Hello, welcome, and thanks for listening to Carbon Climates, an energy podcast dedicated
to discussing all things energy, carbon and sustainability. We also like to talk about
what's getting hot, aside from our planet. I'm your host, Enya, and today I'm joined
by my Carbon Climate and co-host, Shane Brady. Hello.
Like that. Be cheery. Hello. But yes. So, Shane, how has your week been? And can you
tell us a bit about yourself?
Yes, I can indeed. I don't know if my week tells you a little bit about myself in itself.
I have been spending the weekend mostly drinking and getting people over from England, my partners
from England, and every once in a while we get people over to the massive city of Bangor
that I'm living in at the moment.
Right. People I'm forgetting. It's a city?
It's a, yeah, it's some city. It's about 60,000 people or something. But yes, I bring
people over at the weekend every once in a while and they're all Laura's friends. And
basically, the premise is they come over and I try to make them think that Bangor is not
the worst place to live. Usually it does all right. It's mostly the sea, does a lot of
heavy lifting, you know, on a few pubs or ground.
Goats toe.
Goats toe is good. I mean, I've seen some pretty offbeat bands there, which were not
ideal, but that's, I might come up with the podcast later. I used to do myself. So every
once in a while I just try to support. But yeah, so me, I grew up in West Belfast and
moved out to Bangor as a salt and soul. And yeah, just a bit about me, I guess I originally,
like it is topical, I originally was very much focused on music. It's not really necessarily
how I thought I would get to where I am now. But it was very much all based around whenever
I was a teenager, it was, I'm going to be, Perko being number two. And yeah, so basically
my whole premise was I'll do this kind of skilled stuff and that's fine. It'll all
be a waste because at the end of the day, what I'm here for is to make the greatest
album of all time. And it took me to about 22, realized that wasn't going to happen.
I had a very strategic plan of when you like first album out 21, it's going to really like
cause a lot of shock waves. And when I'm 24 is going to be the best thing of all time,
actually speaking, but number three, when I'm 27 is going to be the critically acclaimed
thing that goes down in history. And I made that first one when I was about 20, 21, and
it was just rubbish. It was just absolutely awful. And it was far from like the greatest
thing of all time at the very least. So at that point, I guess I was, I picked, I guess
for my A levels and towards my university degree. Originally, what I wanted to do was
be David Attenborough. If the rock star thing didn't pan out, I was going to be David Attenborough.
David Attenborough was your fallback.
That was my fallback. But I realized that you can't really have two dreams at the same
time. You know, you've got to have your dream and you've got to have your like pragmatic
fallback. Yeah. That was just, or else you're not going to get either. So my pragmatic fallback
turned to, well, at least I would like to move to Canada. I was very focused about moving
to Canada. I watched Scott Pilgrim. It was all related. Scott Pilgrim was basically what
I was planning to do with my life. At least my kids could do that in Canada, in the glorious
country of Canada. So my whole plan was very much, I'll do chemical engineering. They
need a whole pile of them out there. I'll work at ExxonMobil. They have a sister company
out in, I think it's called Imperial Oil. I say, I think I've obviously thought about
this a lot. They had a little refinery outside Toronto and was going to work there by the
time I was 26. And I got one year into my chemical engineering degree. Realized that,
you know, the rock star thing wasn't really planning out. And this is what was becoming
more and more a reality. And apologies to all the chemical engineers out there. Absolutely
not for me. And I think it led me down a little bit of a course to where I am now, which is
that I thought, you know, well, if I can't become a rock star, I'll just go mine oil
because that's what the world deserves. And it turns out it wasn't actually that good
with resting with that in my own mind. And I did the first year, it was fine. I did well
in the classes and whatever, but I think signing up for a five years degree or a five year
degree in it wasn't for me. As much as telling you a little bit about myself, that's probably
a lot, but essentially what happened was I got the first job that I did in a kind of
more finance stuff. I did a currency, ended up working in a facility management company
and then floated off the back of that to a, an IOT based company that looked at facilities
management. And that was four years ago. And the company helped it more and more originally
looking at sensors to work out when rooms weren't being used and then they could get
cleaned. But essentially what we worked out was those same sensors were telling us that
the rooms were usually like 23 degrees and there was no one there. And we thought it
was a probably much better use of the technology to start kind of calling that out. And that's
what I've been doing for the last four years. The music unfortunately has, has long since
left me. Unfortunate for me, but more unfortunate for the planet.
Yes, exactly. I can post when I upload the episode, I can post links.
Oh yeah, there we go. Now's the time. Now's the time, Jean Braley on YouTube. It's all
coming.
I do have sign off music, but it'll just be the sign off music will just be your album.
You want this podcast to succeed at some point, don't you? Because I would maybe stay clear
if that's your intention. Yeah. So that's, that's a little hope.
Very good. Oh, that's class. Okay. So you said you diverged into the internet things
company. So what is your current job title then?
COO. It's very lofty considering there's not massive amounts of us working there. But yes,
I became a director with them after I was there for about a year.
Very impressive.
Yes. There we go. And so at the start, I was very much based more on the sales side of
things. And I taught myself a good bit of software. I did a master's in IoT when I was
there. And then the probably the brightest idea I ever had, and the most technically
capable decision that I ever made was to bring in somebody who actually knew how to make
software rather than me do it. So for the first few months, I made some things in Python
show the general idea of sensor movement, green light on a floor plan kind of thing.
That was a pretty concept, but I actually brought in like my childhood best friend,
he actually followed me on to that chemical engineering degree. Okay, coincidentally got
the chemical engineering degree, he actually followed through and got the masters. But
his talents were being wasted in anything other than basically creating a platform from
scratch. Yeah, got him on board I think in 2021, maybe end of 2020. And then yeah, with
that kind of team we built up and alongside the company I used to work for, the facilities
management company I used to work for, we kind of built the product from there. But
essentially, I think your original question was wrong, right? But like what IoT has to
do with the whole thing?
