Freshify.io brought an innovation consulting framework to help Pentair define what the connected pool experience should actually be — starting from the pool owner's needs rather than the hardware capabilities. That inversion was intentional. Hardware-first thinking produces feature lists. Consumer-first thinking produces products people actually use.

The engagement covered the full IoT platform strategy — not just the consumer-facing app, but the connected product architecture that would need to serve multiple brands and product lines under the Pentair umbrella. That meant defining what the IntelliCenter Control System needed to be as the flagship: what should a pool owner realistically be able to do from their phone, and what would make them reach for that app every week rather than once a season? It covered user experience strategy — how does a non-technical consumer successfully set up and operate IoT pool equipment without frustration or a service call? It covered platform architecture guidance — how should the underlying data model be designed so the same IoT foundation could power 8 different brands, not just one product? And it covered go-to-market strategy for a product category that didn't yet exist in Pentair's portfolio. The goal throughout was to give Pentair's engineering and product teams a platform-first foundation to build from — not a list of features, but a connected product strategy that could scale across the company's full portfolio.