AutoMate technical overview

AutoMate monitors energy use at circuit level and automatically controls heating, cooling, sockets, lighting, water boilers and other equipment to remove unnecessary waste, while a network of sensors maintains a usable environment. It gathers data continuously to quantify how much energy is being wasted or saved, and where.

Heaters · AC units · Dehumidifiers · Lights · Sockets · Water heaters

Monitor-only: Wi-Fi and data comms, and any circuit the customer designates as critical. Life-safety circuits and showers are never switched.

In a drying room, fans are also a controlled circuit; they are one of the controlled loads in a drying room. See the wiring page for the schedule per cabin type.

This is the scope where a cabin supplier fits units at manufacture, which is the route we prefer:

• Gaia supplies the AutoMate units to the cabin supplier
• The cabin supplier fits the unit inside each cabin and carries out the electrical installation and testing
• Gaia attends site to commission the system, setting each unit up on the Gaia software platform and checking the installation and circuit labelling are correct

Lead time: 10 working days from receipt of P.O.

On a customer’s first sites, before a cabin supplier is involved, Gaia installs the unit itself. Installation is included at every stage and never charged. The document above describes the supplier-fit route specifically.

• Local on/off switches and thermostats removed, covered or locked out
• Heaters, AC, dehumidifiers and water heaters installed correctly and in good working order
• Door closers fitted; doors and windows close properly
• Lighting and socket circuits grouped and labelled to the Gaia specification
• Circuits and control wiring suitable for central control

Why each of these is on the list

All installation work must be carried out by a qualified electrician and tested in accordance with BS 7671 (IET Wiring Regulations). A New Installation Certificate is handed over on completion.

What the system refuses to control

Some circuits are excluded from control by design. The commissioning process will not put any of these on a contactor, whatever the site asks for:

• 32A loads and anything above the contactor rating
• Three-phase circuits
• Industrial loads
• Life-safety circuits
• Incorrect cable groupings
• Unknown circuits, anything that cannot be positively identified

These are still measured. A CT goes on every one of them, so an excluded circuit is visible in the data even though nothing will ever switch it. Refusing to control a circuit is not the same as ignoring it.

Every circuit is tested against its label, not trusted

Before a cabin goes live, every controllable circuit is activated and measured, and the reading is compared against what the appliance label says it should draw. Where the two disagree, the mismatch is diagnosed rather than accepted: a circuit on the wrong pole, the wrong CT, a CT fitted backwards, a miswired circuit, or an appliance that simply is not what the label claims.

Sockets are always questioned. A socket ring tells you nothing about what is plugged into it, so the installer is asked what is actually on it.

This is why a Gaia install tends to surface faulty and mis-labelled kit that nobody knew about. We are not taking the board’s labelling on trust; we are testing it, circuit by circuit, on the day.

Two strikes, then a human

If the commissioning process meets something it does not expect, the first anomaly gets a warning and an explanation, what looks wrong and why it matters.

On a second anomaly the install stops. It does not proceed on a best guess. The reason is logged and the job escalates to a Gaia engineer, who picks it up as a person.

The same rule applies if a cabin has more controllable loads than contactors: lights come out first, then sockets, never the water boiler or the dehumidifiers, and if that still is not enough, it escalates rather than resolving itself automatically.

Every cabin leaves with a commissioning certificate

Not per site, per cabin. Each one is generated at commissioning and records:

• Site and cabin ID
• Installer name, date and time, and the install method
• The circuit mappings, every circuit, what controls it, and which CT measures it
• Load-test results for each controllable circuit
• Excluded circuits, and why each was excluded
• Whether the cabin is running in monitoring or control mode
• A “safe to operate” status

This is the document to hand your H&S or site-access team. It is per-cabin, it names the installer, it lists what was tested and what was deliberately left alone, and it carries an explicit safe-to-operate status, alongside the BS 7671 New Installation Certificate for the electrical work itself.

See also the AutoMate cabin wiring scheme.