Our Vision

At Hygge Apps, we believe comfort shouldn't stop where Wi-Fi ends. Our mission is simple: to bring peace of mind to remote and hard-to-reach places through preventative technology.

We're a preventative maintenance company first, and a technology company second—because preventing damage before it happens is always better than cleaning up after the fact.

The name “Hygge,” a Danish word meaning coziness and comfort, reflects our goal to protect the places you care about—quietly and reliably—so you can rest easy, no matter where you are.

How It Started

Hygge Apps was born out of a real-world emergency that highlighted a serious gap in preventative technology.

One winter night in Boston, our founder—an experienced landlord of over 16 years—received a late-night message from a tenant. A pipe in the building’s basement had frozen and burst, spraying water across the electrical panel and water heaters. With temperatures around 10°F and local plumbing resources overwhelmed, the situation quickly escalated into a high-stress scramble. The water was eventually shut off, the water heaters disconnected, and heat maintained for the upstairs units—but not without significant cost.

The culprit? A basement door left slightly ajar.

The aftermath required over $11,000 in repairs, including multiple water heaters that were less than two years old. It was a frustrating, wasteful, and completely preventable incident.

After exploring ways to avoid future disasters, we searched for a simple cellular sensor that could alert building owners about temperature drops or leaks—without relying on Wi-Fi or complicated subscription models. When no suitable product could be found, we decided to build one ourselves.

The result is Hygge Apps' flagship cellular monitor: reliable, easy to install, and designed specifically for people who need peace of mind in hard-to-reach places.

Actual footage of the burst pipe

Meet the Founder

Hi, I’m Brian Kaufman.

Thank you for visiting our site. I'm currently a product manager at Google helping businesses both large and small deploy and scale applications on Google Cloud. I'm an Electrical Engineer by trade and have worked as a freelance website developer for over 20 years.

I've always had an interest in building physical products and went to school for engineering because of a dream to someday build toys, plus a love for the 80s movie Real Genius, which I stumbled across long ago at my grandparents' house (they had HBO, which was always a treat when going over). While IoT sensors are not kids' toys, they have given me a great way to get back into the physical product world. Additionally, they provide an indirect way to save on product consumption through preventative maintenance and lower electricity bills. The story outlined above created an incredible amount of waste. I like to think of IoT sensors as a dentist's preventative care - much easier to prevent issues than to fix them.

I’m glad you’re here. If you have feedback, partnership ideas, or new use cases you'd like us to explore, don’t hesitate to reach out. We’re just getting started.