Case Study: Kohler achieves rapid smart-home IoT innovation and halved development time with Microsoft Power BI

Kohler brings the IoT revolution to your bath

Kohler, the 145‑year‑old plumbing and fixtures company, wanted to transform into a digital leader by adding IoT intelligence to kitchens and baths but lacked software, global datacenter presence, and IoT expertise. To accelerate KOHLER Konnect, Kohler partnered with Microsoft Power BI and the wider Azure IoT platform (including Azure IoT Hub, Azure Stream Analytics, Cosmos DB, Data Lake, Azure Service Fabric, and Azure Active Directory B2C) to securely connect devices and manage customer identity and data.

Using Microsoft Power BI alongside Azure services, Kohler built a scalable KOHLER Konnect solution that provides device provisioning, hot‑ and cold‑path analytics, voice integrations, and mobile app control. The Microsoft Power BI–backed implementation produced a working demo in two months, cut Kohler’s development cycle by roughly half, lowered startup investment, and enabled plans to launch smart products in China in January 2018 and the US later that year—while delivering continuous telemetry for personalization, predictive maintenance, and faster product iteration.

Kohler

Fei Shen

Associate Director of IoT Engineering