Control at the distribution board, not a thermostat on a wall
Four contactors intercept the circuits worth switching. Every other circuit still gets measured. Installation included, by a qualified electrician, tested to BS 7671.
or start with DataMate on one site, free · check how your site compares
Measure it · Fix it · Scale it · Check how your site compares
The portal
Ask it a question in plain English and it answers from your own circuits, and shows the working behind every number.
Recent conversations
How much have I saved this month?
Drying room was cold
Weekly savings report
Hi Jamie, I’m AutoMate.
I manage your site’s energy automatically, and I learn from you: tell me what’s working, what isn’t, or what you’d like changed.
I learn how you like your reports and alerts, and get better every time.
Illustrative example data. The figures in this render are worked examples chosen to show the interface, not one customer’s real numbers. Our measured results, each with its client, period and electricity rate, are on the case studies.
What it does
Ask it a question
No dashboard to learn. Type the question you actually have, “what did the drying room cost me last week?”, and get the answer.
It shows its working
Every answer names the exact circuit, the time and the reading behind it; the portal is built to prove a number, not just display it.
Reports written for the reader
The same month, told four ways: project manager, QS, sustainability lead, accommodation. Each one saves as an artefact you can send on.
Proactive alerts
It tells you first, and tells you what it did: the cause, the action taken, the impact and how serious it is.
A real 3D scan of your cabins
Not a diagram, an actual scan, with clickable sensor markers and a heat map. Green where you are saving, red where you are wasting.
Your whole portfolio, ranked
Every site side by side, best to worst. The ranking is usually what starts the conversation internally.
Your site team, without a login
A QR code in the cabin. Anyone scans it and says “this room is freezing” in plain language; the sensor reading attaches itself automatically. That is the honest answer to whether your lads will actually use it: they don’t have to log into anything.
A summary when you log in
What happened overnight, what it cost, and what needs you, before you have asked anything.
What your site manager sees
Ask AutoMate a question in plain English and get an answer back. If something needs changing, request a change and we’ll handle it.
That division is deliberate, and it is the one thing we will not bend on. Site teams and Gaia both touching the same heater is how kit ends up switched off at the mains. You tell us what you need; we make the change and we own the consequence.
£25 per cabin or bay per week
The guarantee
We guarantee at least a 50% saving on the energy waste in the areas we control. And if our fees come to more than we’ve saved you across the project, we credit the difference, so you cannot end a project out of pocket.
Projects of six months or more. That’s the only condition.
Per cabin or bay per week. Discounts available for upfront terms, ask.
DataMate monitoring is free, and it is the same box. Moving to AutoMate means switching control on, no second installation. Full pricing.
We supply the box. You keep your cabin supplier.
We don’t supply, own or hire welfare cabins.
You keep whoever you already hire from. Our preferred route is to ship our units to that supplier so they fit them during cabin setup; the cabin turns up on site already fitted.
That is what we call a Gaia Enabled cabin: their cabin, our box in it. What we ask of a cabin supplier, and the lead time.
You don’t need them involved to start, though, we install free on your first sites.
Installation, handover and decommissioning
Installation is included at every stage and never charged. Always by a qualified electrician, tested to BS 7671, with a New Installation Certificate handed over on completion.
At decommissioning it depends how the box got there. Go Gaia Enabled from day one and decommissioning is a non-event. What happens at handover and decommissioning.
Thinking beyond one project? We start with one or two representative projects. If the numbers hold, we help your team write it into your welfare spec so PMs don’t have to reinvent it on the next one.
How the saving is measured, in two phases
First we prove it on your own cabins. Then we keep measuring it for the rest of the project, a different way. Both animations use worked example figures.
Phase 1First we prove it on your own cabins: one week off, one week on
Seven days before the control goes on is your baseline. Seven days after is the test. Both read straight off the same meter on the same cabins.
not counted
Example figures, drawn to explain the method.
