As part of The National AI Adoption Programme for SMEs, The Data Lab partnered with Makar, a Highland-based Scottish SME, to embed monitoring and analytics into a prototype low-carbon home. Using live data on indoor comfort, air quality and energy use, the project demonstrated the home’s real-world performance and enabled more evidence-based decision-making.
The Challenge
Makar had designed a prototype home to deliver high levels of comfort, strong energy performance and low running costs. However, although design models indicated good performance, the company lacked reliable live data to demonstrate it under real-world conditions.
Makar needed to understand whether comfortable temperatures and humidity were maintained throughout the home, how outdoor conditions affected indoor comfort, how air quality behaved over time in an ultra-airtight building, and what it cost to maintain these conditions day-to-day.
Without this evidence, it was harder to validate performance claims, refine future designs and build confidence with customers and partners. The solution also needed to be non-intrusive, affordable, replicable and quick to deploy.
How The Data Lab Supported Makar
From October 2025 to mid-January 2026, The Data Lab delivered an end-to-end monitoring and analytics solution for Makar’s prototype home. This included:
- Installing an industrial-grade sensor network across four internal zones and outdoor areas to monitor temperature, humidity, pressure, CO₂, TVOC, and PM10.
- Integrating electricity data from two heat sources and calculating daily energy costs.
- Developing a secure cloud-based dashboard for real-time monitoring and analysis.
The dashboard provided Makar with a single view of the home’s performance, enabling the team to compare indoor and outdoor conditions, track energy use, and visualise comfort and air-quality trends. The system was handed over with guidance on interpretation and future use.
Figure 1: Environmental features were measured for inside zones and outside the prototype house
Outcomes and Impact
Outcomes
- Stable comfort demonstrated: Temperature and humidity remained within defined comfort bands for approximately 94% of the monitored time across the home’s internal zones.
- Real-time cost visibility: Makar could track electricity use from two heat sources and convert it into daily running costs.
- High-quality performance evidence: The company now has a robust dataset that covers indoor and outdoor conditions, as well as energy consumption.
Impact
- Stronger proof of performance: Makar can now demonstrate, using live data, that its homes maintain comfortable indoor conditions under real-world operating conditions.
- Improved product insight: Trends in pressure data highlighted opportunities to further improve airtightness.
- Air quality learning: CO₂ monitoring showed fluctuations over time, helping identify where ventilation strategies could be optimised.
- Better decision-making: The company has shifted from assumption-based reasoning to evidence-led design and operational choices.
- Repeatable capability: The monitoring setup provides a template that can be replicated across future homes as Makar scales.
“The Data Lab delivered full monitoring of a prototype home for us, including the supply of sensors and a dashboard to monitor live data. This has been invaluable in helping us make
informed decisions about the heating strategy of our products. Thank you for an excellent service in providing quantifiable data.” – Neil Edgar, Makar
Next Steps
Makar plans to continue monitoring the prototype home for a further 15 months to capture seasonal trends and benchmark performance over a longer period. This will support further refinement of building details, ventilation strategies, and energy performance, while also strengthening customer communications through transparent, real-world evidence.
The National AI Adoption Programme for SMEs is a Scottish Government-funded initiative, delivered by The Data Lab in partnership with Scottish Enterprise, Highlands and Islands Enterprise, and South of Scotland Enterprise. Part of the wider AI Scotland national transformation programme, it supports Scottish small and medium-sized businesses in introducing or expanding the use of AI through tailored training, consultancy, and grant funding – all fully funded and free to eligible businesses