Honestly, it can diverge into whatever you want.
Yes. Like the main thing was, like I said before, we were trying to get useless sensors
to be able to tell when to clean and when not to clean. But it built up more and more
towards sustainability, it turned out was a massive benefit that these things could
actually do. The sensors we use have temperature in them as well as occupancy. So we were able
to find out that loads of the companies that we were in and universities as well, just
have general issues with, I guess if you're looking after building management system until
relatively recently, your main thing is your complaints come from the fact that it's too
cold, but people tend to not really complain when they come into the office on Monday morning
and it's 20 degrees, you know, because it's been heated all weekend. Don't very few complaints
in that bit. But what we were able to work out is that quite often there is that gap
where people aren't really necessarily aware that their heating is still on over the weekend,
over evenings. And that's what the sensors help do. So we started focusing more and more
on that side of things.
That's class. And then the idea is when the sensors like you see it's on, okay, I see
it's on, I know I'm going to correct this, like maybe create a profile for it. Well,
what's it called a program? There we go. And then like, okay, the heat's not going to go
on at that time. And that means you're using less heat and that lowers your carbon. And
yeah, it's saving the planet. So yeah, great.
It's one of the easier cells when it comes to carbon cutting, you know, it pays for itself.
Doesn't cost a lot to install the sensors in the first place. You get all these other
benefits with the space management side of things. And, you know, it's one of those bits
where nobody's really complaining. You're reducing your carbon output in these empty
rooms that aren't being used. Everybody's like, yeah, okay, well, that's a, that's a
low hanging fruit for cutting carbon out. Let's stop eating things at the weekend when
no one's there. Step one, you know, step two, planting trees, whatever. But just that stuff.
Step one, maybe stop eating empty rooms. Well, it's surprising how many, how many buildings
actually have that issue, you know? Right. Yeah. Well, it's how we actually know each
other. We met at the 30 under 30 program that people over there in beautiful runs, hosts,
developed anyway. And I think one of the first things we were talking about, you were talking
about your job and what you do. I said about EMS systems or building management systems. And it's
like, so I'm going to tell you how I actually know about that. Right. Okay. This goes back to when
I was the ripe old age of 21. Yeah. Twenty, twenty one. Yeah. Only last year. Yeah. Back in
2015, I like, I, it was my placement year during uni. And I was working with the Belfast Health
and Social Care Trust placement there in their energy department. And I was working with this
great company. He boss. Yes. I know them. Yes. I love them. Like worked, worked with them and
developed them like a trial. Like their trial technology to be like installed in an office.
So around the radiator valves. Yes. Yes. The TRVs. So just talking about TRV valves today.
Yeah. I really was. I haven't talked about TRVs. Sorry for anyone who took TRVs is
stands for thermostatic radiator valve. That I would have been able to say.
They're the wee things that you turn on. Yes. The turn off radiators.
And it's funny because I didn't realize how many different types of TRVs there were. Well,
sorry, like just valves even because there's the manual valve and like, you know, that was like,
kind of like you see them in old buildings. Like the very, and then there's the,
there was a lock shield valve, which is like the wee cone almost. And then the TRVs, they're the
very, they're the ones with numbers on them. Yeah. But yeah, their one was very like, you know,
I thought it was cool and trendy. I know you're luckier than engineers.
Since like, what is it? It was last 2015, 2016 since I was last speaking to them. So probably
since now they've like upgraded it. Like, you know, and all. Yeah. I mean, we were just chatting
about something similar, which is, um, so we'll essentially use as lower one. Uh, so it's just a
particular kind of, it's like an extended version of wifi essentially. Um, and that you can put one
router in a building and that will cover the entire building usually. Um, and I'm not the size,
it's the size is three or four story building. Um, but that's the difference. The main difference
is that it's a really low powered, it can do long range, which is all that Laura actually stands for.
But all our sensors, based off that, um, and one of the things that we've kind of extended out into
is the ability to take in, like I said, for our platform. Um, we kind of identify when rooms are
not being used and are occupied, uh, and they're heated above a certain temperature. But that next
step is to have something like heat bus and to be able to say, right, okay, now automatically
switch off that radiator. A lot of our focus is working with buildings that are already constructed
or older buildings as well. So it's retrofitting these sensors into these buildings, not necessarily
about when they're getting built. Um, so we're working with, with a lot of buildings that have
radiator file or sorry, old, old style kind of radiators. Um, that's just the kind of high tech
technology to be able to do something with that. It's, it's very interesting. Cause one of the
things I find working with them when we're installing and we're doing the trial run.
So we're installing the equipment and people seen us like change stuff on the radiators.
And I think it was, we installed it and then it was maybe a day or two before it was like actually
like active or like, you know, we're actually using the technology and then people were complaining
about, um, the temperature in the room. You've done something to my room. Like it's, it's so cold.
And then we're like, actually it's not, we didn't control it at all. And it's very interesting that
you have the psychology that people see you changing stuff. Yeah. This is, this is one of the
bits that I try to stay clear of is that, you know, um, as in like the benefit of me getting to make
more on the software side of things, I say me, it's our team and I am just, um, very thankful
for them doing their job. Uh, but the main thing is that we try not to stay, or try not to tell
people how to do their jobs. There's usually in the buildings that we're, uh, working with, there's
somebody in that actually specializes in the BMS for that particular building. So what we give them
is the tools to actually do something with about it rather than make the rules ourselves. It's a
bit like where our original idea, which was for the cleaning, we are able to send off messages to say,
Oh, the room wasn't used all day. Um, how you actually change your cleaning to affect that.
