05 Jul 2025
Developer Tools

a platform that fully digitizes the management of electrical panels ...

...and installations, with a strong focus on inspections, maintenance reports, and schematics. All technical documentation is centrally stored and dynamically linked to each panel, allowing companies to easily track inspections, re-certifications, and updates. Technicians can instantly access the correct schematics and reports via QR codes on-site. As an extra feature, IoT devices can be integrated to monitor real-time data such as temperature or energy consumption. IonFlow supports both self-hosted and cloud solutions, improving safety, traceability, and operational efficiency in electrical systems.

Confidence
Engagement
Net use signal
Net buy signal

Idea type: Swamp

The market has seen several mediocre solutions that nobody loves. Unless you can offer something fundamentally different, you’ll likely struggle to stand out or make money.

Should You Build It?

Don't build it.


Your are here

You're entering a space categorized as a 'Swamp,' meaning there are existing solutions, but none have truly captivated the market. With 3 similar products identified, the competition is present, and the average engagement is low, evidenced by the average of 2 comments on similar product launches. Because these similar products in the space haven't seen success, it is important that you identify the critical gaps in the existing solutions and how to address them. The lack of positive 'use' and 'buy' signals from similar products suggests people aren't readily adopting or paying for current options. This could be due to various factors, such as poor user experience, lack of essential features, or inadequate marketing. You really need to evaluate why these solutions haven't succeeded to stand out in this crowded space.

Recommendations

  1. Start by thoroughly researching why existing solutions haven’t achieved widespread adoption. Conduct user interviews, analyze competitor weaknesses, and identify unmet needs in electrical panel management. This foundational research will inform your product development and go-to-market strategy and really needs to highlight exactly what differentiates you.
  2. Given the 'Swamp' category, consider focusing on a specific niche within electrical panel management that's currently underserved. This could be a particular industry (e.g., manufacturing, healthcare), a specific type of electrical panel (e.g., industrial, residential), or a particular regulatory requirement. Become the go-to solution for that niche.
  3. Another pivot would be to think if you should build tools for existing providers instead of attempting to replace them entirely. Develop integrations or add-ons that enhance the functionality of established electrical panel management systems. This might be a faster route to market and could provide valuable insights into customer needs.
  4. Based on the Telemetry Harbor feedback, emphasize ease of integration. Address the potential drawback of lengthy integration times. Focus on a seamless plug-and-play API and real-time visualization, as highlighted in competitor feedback.
  5. Explore adjacent problems that might be more promising, such as energy efficiency monitoring, predictive maintenance, or cybersecurity for industrial control systems. Expanding into these areas could open up new revenue streams and differentiate you from the competition.
  6. Given the mixed reception of similar products, prioritize a freemium model or a pilot program to allow potential users to experience the value of your platform before committing to a paid subscription. Make sure to collect feedback during the pilot program.
  7. Carefully design the user experience to be intuitive and efficient for technicians in the field. Minimize the steps required to access schematics, generate reports, and track maintenance activities. Consider offline functionality for areas with limited connectivity.

Questions

  1. What are the specific pain points that electrical technicians and facility managers experience with existing electrical panel management solutions?
  2. How can the platform leverage IoT data to provide actionable insights and improve decision-making for electrical system maintenance and optimization?
  3. What is the most effective pricing strategy for the platform, considering the 'Swamp' market category and the need to demonstrate value quickly?

Your are here

You're entering a space categorized as a 'Swamp,' meaning there are existing solutions, but none have truly captivated the market. With 3 similar products identified, the competition is present, and the average engagement is low, evidenced by the average of 2 comments on similar product launches. Because these similar products in the space haven't seen success, it is important that you identify the critical gaps in the existing solutions and how to address them. The lack of positive 'use' and 'buy' signals from similar products suggests people aren't readily adopting or paying for current options. This could be due to various factors, such as poor user experience, lack of essential features, or inadequate marketing. You really need to evaluate why these solutions haven't succeeded to stand out in this crowded space.

