How Forest Rock Keeps Buildings Cool (Even in the Hottest Months) with ZeroTier

Picture this: It’s the middle of August. The sun’s out, temps are pushing 90 degrees, and the office AC is the only thing standing between your tenants and a total summer meltdown. What’s the last thing you need? A building system going offline with no quick way to fix it.

For Forest Rock, a UK-based IoT solutions provider focused on smart buildings, this is a would-be nightmare. With hundreds of sites across the UK and Ireland, Forest Rock knows that during the dog days of summer, there’s no time for tech delays at the many buildings it manages.

That’s why Forest Rock turned to ZeroTier to provide fast, secure, and remote access to their entire network of smart devices, no matter where they’re installed.

Summer-smart, not summer-stressed
Before ZeroTier, Forest Rock’s team often had to wrestle with unreliable 4G public IPs or traditional VPNs that were slow and complex to set up. Diagnosing issues remotely could take up to five days, not exactly ideal when your client’s air conditioning just quit during a heatwave.

Now? The company deploys ZeroTier’s secure, peer-to-peer network to access systems instantly, from their laptops, wherever they are. Setup takes minutes, and there’s no need for port forwarding or on-site visits. Forest Rock’s Gareth Shirley described it perfectly:

“We can just load up a laptop, log in, and diagnose,” said Shirley, sales and operations manager for Forest Rock.

Cool results (literally and financially)
The results have been impressive. Since adopting ZeroTier, Forest Rock has slashed triage times from several days down to just minutes. Setup costs have also dropped by £600 to £800 per site (roughly $740–$990 USD), thanks to eliminating the need for public IPs or complicated VPN configurations. With secure and scalable remote access now supporting hundreds of sites, ZeroTier quietly works behind the scenes, enabling Forest Rock to monitor HVAC systems, adjust energy usage, and keep everything running smoothly, even if its engineers are poolside.

Plus, with many clients operating partially empty buildings during summer holidays, it’s the perfect opportunity for Forest Rock to fine-tune systems remotely, spending less time on the road and more time optimizing energy efficiency.

Beating the heat with smart connectivity
Whether it’s a high school in Birmingham or an office park in Dublin, Forest Rock can now make sure that air-conditioning, lighting, and other critical systems don’t skip a beat, even when summer hits hard.

So, while you’re enjoying the sunshine, Forest Rock is quietly keeping the air cool and the lights on, all with just a few clicks using ZeroTier’s software-defined network.

Interested in learning more about how ZeroTier can remotely and securely help manage your smart building? Request a demo today.