And I have, I want very little to do with it. I just handed over to the facilities management
company and back away slowly. The data itself is factual. Uh, and then how you end up using that
is quite subjective. And if you want to, um, you know, for, for not occupant spaces and then
heating that up just in time for somebody coming in and it's comfortable, there's a lot of balance
in act of how you do that. You know, it's already the benefit that we have in the way that the reason
that we went into it is because there's such a stark issue with the fact that heating is being
left on all, all weekend and in the evenings for a lot of places that there's so much room for
improvement. We don't really need to find that particular line on a building by building. We
just need to improve on what's already there. Um, and, uh, it works really well with reducing
carbon and those things, but the actual battle that happens on a day to day basis on an, in
particular room and somebody says it's 19 degrees when it should be 27 or whatever and far, far,
far away from, which is great. But no, that's, that's really good to hear. You certainly
know your stuff. I don't know what to do, but I definitely know how to gloss over it.
There's like, I like, I myself, I've got like a script in front of me and the questions that
like I was going to ask you for actually like slipped in. I'm just like, oh my goodness,
you've covered that. Um, but yeah, I do have another story, but the Belfast health and social
care trust, I just, while we're on the topic of like people and you know, how they occupy the
buildings. Um, I, one of the studies I had to do, it was, so I was a placement student and they're
like, do this TRV survey. Oh my, oh my God. Okay. Well, what is this? But I had to go around and
this like building was like a health center in North Belfast and check the TRVs, the valves and
the radiator because people were complaining that it's really like cold and like they couldn't find
anything wrong with the systems. Like it's like, it shouldn't be cold. Sorry. I went for it there.
It shouldn't be cold. Yeah. And so I was going around and I could see they like, you know,
there was a mix. I'm like, oh, these are switched off. Like why are these switched off? Do they,
something happening? Like, you know, are they the wrong way around or is this how they operate?
And I had to survey each level. I got to the top level and I coincidentally came across this
woman and she was just like, oh yeah, it gets way too hot up there, up here. So I actually
turned them all off. I'm like, oh, you're the problem. Yeah. Like, and it's, it's, it's amazing.
The only thing I can really go into is, or I assume the bit that I'm really interested in is
alerts for, you know, it's too hot, it's too cold. But accounting for the way that humans go about
doing their business is something I try to stay as clear from as I can. But, you know, the kind of
thing that our platform really does is that kind of, it's a one day morning, it's five o'clock and
it's 13 degrees. That's not good. Switch on from there. But yeah, I think it was just always that
case. You know, it would probably be me if it was, you know, if I was working in those kind of
environments that I'm always kind of tinkering with things. Not necessarily to that degree, but
I definitely think there's always, you have to always account for that. I mean, one of the
things that we realized that we can't do is really work in shopping centers. That's one of the
many experiences that we've done for different kinds of industries. And whenever we went into
shopping centers, these sensors are all very, they're redeployable. They're basically command stripped
to the wall. And that's how you tell the, you've been seeing the temperature. But whenever you were
in shopping centers, it's just, I don't know what it is with people that whenever you get that amount
of people coming into a space and it's just public like that, but they just kept stealing them. They
just kept, who wants these things? I don't know who, the kind of people that are going in and
stealing these. I have no idea what they're doing, but they're bringing this thing home. I go like,
yes, finally got myself a Lora Wan based, you know, heating light occupancy sensor. It's just,
but like just for the sake of stealing it. It's just fun. Yeah. It's amazing that people,
like if anyone did know what they were, like, you know, it's like, how did, what are you doing?
I mean, I'm almost interested, you know, it's like, all right, okay. We've got ourselves
somebody that's like, you know, we're trying to get their own little IOT project. We're going to
get out there and we're just going to have the money. This is all your competitors. Like,
it's the Kenzie and that's what it's just like this. This guy just wants to help, you know,
use these occupancy sensors and then make a project. But that kind of stuff, the more
what we, what we tend to work in is like, uh, uh, work environments. Um, you know, universities are
really good because there's just a certain amount, there's already quite a lot of stuff on the wall.
Anyway, it's kind of foreign plastic amongst an element of foreign plastic. And, uh, there's just
those, but that still doesn't guarantee anything, you know, whenever you're, you're working with
actually deploying sensors. Um, some of them just walkies because somebody or else, you know, you
deploy heat both and somebody on the top floor decides, you know what, actually this technology
that somebody specifically installed, I think I know a little step better off switch. Like, like,
like that's the thing. Um, like I, like, I love, like, cause you're fine. Like people are going to
like be warm or like a cold at different temperatures. Like it's your own personal preference.
And it's, it's even like what, what, what I love, especially with the Lexa thermostats or like,
you know, the sensors pick up is like when you actually show them the temperature and then they
always see like, Oh, 22 degrees, nothing needs to be 25 degrees or 26. Then actually that's really
warm. I know. Yeah. That's it. You've got, uh, in working environments where there's a number of
people in the same space, they're never going to agree on something specifically. And, uh, again,
I just feel like, well, that's why we mostly focus on unoccupied space. It's just about right. Okay.
The world of what's the right temperature for when people are in the space is, is a mess that no
algorithm will ever get just right. Um, but whenever it comes to the unoccupied space,
that's where it's like, okay, well, nobody's really complaining about the fact that the room
is pulled down whenever they're not there and warm when they arrive. So that was the only bit
that made us go like, okay, let's maybe get into that particular role. But if I had to think of,
you know, it's the same thing we have with, uh, our sensors also do lighten.
