Hive
The journey to create the UK’s number one smart home brand, which brought the connected home to mass-market in 2013 by transforming home energy for millions of customers within a 200 year old business.
Centrica, British Gas’ parent company, wanted to build out on an investment they had made in Alert Me, a smart home platform designed to help customers control their home through various connected devices. The founding team’s challenge was to drive this opportunity forward with a new brand, completely separate from the mothership, using the most valuable parts of the sister company, the British Gas engineers.
Creating Hive was my first experience of building a startup from within, with a completely separate business, brand, office, culture, strategy and approach to innovation, but remaining strategically tied to the wider corporate business. This presented an opportunity to create a new approach to smart home for the mass market, leading with the customer first and remaining tightly focused on the challenges customers were facing.
Hive Active Heating
With 90% of consumers being unable to use their heating system effectively, we embarked on a mission to give customers full control over their heating for the first time ever.
The multi-award winning Hive Active Heating was the UK’s first truly smart thermostat. It was designed to respond to the challenge facing the wider UK market around home heating, the fact that the traditional thermostat was badly designed, complicated to use and impossible to control outside of the home.
We built a solution that not only simplified that journey, but that helped more people take control of their heating, helping households save an average of £150 per household per annum. We agreed that people didn’t need another screen in their lives, so the screen turned on only when the user wanted to interact, and to ensure a design that worked for the mass market, we built in the iconic dial of a traditional thermostat to make it accessible to all.
Hive Active Cameras
Adding to the portfolio of Hive products, we wanted to create a camera that had personality, removing the feel of an “eye watching you” with innovative and simple-to-use features, all working seamlessly in the Hive App.
The Hive Active Camera, designed in collaboration with Yves Béhar’s Fuseproject, was created to address key home security concerns—providing flexible, stylish, and user-friendly monitoring. A standout feature was its ability to detach from its slender aluminum base, allowing users to reposition it anywhere in the home for short-term surveillance. The camera’s 130-degree lens, combined with a rotating base and curved arm, ensured optimal coverage in any space.
It automatically records upon detecting motion or sound, sending instant alerts to users via the Hive app. Initially launched as an indoor camera, the range soon expanded to include an outdoor-powered version, delivering comprehensive 360-degree home security. The design not only balanced aesthetics with functionality but also seamlessly integrated into modern smart home ecosystems, making security effortless and intuitive.
Hive Active Sensors & Lighting
Bringing the smart home to life through automated actions. With our smart sensors we could trigger actions and alerts from motion feeding directly into the hive app and working seamlessly with the entire Hive range.
The Hive Active Sensor introduced a new, innovative design that was able to tuck discreetly into the corner of the room. Using soft materials we created a range of sensors that would fit in any room and decor.
The sensors could be used to trigger actions and recipes when movement was detected for awareness, or used as presence in a room to trigger a lightbulb to switch on, solving the dual purpose of security and peace of mind.
Hive App
Using an iconic clean design, the app starting point was focused on providing ultimate control over your heating. As we released more products the app harnessed the magic of the entire smart home without losing the simplicity of the original design.
The Hive App was designed to help customers put their home in their hand – allowing people to switch their heating on or off, up or down with the touch of a button. We wanted the app and the front screen to become the brand – enabling customers to effortlessly manage their home.
In a first of a kind experience, the app has helped millions of customers seamlessly integrate their home heating ecosystem with their daily life.
Hive Diagnostic Solutions
To create a home that would let you know when things weren’t running smoothly, Hive Diagnostic solutions started with an innovative leak solution with patented technology. Later, our proposition included a “smart boiler” that would tell you if it was going to break and what part would be needed, helping revolutionise diagnostic solutions in the home.
Diagnostic solutions were created to deliver a new set up for boilers. Hive’s solution provided fault codes that could give engineers specific details on the boiler issue before arriving at a customer’s home, allowing them to have the right parts with them to fix the problem on first visit.
We coupled this with the Hive Leak sensor, a discreet sensor that clipped onto a water pipe (with no plumbing required) and registered the temperatures of a home’s pipes. With the use of AI, the Diagnostics Solution could tell if a home was suffering from any type of leak, and would notify users of any issues via the Hive app.