Habitap Founder Franklin Tang Shows Us A Smarter Way to Live
Disruptor, risk taker and one of Singapore’s technology trailblazers, Franklin Tang is determined to build a community where smart and seamless living is available to all
Has there been any doubt throughout your journey that you could promote sma living to the masses?
Never. Since the beginning, my wish for Habitap has always been to be a blessing to our customers and users; that our technology continues to empower them to lead better lifestyles and free up their time so they could spend it with their loved ones. That’s our ultimate goal of bringing smart technology to everyone.
In the last few years, we have seen the uptake of our technology not just in residential but also in commercial building projects and we are excited to see what’s to come for Habitap. We hope to grow our vision together as a team and bring the experience of smart living to people across all walks of life.
What was your end goal for integrating sma into commercial and residential spaces? living
For residential spaces, we want users to experience greater convenience, efficiency and comfort when performing everyday tasks. From smart home control to smart community management and lifestyle offerings, integrating our smart living platform into residential spaces allow homeowners to easily configure profiles to fit their lifestyle.
Be it lighting their study with cooler lights for optimal productivity or shifting their lights to warmer temperatures or gaining easy access to facility bookings and visitor management with real-time updates create a convenient, yet safe environment. Lifestyle offerings and services also allow homeowners to enjoy exclusive promotions, deals and community events.
Smart living in commercial spaces aim to provide users with a seamless, integrated facility management eco-system by combining smart building management and smart office control. For instance, digital access for Tenant and Visitor Management via a dynamic QR code and manpower and asset optimisation to reduce the workload of the concierge, front desk staff or security personnel.
Ultimately, Habitap is about integrating work, life and play into a single platform for a no-fuss lifestyle built on greater convenience, unparalleled connectivity and control.
Our hope is to fulfil the basics of security and access management, the convenience of digital facilities management and the lifestyles associated with community.
Do you think Habitap will remain premium, or will there be a system that is suited for HDB prope ies and other forms of housing?
For the moment, condominiums are mainly our portfolio of residential developments, but down the road, we definitely hope to witness the widespread adoption of Habitap in Singapore.
Especially with the wider adoption of technology in our everyday living, there comes the critical mass needed in further exploring and pushing the boundaries of technology used in everyday living.
In terms of being a premium platform, we have in fact a “lite” version of our Habitap flagship app, where we extract the most frequently used and popular features of the app and offer an attractive pricing structure that is one-fifth of our premium offering. Essentially, we are bringing in the key features of modern luxury living and making it available to more homes with a competitively priced entry-level option, allowing more people to plug into the future of smart living.
This is for Tap Residential, which caters to homeowners. Likewise for buildings, we launched Tap Commercial to make smart building management a viable option by lowering the Total Cost of Ownership.
Both Tap Residential and Tap Commercial represent an important step of our journey in making the essentials of our technology available in a more affordable package.
HDBs and other housing alternatives can expect the Habitap experience in the near future. This will also be a milestone for us amidst the changing local landscape, where we will probably see the rising adoption of smart living; an opportunity for Habitap to create and deliver a more sustainable and comfortable environment that everyone can enjoy.
Given the chance, would you choose a different way of approaching sma living?
I think we only have one end game ‒ to reach our vision and even when we do, the product will have to keep evolving, adapting and growing. For example, Habitap Handy, our AI assistant can be reached on WhatsApp. It could mean that Habitap might no longer require an app. So, the Habitap vision still stays, but the product will keep evolving.
Who are or were your inspirations in the industry?
Fine architecture and interior design. It always seems to fit into place. Just as how technology should fit its users. I’ve often been inspired by the passion of the industry; from architects, designers and real estate developers and how they are always pushing the envelopes of design.
I think this mindset of “How can we do better every day?” is something Habitap should have in its culture.
Moving forward, how and where do you see Habitap progressing to?
Habitap has entered the residential and commercial space, and this year, actually, our product for the global market is set to launch. Users can expect to use Habitap as a service. Also, Habitap’s footprints will be growing exponentially in the coming years ‒ with expansion projects already in the pipeline. We just launched in Philippines earlier this year. Overall, this decade is an exciting time for the team, and we can’t wait to grow with our customers and users, and share our vision with the rest of the community.