We kind of develop based on what people are asking for whenever we install what they find really
interesting. And one of the things that we have these sensors and we're able to tell the lighting
levels are able to say the occupancy, they're able to say what temperature it is. And for some
reason, well, it's with the light inside of things, it's really interesting to be able to find out
when the lights are left on. That's a big one, but they actually say, um, whether the lights
perlect on with these particular lux level sensors. Um, when there's some light outside
is like a AI based algorithm in itself. And the demand isn't anywhere near there that people are
really that the amount of carbon you can save or the amount of cost you can save on electricity
for those lights, especially if you've moved over the LED. Um, that was originally where the
building part of the company that I worked for started. It was all about moving people from
fluorescent on the LED. So it was one premise that we thought, no, this is going to take over.
And then we're like, okay, well, that's not really working. Maybe about the cleaning.
So I was like, okay, well, that's not really working. Um, and we get to this position where
people are really interested in, I guess, understanding when their spaces are unoccupied.
But there's some things I think, um, that are not really, it's, it's about trying to work out what's,
what's worthwhile to develop because of the demand out there. I think one of the good things about,
um, the modern world and even post COVID is there's a lot more demand for that dynamic heating stuff
than there was even a few years ago. I think I can feel a certain element of people being more
interested in reducing their carbon output. Um, as in pragmatic people that would not necessarily
have very warm hearts for this kind of stuff. They're even thinking, and you know, as I used to be,
um, or I used to do accountancy, um, I'm working with accountants who are actually interested in
carbon. Yeah. I think there was a new thing came out there with the IFRS. Um, it's, it's
accountancy standards and they brought out that you have to essentially do with your normal financial
accounts. You also have to do this kind of, um, carbon accounts. And, uh, it means that those,
what sounds quite boring ends up making a really big difference because all of a sudden these
people are putting all their efforts into now, oh, right. Okay. We need to get these low hanging
fruits. Um, you know, so it's been interesting. It's been interesting seeing the change. There's
so much about, um, when I first started, there was maybe, it was just before COVID, um, and it was
going into that world. And then hybrid working has really changed everything, you know, uh, from what,
what I look at is that there probably wasn't the same shift day to day and how much rooms are being
used and all that side of things until after kind of, it seems they've settled somewhere around
lots of people like to work somewhat hybrid, you know, it's not necessarily fully remote or some
jobs are fully remote. It's not necessarily five days a week for a lot of places. A lot of people
tend to live in a world where they maybe go in, I don't know, Tuesday to Thursday seems to be the
most normal thing that I can see on, from data we're collecting. Um, but it's interesting to see how
things like that have impacted the way that we're doing this, that we wouldn't have been able to do
even five or 10 years ago. Um, it's, it's being able to shift up and down to how the buildings
are being used. It's changed quite a lot recently. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's very interesting. Again,
just like a pointy full of knowledge. I absolutely love that. Cause like that's the thing. If you,
if you explain clearly to people, this is what it does. Something they become interested because
I myself like say if someone, okay, talking about Python script in there, if like someone came out
of the firm and was just like, yeah, this Python script, if you do this, this and this, it can
reduce your monitoring by this percentage. I'm like, I've got no interest in Python scripting.
But then if you, like, if you said, okay, no, it's actually very simple. Y equals whatever. And I'm
like, okay, maybe, maybe. Yeah, that's it. I think that kind of, I learned so much about software
development. I still don't actually know how to develop software properly myself. I can do
little tiny bits. Thankfully I have people who are way better than I am, but the amount of,
the amount of problems you can fix just by essentially understanding. We, we originally
actually built a lot of our, our platform on Power BI. And I know a lot about Excel. I've heard of
Power BI. Power BI'd myself. Whenever I built, or whenever we were working on this kind of stuff,
originally I did a lot of data analysis and that was kind of my background was commercial analysis
in FM. And I loved kind of stuff to do with Excel and being able to take data, at least sensors and
be able to understand, I guess I understand the, the use of the data. And that's the most important
part. I think a lot of companies actually have quite a lot of sensors and they collect a lot of
data, but there's not a lot of that's being transferred into real world actions. And to me,
if you're not doing that, the whole thing's pointless. I think one of the best bits about
taking that next step, like I said, we originally went from like Excel sheets, downloads of these,
of the, of the data and finding out, oh, you know, Heaton's left on quite late. You can still get
that information just from the data in Excel. And then you kind of go like, right, well, that's,
we now know that and I now need to make a few graphs. And then I can give this person a call
and I can say, here's my little sheet. That's, you know, it's like kind of consultant stuff.
