What if your geyser could do more than heat your water? Nedbank’s Senseable Geyser programme is turning an everyday household appliance into a powerful tool for saving money and preventing costly damage.
Source: Nedbank.
Over the past 18 months, the programme has delivered more than R50m in energy savings for Nedbank Insurance clients, while detecting and containing almost 2,000 leak events before they escalated into claims.
With nearly 10,000 geysers now connected across South Africa, what began five years ago as a pilot has grown into one of the country’s largest insurance-embedded smart home technology deployments.
When something goes wrong
The Sensor Networks’ smart controller is a device that retrofits onto a client’s existing geyser, available to Nedbank clients for a small monthly fee. It continuously monitors the geyser to detect leaks caused by a burst geyser, vacuum breakers and element failures or other sources.
When a leak is detected, the system closes the water-supply valve immediately to contain the damage. An automated alert is sent to an incident management platform, which dispatches a qualified plumber with full details of the geyser alert, ensuring that the plumber arrives prepared instead of the client having to diagnose the problem, source a contractor or manage the process themselves.
For Nedbank Insurance, the result is a measurable reduction in the frequency and cost of water-damage claims. For the client, it removes one of the most stressful household incidents they are likely to face.
Giving clients control
Beyond protection, the programme delivers ongoing value through the Sensor Connect app. Clients can monitor their geysers in real time, adjust temperature settings, set usage schedules and switch the unit off remotely. In South Africa, geysers account for up to 40% of household electricity consumption and managing that load directly translates into meaningful monthly savings.
Across the installed base, clients are saving an average of R402 per month on energy costs*. Some energy-efficient clients save over R600 per month.
From pilot to standard
These results are the culmination of a five-year journey that began with Nedbank taking a chance on an unproven technology. At the time, smart-geyser technology had yet to be proven at scale in the South African insurance space. The pilot phase tested what the technology could deliver across real homes and real claim events. The results were consistent enough to justify sustained expansion, and the programme has continued to grow steadily ever since.
“Nedbank is continuing to expand the programme across its home-insurance client base, applying five years of operational learning to a broader population of policyholders,” says Loreal Raath, support services manager at Nedbank Insurance.
Building the ecosystem
The programme extends beyond technology. Sensor Networks has trained over 400 plumbers across South Africa in smart-geyser installation and management, equipping tradespeople with the skills to work with connected-home technology. The initiative raises the standard of geyser installation nationally and ensures that the growing base of smart devices is supported by a technically capable network of professionals.
Says Mark Allewell, chief executive officer of Sensor Networks, “We asked Nedbank to back a technology that had never been proven at scale in South African insurance five years ago. They did. The R50m in energy savings delivered to our clients over the past 18 months, and thousands of leak events contained, is the answer to whether it was worth it.”
*Savings calculated against a baseline of 65°C with no scheduling – the standard plumbing practice where installers set the thermostat high to ensure adequate hot water and avoid callback visits – at R3.20 per kWh.
