doctoral supervisors Gerhard Tröster and Elgar Fleisch. The four founders were united by the conviction that information on consumption behaviour would offer great added value for countless applications in the future. The area of hot water was quickly identified as offering extremely high energy-saving potential - where other developers shied away from the medium of water.
In 2012, Amphiro already received the first order for 6,000 consumption displays for the shower from the Zurich energy supplier ewz - and that was before the first challenge had been solved: batteries and mains connections were to be replaced by a sustainable energy source for easy installation and economical operation.
Now the work really started: patents were filed and numerous prototypes developed. In 2012, Amphiro won Flextronics as a production partner.
The Swiss Federal Office of Energy supported the first Amphiro study by ETH Zurich and the University of Lausanne. The effect of real-time feedback on consumption was investigated. The proven savings significantly exceeded expectations: 452 kWh per year and average household (2.1 persons) - and permanently. Amphiro a1 Basic was thus the most effective feedback tool in buildings that had been studied so far.
How did the development continue? Pilot projects followed with large companies in Switzerland (with the support of Swiss Mobiliar), Singapore (with the Public Utility Board), the Netherlands (with PWN) and South Korea (with KEMCO). All studies were accompanied by top-class research teams and all were able to confirm the results.
In parallel, the interest of manufacturers and households in the topic of smart homes increased, which led to the team growing at the same time...
In 2015, Amphiro won Swiss Mobiliar as an investor and continued to expand the smart home sector and sales. In May 2016, amphiro b1 connect was launched as the second product, which synchronises data with smartphones and the amphiro cloud.
In July 2018, the Finnish faucet manufacturer Oras Group secured a majority stake in Amphiro. This gave Amphiro excellent access to the European fittings market. Together, the companies will drive the development of innovative products and services in the areas of health, comfort and sustainability.