But I can only really do one of those at a time. And it might take a long time to set up the
reports and it can get a little bit faster than that. But the next step was really going like,
well, why don't we get a power BI platform where there's a live dashboard? And that was,
that's how we got into it. It was not necessarily that we were set up to our, from the, from the
get-go, really thinking that to make a whole software platform based on this, it was just an
easier thing for, okay, more and more people are going to care about this. More people are going
to want to log in and I can only do one little report at a time. You want to have hundreds of
thousands of people going on the list. That's the dream. And essentially that ended up becoming,
well, power BI, you know, at that point, from my perspective, and for anybody who doesn't really
know a lot about software development, it's, yeah, why do you need, why do you even need to
do software development? What's the, what's the benefit? And you start to see that because,
you know, especially in IoT, there's loads of sensors and they're all spitting out a lot of
data at the same time. And then that's fine at the start. But essentially what happens when you're
there for a year, two years, three years, is that same graph that you were trying to load,
all of a sudden it takes about three minutes to get up and running. And the kind of people that
you were trying to get on, you're just trying to grab their time for 20 seconds to log into this
thing. You find out that there's a problem with the heating and it's just human nature to assume
as you start the log in, it's like, oh, this thing takes too long. You know what it is. I'll just go
do this a little bit. That's when software starts to make sense where it's like, okay,
what they can do with that is real world, make this a lot faster, make sure like, well, this person
only really cares about the heating side of things. This person cares about space management. Let's
make a rule that you can only really see the heat and stuff. So again, real world stuff where
if you're inundated with loads and loads and loads of dashboards, you're just, you look at it
and go like, okay, you know what it is. I'm going to go make a coffee. Whereas if you make that rule
so that they come in and just see the bit that's really important to them, it gets you into the
bit where I've always been interested is real world changes. So they just see a very small bit
that matters for them. And then they go in and say, okay, it's super simple. It's just, it almost
flags up straight away. It's just here, you have an issue with your heating has been left on all
weekend. Like a lot of the places where it's just like Christmas period, we say like, oopsie doosies,
left Christmas and nobody was in the building, but we just heated it for like two weeks. And
you know, a lot of the time when we were having the energy kind of crisis that was over 2021,
but it would blow your mind how many buildings were being heated nonstop over like two weeks
over Christmas. And that's the kind of bit where it instills a kind of been initially set out to
do what we're doing, but it makes you passionate about it. And then you want to go like, right,
okay, I have stumbled upon this thing that is actually, you would think surely the MS is
are doing all this. It's all automatic. It's all happening already. And there's definitely technology
out there that does it, but it's just not actually brought into quite a lot of buildings. And it's
maybe bought for brought in for very, very new buildings. But in 20, 30 years, a lot of the
buildings that are going to be around, if we're worried about carbon should be buildings that are
already here. And we need to think about, well, what are we doing for those ones? What are we
doing that that's going to be the vast majority of the real issues are going to be coming from
these older buildings trying to heat themselves. They're not particularly efficient. What do we
do about those ones? And yes, there's going to be new buildings. They're going to be great,
hopefully, and perfect. But for now, it's very much about that's what drives me a lot with what
we're doing is just, okay, can we fix what we're dealing with right now with something that's
available right now that doesn't cost an absolute fortune? And we can all just instead of just
saying something that's a hypothetical, well, we all had an infinite amount of money, we would do
all this. Yeah, but something that's really achievable for most businesses and then pays
for itself. That was just okay. And that's why I ended up going on to that 30 under 30 piece,
which I never really seen. That's something that was for me. But I guess it was a good platform
for me to get talking to other people like you and doing exactly what we're doing right now,
which is we can all kind of share ideas and get, we're all trying to achieve the same thing from
lots and lots of different angles. And it's been specifically for me and you, I was wanting us to
do something that was very specifically around smart buildings and something along the lines that
we were able to look into that world, which is already difficult enough to enter. It's got a
kind of high barrier or interest, I'm sorry, but you have to be interested in the first place.
Yeah. It's quite taxing academically if you really want to get in and understand what you're talking
about. And then you have to be passionate about it beyond just like what's capable right now,
you have to actually have that drive to be like, let's change something. And I think 30 under 30
is probably a perfect amount of number for Northern Ireland. There probably only is a
small amount of cohorts each year born that has those pieces all together. So it's been great that
you do something like that and you end up meeting people. It's funny because a couple of people
that I was talking to, one of the guides, Kieran Boyle, he was like, oh yeah, is there,
I won't say his age, but like, you know, I was like, oh, is there...
It's older than 30.
Yeah. Was there a 40 under 40?
But yeah, like on that, like, you know, just like trying to get people understand,
say anyone who is willing to go into this as actor, developing sensor technology, and by
your explanation, very much an extensive amount of work around it, not just in the development,
but then talking to people. But is there any specific guides you would recommend someone reading?
Let me see. Well, first of all, if I can do it, you can do it. That would be the general premise.
If you are hell bent on becoming a rock star at 22 and nothing else that particularly interests you,
before you turn 30, you can be really well ingrained in this particular industry. There's
so much benefit that you can bring from lots of different angles. Like I said, it could be the
software development piece, but it's also, you know, it's even quite rare to be able to go into
that and be able to, I think one of the pieces that I can do for potential customers is a bit
like what you were saying before is that make them feel that this is important for them because it's
kind of difficult, you know, it's make it real. One of the things like I used to do back in my
entry assessment days when I was showing like an estimated, like, you know, okay, our software,
software, the SAP software, that shows your estimated fuel cost. This is when you go with
the system, this is when you go with that system. We'll always find if you're dealing with stuff like
the client or the quantity is fair, the person whose job it is to worry about money, when you
put it in money terms, they're like, here, forget the carbon, the money.
Yeah, and that crossover is difficult. I think that's one of the rare bits that I was able to
do, which was, you know, sometimes with reducing carbon, it can play into the part of my mind
that's more like the rock star, it's an idealist, you know, you can sit around and think about, oh,
but what could be, you know, some kind of utopia. And that doesn't transfer well whenever you're
trying to talk to people who are just in the world we live in. A lot of people are just trying to
just get by with whatever their job is and move forward. And realistically, we have to find a way
to get through to people that, you know, the planet and climate control are carbon emissions
in general, not high up in their priorities, and you're trying to make it a very easy win for them.
Yeah.
Well, at least that's where I come from. You know, some people could argue that it shouldn't be an
easy one, it should just be done, which is fair enough to I'm not really going to be able to show
you about that. But my position is very much that you can use your skills, you can use your
skills, you can still have fun and learn things and have a career while also trying to do,
well, basically something a little different than what I initially joined, which was, you know,
trying to mind the world for oil and make your money off the back of that. You can actually come
home at the end of the day and you're building something towards, oh, right. Okay. This is,
I'm a net potential in this world, this part of the world, at least a net positive, you know.
