Home / Apartment Complex Cuts Energy Costs by 40% with Smart Heating Solution
CASE STUDY:

Apartment Complex Cuts Energy Costs by 40% with Smart Heating Solution

🇩🇪 Multiple locations in Schwarzwald, Germany

Our client

Building type: Aparthotel Building

Client Name: Black Forest Hospitality

Partner Name: Betterspace

Location: Multiple locations in Schwarzwald, Germany

Building parameters: 18 Buildings

Product(s) implemented:
255 Vicki LoRaWAN® Smart Radiator Thermostats

“Despite the extra effort involved in setting up the technology, the installation was very, very easy, and you see the benefits immediately afterwards.”

Evert Schüle, CEO

About Betterspace

Betterspace develops smart software solutions that make buildings more energy-efficient, digital, and user-friendly.

With better.energy, users can make their non-residential buildings more energy efficient. The system automatically controls radiators and fan coil units, whether it is a hotel or office building, a clinic or care facility, or a school or other educational institution, better.energy reduces energy consumption.

The online management platform better.energy helps users manage their buildings. It allows them to keep an eye on their company, locations, devices, users, and better.energy modules, enabling the automated control of radiators and fan coil units as well as continuous monitoring of energy consumption.

Hotels also benefit from the better.guest digital guest directory. With its telephone feature, chat, push messages, green option, and ordering function, the digital assistant simplifies communication with hotel guests, helps generate additional revenue, and reduces costs.

With its intelligent software solutions, Betterspace creates digital, connected, sustainable, and efficient places.

Challenges

Since its founding in 2019, sustainability has been a core part of Stuub’s corporate philosophy, not only as a guiding principle but also as a practical approach to achieving energy efficiency. The properties of Black Forest Hospitality (BFH) are spread across the Black Forest region in Germany, encompassing 18 diverse locations, including modern apartments and traditional hotels, each with unique energy demands and history. Variations in energy sources for the heating system, construction years, and insulation standards have historically made implementing a uniform temperature management system impossible.
As a result, BFH’s technical and housekeeping teams had to dedicate significant time and travel just to manually monitor and adjust radiator heating systems. They were seeking a solution that could address three key objectives: reduce energy costs without compromising guest comfort, advance sustainability in line with corporate strategy, and simplify the management and control of the radiator systems.

Solution

In addition to renovation work focused on improved insulation, BFH chose Betterspace and implemented the better.energy platform together with 255 Vicki LoRaWAN® Smart Radiator Thermostat. This setup enabled the team to monitor and control all properties remotely, accessing precise real-time and historical data from a single, centralized platform. The system allows temperatures to be maintained on comfortable levels when guests are present, while reducing or pausing heating in empty units, effectively preventing energy waste.
The centralized control provided by better.energy also simplified remote maintenance, giving the technical staff an easy overview of TRV status, battery life, and other key functionalities. This improved workflow reduced maintenance time and costs. Scalability and fast ROI were key requirements for BFH, and the Vicki TRVs in combination with the platform delivered on both, with features like occupancy-based heating and open-window detection optimizing energy use, cutting costs, and easing staff workload, all while ensuring consistent guest comfort.

Results

40% reduction

of the heating costs

Temperature Control

remotely from better.energy

Open Windows

Detection

Supports FUOTA

Firmware Upgrade Over The Air

Gallery

Products in this case study

Vicki LoRaWAN® Smart Radiator Thermostat

Vicki LoRaWAN is a radiator thermostatic valve fully compliant with the LoRaWAN standard. It is the perfect choice for large-scale projects as it offers amazing battery life, RF performance and no maintenance for years as well functionalities such as Child Lock, Detection of opened windows and much more.

Recommended products

MClimate Wireless Thermostat LoRaWAN®

MClimate Wireless Thermostat is a stand-alone thermostat powered entirely by solar energy using an organic solar panel. The device features a 2.9" e-ink screen, sensor for movement (PIR), temperature and humidity sensor, LUX sensor and 3 buttons. The user can change the target temperature and see current indoor conditions. The device sends an uplink after any event as well as periodically.

MClimate CO2 + PIR lite LoRaWAN®

The MClimate CO2 + PIR lite LoRaWAN® combines an NDIR CO₂ sensor, a PIR sensor, and temperature and humidity sensors to deliver comprehensive monitoring and optimization of indoor climate conditions. Powered by two AA batteries, the device can operate for up to 15 years under default configuration mode. The data from the CO2 + PIR can be integrated into any LoRaWAN®-compatible system, including Building Management Systems, and exposed as datapoints in Modbus, BACnet, and KNX systems through a dedicated gateway. The CO2 + PIR lite operates in LoRaWAN Class A, and as all other MClimate devices supports FUOTA (Firmware Upgrades Over The Air).

Proudly based
in Europe 🇪🇺

We’re based in Europe at Sofia, Bulgaria:
Sofia Tech Park, Labs Building, 111J Tsarigradsko Shose.

Let’s get in
touch 👋

If you are interested in projects with our devices leave your email below so our team can contact you as soon as possible.