Phase 2Then AutoMate calculates the saving all project long, hour by hour
The proof week is done and the control stays on, so there is no week off to compare against. Instead, every hour of every circuit is compared with what the same kind of circuit used at the same outside temperature, in or out of working hours, on other Gaia sites without control. Those matching hours, averaged, are what yours would have used. The difference is the saving the portal reports, hour by hour, for the whole project.
Phase 1 is free. Phase 2 is what you pay for.
The detail
Against your own baseline, on your own site, one week after the other, not against somebody else’s case study.
Monitoring runs until your consumption settles, then the seven days ending the day before the control goes on is your metered baseline. Every circuit, including the ones we would never switch.
Then the seven days beginning the day after runs with the control on. Same cabins, same crew. The changeover day itself is excluded from both periods, so the comparison covers 14 of 15 consecutive days. Both periods are read straight off the same meter, with no scaling or normalisation applied; neither figure is modelled. And that week is free; nothing is invoiced for it and nothing is committed by it.
We show you the result at the Savings Review, one week after the control goes on. The decision there is binary: leave it running for the rest of the project at £25 per cabin or bay per week, or switch back to baseline monitoring. You decide with a measured number in front of you, not a projection.
This is also why the guarantee can exist: the proof is your own cabins on your own meter, two metered weeks, nothing pooled. How we calculate a saving, in full.
How it works, at the board
One wall-mounted unit per cabin or bay, similar in size to a domestic consumer unit. Its own supply from a dedicated 6A MCB, 230V single-phase.
The circuit schedule differs by cabin type
| Contactor | Standard cabin | Drying room |
|---|---|---|
| Climate | Heater or AC, never both on one contactor | Heaters |
| Moisture | — | Dehumidifiers, fans |
| Hot water | Water boiler | — |
| General | Sockets, lights | Sockets |
- Self-healing wireless mesh
- Units link to each other, so a compound doesn’t need a network drop per cabin. Where mesh is difficult, between floors, typically, we may need an Ethernet run between units.
The full wiring scheme, both cabin types · Circuit labelling
The saving isn’t only overnight
Out-of-hours setback is one half of it. The other half happens during the working day, in rooms with the door propped open or nobody in them, and a clock cannot see either.
Door and occupancy sensors tell the difference between a room in use and a room that isn’t. That is what turns a photograph like this into a number on your report rather than a guess.
Other ways to start
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Recommended next step
Talk about full AutoMate
For teams ready to standardise cabins across projects.
Your cost: a 30-minute call.
Book an AutoMate call -
Get DataMate free on your next project
We monitor your cabins until consumption settles, and you get the wastage review.
Your cost: coordination, and one engineer at the board.
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Check out our demo portal
Log in and look around a live, anonymised site: what it uses, what it wastes, and where and why.
Your cost: an email address for the sign-in link.
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Check how your site compares
Answer a few questions about your welfare setup, and see whether it looks higher-risk than comparable monitored sites.
Your cost: 20 seconds and an email address for the result.
Check how your site compares
What the rules actually do
Switching a circuit is the easy part. Deciding when is the product. Seven capabilities, each one shown running on a real worked example on how it works.
Timers
The permission window, not the instruction: when a drying room is allowed to run at all. See it →
Occupancy
Whether anyone is actually in the room, so heat follows people rather than the clock alone. See it →
Peak shave
The peak decides the supply you pay for, not just the energy you use. See it →
Conflict detection
Two appliances fighting each other, a heater and an air conditioner both running, neither winning. See it →
Fault surfacing
Kit that is broken and nobody has noticed, visible as data rather than a call-out. See it →
Reporting to the load
Organisation → project → site → building → room → load. Not a control behaviour, which is why it has no scenario of its own.
Feedback and learning
You flag it, Gaia acts, and remembers, so you never tell it twice. See it →
Drying rooms carry more load types than any other cabin. Why a drying room costs more, and why a timer can’t fix it →