WattNow has gained popularity among individuals and companies over the past four years. This has earned the company participation in many international events and the interest of new investors.

To tackle the waste of energy in Tunisia and help households keep their electricity bills low, Issam Smaali (pictured) developed and launched, in 2017, his startup WattNow. Using IoT (Internet of Things) and digital tools, WattNow enables consumers to monitor, analyze and adjust the consumption of their electrical appliances in real-time.

The solution works with a smart meter. It integrates a machine learning system to analyze consumption. Collected data is sent to the startup's cloud where they are analyzed with algorithms and the results are sent to consumers either via a mobile app or a dedicated web interface. Based on the result, the user can directly give orders to the box and reduce their consumption.

Users can download the app from App Store and Play Store and set it up with the smart meter. The WattNow app displays real-time energy consumption both throughout the house, but also for each device that turns on or off. It also delivers a daily, weekly, or monthly history of the electricity consumption of the home or business. Alerts are sent to users when a device stays on or consumes too much energy.

With WattNow, Issam Smaali seeks to lower electricity bills for Tunisians by up to 30%. Highly appreciated for its social impact, the service has already been adopted by several households and large companies such as Orange Tunisia. The latter installed it in 2018 on several of its telecom sites and administrative buildings.

The solution was incubated at Flat6Labs and began its consolidation and development thanks to a $20,000 prize won in 2017 at the “BloomMasters” entrepreneurship competition. Another award worth $100,000 was obtained from the Oman Technology Funds. In 2019, WattNow benefited from the supervision of the Orange Fab Tunisie accelerator and participated at VivaTech 2019. In 2021, the startup participated in several tech events, including the annual GITEX GLOBAL technology fair in Dubai, and raised several thousands of dollars from several investors such as the venture capital fund Katapult or even Bridging Angels.

 Ruben Tchounyabe