Preventive maintenance helps to keep America’s military on the move. By checking on equipment, taking it in for regularly scheduled service, and replacing parts before they break, military readiness is kept high and gear is ready when warfighters need it. Army veterans Lindsey and Gabe Chrismon know this well. Lindsey served as an aviator in the 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment and Gabe served as an infantry officer. Taking their knowledge to the private sector, the duo founded Oply, using artificial intelligence to help homeowners apply the same principles of preventative maintenance to their enormous investment.
Owning a home is a huge step that comes with lots of new responsibilities. Everything about a home needs to be maintained, from the roof and windows to the water heater and HVAC. When something goes wrong, the repair or replacement bill can be hefty. To avoid this, preventative and timely maintenance addresses issues before they become serious problems. To help homeowners stay on top of things, Oply uses AI to keep track of their home and maintenance. Using predictive algorithms, Oply monitors key home systems and connects users with local professionals to avoid costly repairs.
“It’s like when your car tells you on the dashboard that it’s time to change your oil,” Lindsey told WATM. “Oply can tell you what your home needs before you need it and connect you with pros in the local area to get it done.” In the event of an overnight hailstorm, Oply can analyze your home insurance policy and see that roof repairs due to hail damage are covered, but only if an inspection is performed within 72 hours. The next morning, you wake up to a notification from Oply informing you of this as well as a suggested professional who has availability for an inspection that day. Harnessing the power of AI, Oply makes home management easy by running autonomously in the background of daily life and thinking and doing the legwork for the homeowner.
Oply uses information that the user or home provides, like the water heater rating plate or HVAC data plate, to create personalized reminders and preventative insights. “Some homes have drip sensors, they have sensors in their HVAC system; we can tap into those and then [the user] gives us authorization to analyze the data and then store it in one place for you,” Lindsey said. “The technology’s not doing anything without your permission.” Additionally, the trusted professionals that the app suggests are all vetted by Oply. Pros are thoroughly screened and have a certificate of insurance, valid registration and licenses, a 4.7-star rating or higher, and even go through an interview with Oply. “We wouldn’t send anyone to your house that we wouldn’t send to ours,” Oply says on the website. Finally, pros can be paid securely and conveniently on the Oply app.
With this AI-driven and proactive technology, Oply aims to revolutionize home maintenance and ownership by consolidating everything into one app. As of the writing of this article, Oply is fully operational in Tennessee with service pros integrated on the app to perform maintenance as the algorithm dictates. Homeowners elsewhere in the U.S. can download the app, and Oply will provide insights and recommendations based on a personalized home vector database. “By July, we’ll have access all across the country to home service professionals,” Lindsey said of Oply’s future. Right now, the app is free. Following the full launch in July, Oply is looking to charge around $9.99/month for its AI analytics and insight, or “less than a cup of Starbucks coffee.”