Mark Allewell, Sensor Networks.

Building a hardware business is hard. Ask Mark Allewell. Having built and sold one business, Tourism Radio, in the earlier part of this century, he’s back for a second act. Born as a key tracking company, Sensor Networks is primarily focused on the management of geysers as an entry point into a broader smart home proposition.

The key tracking idea was novel, but as Tile and later Apple’s AirTag proved, this is rather a niche market. It was during conversations with major insurers in the country about the key tracker that Allewell hit on the geyser product. “They told us, ‘We like your tracking, but, actually, we’ve got a big problem with geysers; they’re almost 50% of our homeowners’ cover claims – at R8 000 per house. Can you help us?’,” he recalls.