Our service business gave us the insight to build better products: Urban Company's Varun Khaitan

Urban Company has expanded its Native smart home portfolio with the launch of the Native M3 and Native M3 Pro water purifiers, introducing a premium range centred around one key promise: a three-year unconditional warranty with no routine servicing or filter replacement required during that period.

Priced from ₹22,000, the new purifiers feature filters designed to last up to three years, app-based monitoring, a stainless-steel storage tank, advanced mineralisation and pH balancing, and a connected display that provides real-time updates on water quality and filter health.

Speaking to The Economic Times, Varun Khaitan, Co-Founder and COO of Urban Company, said the three-year warranty is the outcome of nearly five years of research into extending filter life, with the latest phase of development spanning the last 18 months.


"We've focused on making every stage of the filtration system last longer. There have been 45 different innovations across the filtration process to make that possible," Khaitan said.

Noida became the benchmark for testing

One of the biggest challenges in offering a nationwide warranty for water purifiers is India's highly inconsistent water quality. According to Khaitan, Urban Company built dedicated water testing laboratories in Bengaluru and Noida to validate the purifier across different conditions.

He said Noida was deliberately chosen because the company found it represented some of the toughest water conditions in the country.

"It has some of the highest TDS, hardness and turbidity levels, all coming together in certain parts of the city. That's why we built our second testing lab there. Every machine is tested for a complete three-year lifecycle under those conditions," he said.

The company claims it has now collected over one lakh data points from customers across India and is confident the purifier can handle over 99% of water conditions encountered nationwide.

While Urban Company highlights testing at TDS levels above 2,000 in its product literature, Khaitan said the specific Noida testing methodology is not currently published separately.

Aiming to reduce lifetime ownership costs

The company also claims customers can save over ₹26,000 over nine years compared to conventional RO systems.

Khaitan said the calculation is based on the industry's current servicing model, where filters are typically replaced annually.

"We assumed every filter replacement costs ₹5,000, although many brands now charge ₹6,000 to ₹6,500. Over nine years, most customers would replace filters around eight times, costing roughly ₹40,000. With Native M3 Pro, you only replace filters twice, once after three years and again after six years, costing about ₹14,000," he explained.

Beyond the monetary savings, Khaitan believes reducing service dependency is equally important.

"Consumers constantly receive calls reminding them to replace filters and are often left wondering whether their water is still safe. We wanted to remove that uncertainty by giving them real-time visibility into the purifier's health," he said.

Connected monitoring replaces guesswork

The Native M3 Pro integrates with the Urban Company app, allowing users to monitor water quality, filter health and purification status remotely.

The purifier's display also shows when key processes, including UV sterilisation, were last completed.

Khaitan said the hardware itself is only part of the experience.

"It's not about a proprietary sensor. It's about how we combine data from lakhs of connected machines to improve both the product and the customer experience over time," he said.

The purifier also incorporates multiple patent-pending technologies related to filtration and overall system design, although the company says it has no plans to license those technologies to other manufacturers.

"That's not our business. We've always wanted to build directly for consumers," Khaitan said.

Service-first DNA drives hardware strategy

Urban Company began as a home services platform before expanding into consumer appliances under its Native brand. Khaitan believes the company's experience servicing and repairing appliances gives it an advantage in building hardware.

"We've been repairing products at scale for over a decade. Native was born because customers kept asking us why products failed in the first place and whether they couldn't be designed better," he said.

Rather than viewing after-sales service as a separate business, Khaitan said it remains central to the company's product strategy.

"Taking care of products throughout their lifecycle is actually our biggest strength."

The Native M3 series is already available across India through the Urban Company app, website and select retail outlets.

Khaitan added that Urban Company's own platform continues to drive a significant share of sales, helped by its existing services customer base and millions of active users on its app every quarter. Service professionals also play a role in educating customers about Native products during home visits while receiving incentives for successful conversions.

Native business continues to grow

The launch comes as Urban Company's Native business continues to expand rapidly. During FY26, Native reported revenue from operations of ₹267 crore, up 130% year-on-year, while Net Transaction Value grew 122% to ₹345 crore.

Urban Company says Native products maintain an average customer rating of 4.5 stars across platforms and a customer renewal rate of 75%, reflecting continued demand for its integrated product-and-service model.

With the Native M3 Pro, the company is betting that a longer-lasting purifier backed by connected monitoring and lifecycle support can help differentiate it in a category traditionally driven by recurring servicing and filter replacement.