NOBODY ENGINEERING'S PROJECT

Breathing New Life into Legacy Building Automation Systems with Zero Renovations or Investments

Pathmakers: Ville Ilkkala, Mikko Rantanen, Jyri Loukola, Iridian Kiiskinen

Nobody Engineering supports building owners and digital service providers by improving the interoperability of legacy control systems driving energy-intensive heating, ventilation and air conditioning processes. True to their name, Nobody Engineering tackled a problem that others saw as too complex and difficult: “Nobody would do this!”. This gave them a competitive edge, stepping into a space that most considered impossible.

The initial idea for Nobody Engineering’s product emerged from a digital twins project, expecting that process data in buildings would be available and easy to integrate. A large pilot with 200 buildings revealed otherwise – only 3 had systems advanced enough to be integrated via APIs; the rest were too outdated. This realization pushed the team to develop a product in just nine months, embracing a ‘punk rock’ approach to product development. Instead of following polished processes, they dived into the gritty reality of legacy systems, converting raw, rudimentary data into meaningful insights. Initially, they connected a laptop to decode data manually, but quickly moved to designing a device that could automate the process, turning it into a ‘tireless digital maintenance engineer’. Their scrappy methods included buying old automation devices from eBay, dismantling them, and studying their inner workings. The team, made up of six members with expertise in DevOps, hardware, scalable data architectures, and cyber security, thrives on hands-on experimentation. Their strategy was to complement rather than replace existing systems, offering solutions that could integrate seamlessly with a building’s current setup. Recognizing early on that they lacked the domain expertise in the field of HVAC, they focused on what they did best – developing innovative solutions at the control layer of the building. Their unconventional style allowed them to rapidly iterate on the product, resulting in 63 different types of automation controllers installed across 240 buildings in five countries.

Nobody Engineering’s approach to development teaches us that valuable niches can be found where ‘nobody’ dares to go. Additionally, knowing what you can’t do and building partnerships with other service providers can support focusing on what you can do to scale faster together.