Last year, Ecuador went dark. A severe drought drained the rivers that power 90% of the country’s hydroelectric plants, forcing daily blackouts that lasted up to 14 hours.
For Byron Rojas, founder and CEO of Boca Raton-based Easymetering, the crisis was more than an inconvenience. It was an existential threat to his business.
Easymetering’s core customers were electric utilities in Ecuador, representing nearly 85% of its revenue. With no electricity to sell, utilities stopped collecting payments from consumers, and for seven months, income from Easymetering’s largest clients dried up. Add to that a surge in security concerns tied to organized crime, and Rojas knew it was time for a change.
“I realized we needed a new business unit that wouldn’t be so dependent on utilities,” Rojas told Refresh Miami. “Something that could serve a broader, freer market while still using all the expertise we’ve built.”
That “something” is Lucy, a smart electrical panel designed to make homes more energy-efficient, resilient, and sustainable. Slated to launch this month in Ecuador, Lucy uses AI to monitor and optimize a household’s energy usage. It can integrate with solar panels, batteries, and backup generators, automatically adjusting appliances to meet both comfort and budget goals.
Rojas said the inspiration came partly from the blackout crisis and partly from a boom in Ecuador’s real estate market, driven by families seeking safer, more modern homes. “We saw an opportunity to solve two problems at once: to make new homes not just secure, but energy-smart,” he said.
Lucy is also the product at the heart of Easymetering’s newly announced strategic collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies. Through the deal, Easymetering will integrate Qualcomm’s industrial IoT 5G chipsets and edge AI capabilities into its next generation of products. As Rojas explained, that combination lowers costs, extends product lifespan, and enables advanced features like real-time grid monitoring, predictive maintenance, and load management during peak demand.
“This partnership represents a significant milestone for us,” Rojas said in the company’s press announcement. “Our focus is on creating a meaningful impact on people’s quality of life by bringing sustainability closer to them, supporting electric utilities in managing future energy demands, and advancing decarbonization goals.”
Lucy’s AI runs locally, not in the cloud, learning a family’s energy consumption patterns and adjusting usage in real time based on electricity prices and weather conditions. It can even predict potential electrical issues by tracking heat changes in wiring, a safeguard that could prevent fires.
Beyond the home, Lucy is designed to play a role in broader grid modernization. In planned deployments, utilities could remotely manage certain loads during times of stress, making electricity more reliable for entire neighborhoods. Rojas envisions Lucy panels being installed at scale in new housing developments, with real estate developers treating the product as the “heart of the home” in smart, sustainable communities.
For now, Lucy will launch in Ecuador, but its design follows U.S. electrical standards, opening a path to markets across the Americas. Easymetering plans to sell through a B2B2C model, partnering with distributors, appliance makers, and real estate developers rather than going directly to homeowners.
The launch event this month in Ecuador will be followed by a weeklong real estate expo, and Rojas hopes it will spark a shift in how the region thinks about home energy.
“Ecuador is not a tech country,” he said. “Part of our mission is to change that, to break paradigms in how leaders, developers, and consumers see energy.” From Boca to the world.
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