Recommendations

  1. Start by thoroughly researching why existing solutions haven’t achieved widespread adoption. Conduct user interviews, analyze competitor weaknesses, and identify unmet needs in electrical panel management. This foundational research will inform your product development and go-to-market strategy and really needs to highlight exactly what differentiates you.
  2. Given the 'Swamp' category, consider focusing on a specific niche within electrical panel management that's currently underserved. This could be a particular industry (e.g., manufacturing, healthcare), a specific type of electrical panel (e.g., industrial, residential), or a particular regulatory requirement. Become the go-to solution for that niche.
  3. Another pivot would be to think if you should build tools for existing providers instead of attempting to replace them entirely. Develop integrations or add-ons that enhance the functionality of established electrical panel management systems. This might be a faster route to market and could provide valuable insights into customer needs.
  4. Based on the Telemetry Harbor feedback, emphasize ease of integration. Address the potential drawback of lengthy integration times. Focus on a seamless plug-and-play API and real-time visualization, as highlighted in competitor feedback.
  5. Explore adjacent problems that might be more promising, such as energy efficiency monitoring, predictive maintenance, or cybersecurity for industrial control systems. Expanding into these areas could open up new revenue streams and differentiate you from the competition.
  6. Given the mixed reception of similar products, prioritize a freemium model or a pilot program to allow potential users to experience the value of your platform before committing to a paid subscription. Make sure to collect feedback during the pilot program.
  7. Carefully design the user experience to be intuitive and efficient for technicians in the field. Minimize the steps required to access schematics, generate reports, and track maintenance activities. Consider offline functionality for areas with limited connectivity.

Questions

  1. What are the specific pain points that electrical technicians and facility managers experience with existing electrical panel management solutions?
  2. How can the platform leverage IoT data to provide actionable insights and improve decision-making for electrical system maintenance and optimization?
  3. What is the most effective pricing strategy for the platform, considering the 'Swamp' market category and the need to demonstrate value quickly?

  • Confidence: Medium
    • Number of similar products: 3
  • Engagement: Low
    • Average number of comments: 2
  • Net use signal: 13.3%
    • Positive use signal: 13.3%
    • Negative use signal: 0.0%
  • Net buy signal: 0.0%
    • Positive buy signal: 0.0%
    • Negative buy signal: 0.0%

This chart summarizes all the similar products we found for your idea in a single plot.

The x-axis represents the overall feedback each product received. This is calculated from the net use and buy signals that were expressed in the comments. The maximum is +1, which means all comments (across all similar products) were positive, expressed a willingness to use & buy said product. The minimum is -1 and it means the exact opposite.

The y-axis captures the strength of the signal, i.e. how many people commented and how does this rank against other products in this category. The maximum is +1, which means these products were the most liked, upvoted and talked about launches recently. The minimum is 0, meaning zero engagement or feedback was received.

The sizes of the product dots are determined by the relevance to your idea, where 10 is the maximum.

Your idea is the big blueish dot, which should lie somewhere in the polygon defined by these products. It can be off-center because we use custom weighting to summarize these metrics.

Similar products

Relevance

Telemetry Harbor - Collect, analyze, and visualize IoT data with ease

Telemetry Harbor - Collect, analyze, and visualize IoT data in no time.

Users praise the product's ease of use, niche focus, and streamlined interface, particularly for IoT engineers. The seamless plug & play API and real-time visualization are highlighted as key strengths. There's interest and support for the idea, with a suggestion to integrate competitor price benchmarking. Congratulations are offered on the successful launch.

The primary criticism revolves around the potentially lengthy integration time, estimated in weeks or days. This upfront effort is perceived as a potential drawback for users considering the product.


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Relevance

OTAware, airgapped AI for monitoring critical infrastructure [video]

Hey HN,Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8XiP2-DPo6gThis is what I’ve been working on full-time as a solo founder in my startup, Sentinel Devices, for just over four years. High-level: we collect data from the “digital brains” of industrial equipment, then use this data to build a baseline model of equipment behavior and monitor for anomalies – signs in the digital data indicating maybe that a sensor or valve is failing, or that some kind of cyber-physical attack is ongoing. The unique part about our approach is that we are laser-focused on doing everything totally offline – that means all data collection, storage, processing, AI training, and decision-making happen exclusively on embedded industrial hardware. There are no external servers, data is never sent anywhere, and our models are not even pre-trained – our devices self-train and self-develop models in the field, based only on data they’ve seen. By removing the need for cloud connectivity, we’re building something that scales infinitely to as many machines as you’d like – while not introducing any of the issues that come with an always-on external network connection.I thought this would be relevant given the (very) recent events around always-on internet connections and updates bricking critical infrastructure. We’ve developed OTAware specifically for critical infrastructure – if there’s no internet connection, attackers can’t get in (or at least it’s a lot harder) and you won’t be impacted by your infrastructure making random updates. Definitely welcome any thoughts or discussion from industrial folks around use cases you see, or obstacles to deployment you can think of. And if anyone would like to try it out, it does require physical hardware, but we’ll happily talk with you about what a test deployment can look like!


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