MILL STEPS UP ITS APP INVESTMENT

– After several years of intensive platform and software development, we have reached a point where we will once again focus more on the physical products, says founder Philip Bryn-Haugland.

We meet him at the headquarters of Mill International AS in Østerås, outside Oslo, in connection with the launch of the new range of panel heaters, Mill Color. These have a calcium silicate front, a material also used in fireproof wall boards, among other things. The front is painted white, allowing the panel heater to be hung directly on the wall, or painted in the desired colour.

Also attending the meeting is his wife, Ane Bryn-Haugland, who is Nordic sales director. The two are co-owners of Mill International, together with a number of investors.

From Novaplan to Mill

The company's history dates back to 1992, when Cato Bryn founded Novaplan AS, which initially sold oil-filled heaters from Italy. In 2010, his son Philip joined the company, and in 2012 they launched the first Mill product, the Mill Glass panel heater with a glass front.

– Where does the Mill name come from?

– The Norwegian word “mild”. We replaced the final letter with an L, so that the brand also works in English, Philip Bryn-Haugland tells trade magazine Elektronikkbransjen.

After a couple of years, almost the entire portfolio consisted of Mill products, and in December 2014 the company changed its name to Mill International AS.

– Today, we sell several hundred thousand heaters annually, says CEO Andreas Krona, who holds a small ownership stake.

– More than 70 per cent of the panel heaters we produce today are smart, and we are now the market leader in smart heaters in Norway, says Ane Bryn-Haugland.

The company currently has 20 employees, and in addition to glass and steel panel heaters, its product range also includes portable heaters, oil-filled radiators, heat pumps, underfloor heating thermostats, dehumidifiers, air treatment products and smart Wi-Fi plugs.

Own platform

An important strategic decision came when the company was to build the next generation of its smart services. The choice was between building its own solution on Amazon Web Services (AWS), using established platforms such as Tuya, or choosing other European alternatives.

– AWS was a very safe choice. They are good at IoT, and the result was a serverless platform on Amazon Web Services, where we control the firmware, features and further development ourselves, Philip Bryn-Haugland tells the trade magazine Elektronikkbransjen.

– There is a major difference between summer and winter in terms of usage, and AWS scales up and down without us needing to keep fixed servers running all year round, says Krona.

– With the speed of our platform, it takes less than 150 milliseconds from making a change in the app until it is registered by the heater, says Philip Bryn-Haugland.

The platform is also built to handle larger buildings with many rooms, as well as integration with electricity prices and other third-party data.

– This means that price can be a parameter in electricity management, says Krona.

Two years of platform development

The transition to the new platform was an extensive project. Mill spent two years developing the platform itself, while the migration extended over one season. At the same time, Mill faced the challenge that the first generation of products could not be migrated.

– We had to be straightforward and tell it as it is, says Philip Bryn-Haugland.

To look after the affected customers, the company chose to offer a new smart Wi-Fi plug free of charge.

– We landed on our feet. The migration was not 100 per cent painless, but the benefits were considerable. By providing a free Wi-Fi plug to generation 1 users, we ensured continued control of heaters bought back in 2016 and 2017, the first heaters that could be controlled via an app, says Ane Bryn-Haugland.

Users were gradually transferred and continuously monitored.

– Everyone has migrated, uptime has been 100 per cent for the past couple of years, and we are receiving far fewer enquiries to customer service than before, says Krona.

In-house superusers

Mill’s own employees act as superusers, and their experiences influence which new features are added.

– You need to know yourself how things work in order to develop truly great products. A good example is the child lock, and the commercial lock, where, for example, you can restrict settings so that the temperature can only be remotely set between 17 and 22 degrees. This also works well for landlords, says Philip Bryn-Haugland.

– When we launched floor thermostats, we were interested in seeing how many devices customers had connected. We were very pleased when we saw that one customer had as many as 27 Mill products in use, until we realised that this was at Philip’s and my home, Ane Bryn-Haugland laughs.

IFA boosted exports

Mill took part in IFA for the first time in 2015. The trade fair has since been important for meeting distributors and building international distribution, and Mill finds that its Norwegian origins provide credibility internationally.

– Everyone knows that the winters here are cold, says Ane Bryn-Haugland.

She refers to an NTNU report which found that the generation 3 technology, which is also relevant to generation 4, can significantly reduce electricity consumption through PID control, predictive heating and the use of weekly programmes.

– With these heaters, you can reduce electricity consumption by up to 30 per cent, says Ane Bryn-Haugland.

The company finds that users who adopt one smart product often expand with more.

– Users who are satisfied with the app and wifi solutions often choose more Mill products. On average, those who have connected a Mill underfloor heating thermostat have a total of six Mill products, and almost 80 per cent of those who have connected an underfloor heating thermostat have other Mill products connected, says Ane Bryn-Haugland.

– We want to stay ahead and drive the heating category forward, be serious and proactive, and put things right if anything is wrong, says Philip Bryn-Haugland.