And I think if you're interested enough, you can absolutely, there's so many ways that we can improve
in this particular, it would surprise and or shock you about how much improvement there is to be done
in all different parts of the world. You can look into your kind of local region, I can guarantee
you, no matter where you are, there's massive improvements to be made there. And you don't need
to keep reinventing the wheel. You can see what's out there and just apply it to your own local kind
of area and say, well, you know what, by the time I'm dead, at least I helped with this segment of
the planet. And that's, so if I could give you any kind of advice, if you were trying to start it up
in this field is get into some part of, some part of just what you're really interested in,
you'll eventually curve it back around. I mean, I said, I was really interested apart from the rock
started thing. I think eventually that turned into a skill of being able to explain stuff that most
people find a little bit though in a way that's a little bit more entertaining, perhaps maybe that's
a very loose thread that I can connect with all those years spent learning instruments and recording
music. But you can, the next bit that I really got into was very much around finance and Excel.
And I was in a world where you felt miles and miles away from what I'm doing now. It isn't really,
you can learn about your particular part to improve that. I guess it all, all those skills
built together and it's an opportunity to say, right, okay, well, I've done all this for my life
and now I'm going to apply, like say sensor technology. It's so new, the IOT kind of
said in the world. I just applied that to what I knew, which was facilities management.
And that was in that particular world, earthquake or anything like a world shattering
in that very specific niche of I've worked in facilities management. I knew the commercials of
it. I knew how we could benefit it with IOT sensors, but I find a couple of things like that,
that are unusual, say for instance, to be interested in building management systems or energy reduction,
and then also the world of podcasts at the same time. And you're creating something that's really
needed, because there's so much of a mixture of skills there that there's probably very few
people out there doing it, nevermind doing it well. So it's really interesting.
It's a thing, it's got no competition. What do you see? Like it's going to be next year.
I'm just like, you know, they're going to be number one.
No, you'll have a million views and then people will eventually go back here and then go and say,
well, okay, I've mined all the episodes. So last one on the list, there's this guy, Shane,
and then those people will listen to my main one.
This is it. This is what it's all about.
That was the strategic plan I made at 22 of how I was going to make it big.
This is the long game.
It's all part of a long game for me to become the rock star that I was always built to be.
Well, Shane, thank you very much for explaining just everything. You've been very informative.
We're now moving on to a section of the podcast that I like to do,
like tailor a fun wee section to my guests and just ask them a couple of questions or
discuss a couple of topics, get their opinion, like try to come up with a name for it.
So this section is called VMS. Okay.
It's called being more sustainable.
Being more sustainable.
Very good.
Did you like that?
Yeah.
There's another skill set.
Okay. Well, I'm going to ask you a question.
If you don't know it, you have to leave immediately.
You know, it's like, you don't know it.
I have to leave.
Yeah.
Okay. Do you know when the first sensor was invented?
The first sensor, like electrical sensor or, oh wait, I think I've seen something.
I think I've seen something from Roman times. I don't know if that's like, you're probably
going to say, no, no, she's wrong, completely wrong thing. It's 1963.
But I think I've seen something, I have to feed back my memory kind of stuff.
I don't know if it was in Pompeii or something along those lines.
Maybe it was more along the kinds of times of Da Vinci, which is not very Roman at all.
I'm going to go ahead and just throw out 1433 because Da Vinci time.
You know what? You're so close.
Oh, there you go.
Like, yeah, 1917.
Ah, okay. Yeah. I thought that was going to be the case.
There was, there's genuinely, there's somebody made a system that was basically like,
kind of like the way radiators work. I'm not even, I've obviously just fluffed that through there.
So 1917.
But pretty much what it was in 1905, there was just the discovery of the photoelectric effect.
Yes.
And then the invention of the photocell in 1917, like, you know,
no, look, we're in our key developments in light sensor technology.
Yes.
So.
Right. Okay. So, you know, you didn't tell me, you're talking about electric-based systems.
I'm sorry.
I would define a sensor beyond that.
You know what? We'll go back.
We'll go back. We'll find out what non-electric sensor is.
And I guarantee you it was 1433 or whatever it was that I just said.
I swear I wasn't just making that up.
No, that's amazing. There you go. So we're in an industry where,
you know, because this is mixtures between sensors and IoT is generally just using radio
technology and sensor technology at the same time. And that's the general premise.
There's not a lot more to it. Obviously, what you do with that data that you get is the really
important and interesting part as well on top of that. But all these things are coming together
that because the technology itself, again, just putting those two things together,
even if you're looking at the oldest sensors, which is what, 100 years ago,
that's not a long time considering how much innovation could be made off the back of that
technology. We're still getting more and more and more out of the back. But it's a really interesting,
I believe, a really interesting part of the world to be looking at right now.
I wish I knew a little bit more about it, say, for instance, been the first one with built-in
plants. There's perhaps somebody who is, I would have to be honest and say that my engineering
ability, although I did well in my masters in IoT, I think there's, I could say, working with people
who are really amazing in software and different pieces. There's people out there who are a lot
better than I am in the engineering side of how sensors could work. One of the bits that I've
always thought would be really cool, there's this thing called a microwave sensor. And essentially
how it works is, I'm about to completely fill up this for anybody who actually knows how microwave
sensors work, but you'll think I know how they work. Essentially, it's a bit like radar and they're
really, really cheap. I think they're about 20p just to get this thing. So this sensor is able to
tell whenever it kind of gets like a, it's almost like it gets a image of the room without, and then
a few seconds later, it gets more like sonar. If you move the tool, it's able to tell the pattern
difference. So it's able to tell occupancy, like occupied, not occupied. They don't really use it
in any commercially available sensors, but this thing can actually see through walls. It's like
it's like proper magic kind of stuff. It feels like it anyway. So a lot of the stuff we work with
is about PIR. And it's like you'll see in most kind of commercial buildings, it's kind of able
to see like vision and that you have a walk in front of it, picks up your heat signature. But
microwave sensors, I feel like are something that if somebody's particularly interested in the world
of making their own sensor, I feel like they're such a major opportunity with those. They're a
little bit, because they kind of see through walls, they're not ideal for being able to pick up in
this particular room that we're occupied because, you know, somebody out there could be moving and
can also see them. It doesn't really curve. There's a wall in the way or whatever, but I swear there's
something. There is something with those things that are, they, I couldn't believe how cheap they
were. I couldn't believe how amazing that they can go meters away from where you are. It's a little
creepy if you look at it as well, but potentially you can make something that doesn't creep you out
of it. But it was, it's genuinely, whenever you see things like this and the engineers putting this
thing to work. And one of the things that I did when I was testing out when I was a student was
just something as simple as, you know, put this thing in a different room. And I walked into the
building, away from the room, way through closed doors, a light comes on and there's nothing there.
