Question 1

How to pronounce 'BtrLyf'? What does it stand for?

Accepted Answer

'BtrLyf' is a pronounced as 'Better Life'. BtrLyf is a registered trademark of Qi Square Pte Ltd. We named our platform 'BtrLyf' as it aims to create a better life for all of us by creating a btr lyf for people in-charge of making btr buildings. We do that through digitalization and collaborative artificial intelligence. Btr buildings save energy and costs, reduce carbon emissions, and create a sustainable built environment lyf for everyone!

Question 2

What problem does it solve?

Accepted Answer

Buildings consume 30% of energy and contribute to 40% of carbon emissions globally. By 2050, the world’s building stock will double, increasing the impact on climate significantly. Its demand on natural resources accelerates climate change, and inefficient, unhealthy buildings are affecting our livelihoods.
Buildings can save 20% to 60% in operating costs through proven green retrofit measures with an excellent return on investmnet. However, building industry players do not have the tools to easily identify and quantify energy saving opportunities, evaluate  the latest technological solutions and access financing options. They end up spending a lot of time in administration of green projects and finding the right partners to work with.
The lack of effective data accessibility and exchange inhibits the growth of the industry. This in turn severely prohibits timely deployment of successful decarbonization strategies that are urgently required to mitigate and limit climate change and global warming impacts.

Question 3

What exactly does BtrLyf do?

Accepted Answer

BtrLyf gets the industry (building owners/managers, consultants, tech providers, ESCOs, financiers, etc.) to work together on green building projects with better data exchange for enhanced productivity and continuous improvement. It is an unified digital platform that helps co-creation of sustainable buildings by enabling collaboration and AI-enabled assessment of green buildings and related solutions. 
 
By increasing the productivity of green projects through digitalization and collaboration, BtrLyf enables the acceleration of super low energy and zero energy buildings and contributes positively to the decarbonization of the built environment. The resultant impact for the industry includes reduced transaction time, lower marketing costs, faster sales cycles, lower investment risk and improved productivity of business processes by up to 10x. In short, BtrLyf is a green building market platform that helps accelerate sustainable development through digitalization.

Question 4

What are the benefits of using BtrLyf?

Accepted Answer

Through digitalization, BtrLyf eliminates a lot of issues associated with manual work and disconnected workflows in green building projects. The benefits of using BtrLyf are varied and it helps different industry partners in different ways. Below are the just some of the key benefits achived for the industry:
 
Eliminates the need for expensive middlepersons for effective deal execution
Allows for Do-it-Yourself technical analysis without the need for technical skills
Prevents duplication of efforts that are common in the industry due to lack of relevant data exchange and archiving
Avoids any travel or reduces physical touchpoints by providing secure remote digital access to green building data
Provides low-cost and instant assessment and solution fit analysis
Offers continuous performance upgrade and business development opportunities
Provides a technically sound, validated, and neutral green assessment
Takes advantage of open-source data and connected data from 3rd party APIs
Integrates with different data sources and conducts a comprehensive assessment
Does not require any special equipment or meters installation, just an internet connected device is all that is needed

Question 5

What is the technology behind BtrLyf?

Accepted Answer

BtrLy is a digital platform to conduct virtual assessment, analysis, and diagnostics of building performance through digitalization. The AI-powered building simulation engine of BtrLyf has been developed through several years of Research & Development by Qi Square, a spin-off company of the Nanyang technological University (NTU), Singapore. Its designed to create digital twins for sustainability at the lowest cost and as quickly as possible, to then progressively increase the accuracy of digital twin models through data acquisition and machine learning (ML) techniques.

The intention of BtrLyf is to produce consistent and reliable evaluation and analytics of resource demand for initial green building assessment purposes. While BtrLyf assists decision-makers by providing financial analysis of their green building choices, it does not replace investment grade audits or complex modelling software, and is not envisaged to be used for system sizing.

Question 6

How does BrLyf process data

Accepted Answer

The platform aggregates multiple sources of building data, including open-source information, design data, standards, API linked data from third party providers, and user entered data to create useful ‘digital assets’ or ‘digital twins’. This data is then processed through physics-based simulation and machine-learning based analytics engines to deliver building specific as well as city-wide aggregate insights to improve performance of buildings.

Question 7

Is BtrLyf an open access platform?

Accepted Answer

Yes. BtrLyf is available on an open cloud-based platform and users can do several tasks without even logging in. Users can do the following on full open access even without login:
a) Explore the Digital Built Environment using a GIS based map of buildings in a city.
b) Search sustainable buildings on the map and click on them to get a quick overview of their features and sustainability potential.
c) Access a list of a huge number of sustainable buildig solutions categorized by their technical use and geography, as well as, green building experts and solution providers available in their area
 
After logging in, the BtrLy platform becomes more useful with features such as:
a) Get custom alerts on changes in building information and 'claim buildings' to start working on improvement projects
b) Contact and connect to sustainability champions and solution/service providers
c) Conduct free analysis to evaluate the energy and carbon reduction potential of any building.
Although BtrLyf is an open platform, it is designed with maximum security and data privacy in mind. Review the features details in our Apps pages on the website to understand more in this.

Question 8

What is purpose of Apps such as EDGAR, PRIA on BtrLyf?"

Accepted Answer

BtrLyf has applications (apps) especially designed to enhance the workflow, and significantly lower the costs and time required to do activities such as energy/carbon analysis, technology fit analysis, green certification assessment and financial due diligence for green projects. These applications are provided to the industry in a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) mode, and currently include the following. Click on the product links in the website menu to know more.
EDGAR: Helps in quick, low cost and fully digital assessmnet of buildings. 
PRIA: Helps in assessing the best and latest green building products and solutions. 
GRACE: Helps in achieving green certification for buildings. 
LISA: Helps connect to the green building industry at large

Question 9

Is BtrLyf Free to use, or is paid?"

Accepted Answer

Yes. A number of fantastic features on BtrLyf and its apps are free to use. We do however have a 'Freemium' operating model where users are charged for specialized and highly value adding services such as manual simulation in EDGAR, getting products to be qualified for asessment via PRIA, getting business leads via LISA and starting new green certification projects via GRACE. These are just some examples. Please see the full list of features under each app to review what is free and what needs to be paid for (premium).

Question 10

Which cities does BtrLyf cover?

Accepted Answer

Currently we are available in:
Singapore
 
We are adding more cities on BtrLyf while you are reading this. This answer will be updated on a regular basis. Please check back again for the latest status or get in touch with us to discuss how and when we will get BtrLyf in your city.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)