There's nothing that was actually able to, I could see that actually was able to tell just magically.
It felt like magic. It genuinely felt like something you could go back 50 years or go back to
the time when they made that original sensor and go like, yeah, when you see where this ends up.
It felt like magic. You know, a lot of the things that we are going to build, a lot of your kind of
medieval magic kind of ideas will be possible because of things that you just like, all right,
there's a slight change in how you look at microwave sensing technology. And then all of
a sudden you can tell if somebody's moving on the other side of the wall. It's absolutely mad. But
yes, anyway, apologies. What other factoids have you got for me? Because you talk about microwave
sensors all day. I'm trying to think, see, when talking about microwave sensors, I was trying to
think of a pun off the top of my head. And I really, you know, I'm trying to think of a pun
off the top of my head. And I really can't announce too late. That's not good. That's not good.
You know what? You must have had plenty of time for that BMS one because, look,
if you're having less amount of skills, this is the best part. This is a point in case there's
people out there who will do puns way quicker and faster than you. But will they do microwave
sensor based puns faster than you? Probably not. You know, so just have it. Take your time, go home,
think about it. What microwave sensor could have been it? What kind of pun could you have done
with that? But it'll be the best microwave sensor based pun that's ever happened. Oh, yeah.
Yeah. You know, I know if you like, I'll make it seem natural in this episode, I'll just be
added in. Yeah. The sign can be different. There'll be different platforms. That's going to be
different. Yeah, I'll try. I'll try and work it out myself later. I'm just coming much lower in
pressure. OK, brilliant. So no more factoid. So the Northern Ireland Energy Statement was released
in December 2021. One of the months, definitely, I know 2021 was key, but it came out with an
action plan after that. And I love talking about the Northern Ireland Energy Statement because
it's the first one we have. And it sets out a clear list of what's going to happen, what the
rules are, what we need to do for buildings. But because the work I've been doing, the work I've
been doing for the past six years here, I would work with buildings over in the mainland, England
or Scotland. And they've had maybe energy statements or energy action plans since 2006.
Right. So now if we get one, I'm like... That's how early it came out for...
Well, OK, so it said in an action that it's one of the actions supposed to prepare a Northern
Ireland smart systems and flexibility plan. And I was going to originally take a snippet of that
and I was going to roast this. I'm like, it is 2024 and there's still no plan. What's this about?
But then I had to stop myself because there's a consultation currently out on it.
There you go. That's the herd, your podcaster. They knew it was...
Oh God. They knew I was going to talk.
They were like, we need to roast us.
It's just going to come up with a really clever pun eventually, by the way.
And we're going to be screwed. That's the most important thing.
But just to kind of reiterate what we're saying, it talked about the... So it's currently open
and it's actually still open as we speak. OK, guys, it closes end of April.
This will probably won't be released end of April.
But like...
Well, you missed your chance in Northern Ireland going down in flames.
Exactly. Exactly. I'll give an update on the response of the consultation.
They talked about the importance of monitoring and just kind of summed up exactly what you're
saying. A smart and flexible energy system reduces consumer energy bills, reduces the
amount of generation and network assets that need to be built to meet peak demand, and it
gives consumers greater control over their energy bills through access to smart technologies and
services. So... And this is... So I will... You know what? I'll put it out on Instagram tonight.
And like, guys, don't forget to respond to this. But I just also kind of like the point,
educating consumers on how smart or BMS systems work.
Like, I know you're saying, like, yeah, dealing with people. Then if we educate them,
they're likely to install them in their building. If they're installing their building, they lower
carbon. Less carbon means less carbon emissions. We're saving the planet, like, slowly.
That's exactly how this all comes back to me being a rock star and you being a podcast star.
No, it genuinely... I'll give you a real world kind of reason of how that kind of looks.
Eventually, people who are looking after facilities management or building management systems,
small cohort of them will be interested in media about their job. You know, there's going to be
very niche things that we just share a bit of information that whenever somebody comes up with
a cool piece of technology, it's not the first time they're hearing about it. We've heard small
samples of like, oh, that sounds really cool. You might hear me in the future, you know, like,
you people who are the million listeners. And go like, I wonder what they're doing now.
I realized that that... Because most of the problem that we have isn't so much
developing the technology. We've got that. It's actually getting it out there. You know, a lot of
people in their minds think, okay, well, in order to reduce carbon or to do any of these really high
tech systems with the building management system. First of all, my building management system
already does all this, which isn't true. The second part is it's really expensive and hard
to do or whatever. It's just that's also not true. And I can try and pump money in a way
into marketeers and everything. But regardless, the main piece is people just haven't heard yet
that these innovations come through and it's in small pockets of the world. It's normal to
have this kind of shift up and down of their energy to go with how people are using the building.
And it's all about just connecting up those bits where you might be saying,
well, all I have is I don't know necessarily much about the... Say for instance, from your side of
things, maybe the sensors not massively been a big piece of how your background is based in sensor
technology, but you're using your platform to be able to share that knowledge out there. And then
all of a sudden somebody listens to that and you only need to get, there's probably only, I don't
know, a few hundred BMS engineers out there on the island of Ireland. You only need to get to them
to make all the differences for all those buildings across the entire island. And that's not a massive
amount of people to make a massive difference. And that's kind of interesting where you only have
to use your bit. You just have to focus on what can I do? And then eventually it ends up snowballing
into something that's major. Like I said, it's never been a massive focus of mind, the carbon
side of things of anything. In fact, in oil days it was trying to make the planet worse. But I can
then realize that, oh, right, okay. It's actually, it's not something for somebody else to deal with.
It's something for everybody can help in some kind of way. And me and you, even in the 30 under 30
piece, oh, it turns out in here, there's only a small cohort of us. And then you can't really
get a lot of people out there. There's a lot of us that are actually talking about the kind of
building emissions. There's loads of people interested in all the other bits that carbon
emission comes from or how to get the message out there. But all we can do, me and you, is just
focus on those puns. We get some really particularly good puns out there. Somebody else will work out
the IoT technology. They'll get it all going and save the planet. And it started right here.
The business proposal, it's just like full of puns. It's like, you know.
Yeah, that's great. Thank you very much. You've been absolutely brilliant to have on the podcast.
Can I just say, really informative. So before we go, do you have one last bit of advice to any
future engineers looking to get into this sector? Send me a message.
One, because Smart Tech, our platform, is going to be the biggest thing in this particular field in
about two or three years when you're listening to this. So send me a message and say, look,
Shane, I listened to your music. It's unbelievable. Can I have a job?
Yeah, that's actually prerequisite for that you give them an interview.
That's the key. And then we'll look at your degrees and qualifications afterwards. But the main thing
is really just being a big fan of that YouTube channel. Now, I would say the main takeaway I
would have is that you could be sitting in something that doesn't feel very related to
carbon or it's only passing in its relation. But at any time, you can be building all those skills
and you don't know that in five or 10 years, as long as you build that interest in yourself,
that it's always a perfect time to start thinking about that in your day to day.
And you know, everybody has a job or a house that they're working in or they're living in.
And you can start applying some of these bits of knowledge that it's there is actually quite a low.
If I want to force it on the side of IoT, there's a little barrier of entry for applying a lot of
this technology, a lot of it's quite simple to do. I mean, Smart Tech is the easiest thing if you're
in a corporate environment. But there's things you can do at home with just Amazon sensors that can
connect to the Wi-Fi. You go on to Amazon, there's loads of things that you can do just to make sure
that even on your own scale, apply all the same principles with stuff that was never possible
15 years ago. If you can just get a sensor that's able to tell when somebody in the room heated up
and whenever you leave it automatically switches off. Have a little look on a YouTube channel for
that. And that's your starting point. That's genuinely the kind of stuff that I was doing a
couple of years ago. And you're making a platform that's that's the same rules apply. It just scales
up. So yeah, that's that's the main thing. Don't feel that you are not capable of making your own
you're changing your own part of the world.
Yeah. Well, my advice is it's actually referenced. I remember the photo. So I think
it's time. Remember the photo. So yes, I made a photo self-actoid. And I gave this. I forgot to
do a follow up. So I'm like, did you like that? Did it keep you switched on? Nice.
Still don't really see the microwave. It's going to need more time. It's going to absolutely kill
you tonight. When you think about it. There it is. You have to let it cook. Like, you know,
let it cook. Like that. OK. Yes. There you go. Yes. OK. OK. Podcast complete. Yeah. We did.
There's now a million viewers. Yeah. Just logged off. Very good.
Oh, brilliant. Oh, Shane, thanks again for being on the podcast. You'll definitely be back
for more entertaining discussions and chats and yeah, and more promo for your music.
Excellent. Of course, which is always the main. Yeah, the main. Yeah. Even I might actually start
making some good music and some people listen to that. That'll be the intro for the next season.
Actually, Beyonce is on a podcast for graphic design and graphic design and film. They have
like what you were saying before, there's a little segment in it where they basically needed a little
bit of music. And they called Laura, a fiancee, to go find somebody in the film industry, the next
person in the industry to get on the podcast. And they called it Laura Goes Digging. And so they
asked, would I be able to make a bit of music for that bit? Yeah. And that's we made like there's
like a little segment where instead of introducing, they just press the button and it goes like Laura
goes, that's probably the bit of music I've been most proud of in my life. I've probably got the most listeners.
What's the podcast called, Tina? Opening credits. Opening credits. Opening credits. Okay. Very good.
That's class. Well, shout out to opening credits. Like I love to. If you're in the overlapping
world of being really interested in this side of engineering, but also about how they make
movies and the graphic design side of things. There you go. You've just found two of your favourite podcasts.
Brilliant. Okay. Well, thanks for listening to Carbon Climates. If you follow us on Instagram
at carbon underscore climates, you can keep up to date with our latest news and articles and updates.
And if you follow Shane Brady on YouTube, sorry, follow if you look up Shane, if you subscribe to
Shane Brady on YouTube. You were in for a treat to listen to his album. I was actually trying to find,
I was trying to search on Google for your name there. But like then it just came up, like not
connected to internet. So I'm like, ah brilliant. Okay. Yeah. Well that's not going to help.
I would also probably say you should probably look into Smart Work Plus, which is the whole
thing that I do these days. Do that after the YouTube channel because the YouTube channel needs
you more. But yes, absolutely Smart Work Plus. Thanks for listening. Bye.