# TikTok Resilience and Gradient HVAC Innovation

**Podcast:** TechCrunch Daily Crunch
**Published:** 2026-02-04

## Transcript

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TikTok recovers from its recent dip in usage.
I'm Imron Chick, and your daily crunch for Wednesday starts right now.
And before our top story, let's find out the latest in startup business news all in about one minute with our friend producer Dennis.
Imran, thank you.
And New York City and others like it are filled with old buildings that are for the most part fine, except they're not all that comfortable to live in.
Built in an era when massive boilers were cutting edge technology, the buildings are usually too hot or too cold, but seldom just right.
There are companies trying to rectify that using clever horseshoe shaped heat pumps.
Superficially, they're similar to window air conditioners, except they don't block the view and they can heat as well as cool.
Gradient makes one of those heat pumps, but now it's adding a twist.
In multifamily buildings, it can link every one of its window units together.
The startup shared with TechCrunch exclusive details about the new Nexus software and service.
The startup is mostly targeting old buildings that need HVAC upgrades.
Gradient has worked with the New York City Housing Authority to install its heat pumps in public housing, and it ran a pilot in Tracy, California in a newer two-story affordable housing complex.
It's also talking with colleges and universities, many of which have dorms that weren't built with hot autumn weather in mind.
And that'll do it for me.
Imran, back to you.
TikTok's largely recovered from a slight dip in active users in the days following its ownership change when a group of American investors took control of the video app's operations in the good old US of A.
The decline, though brief, benefited competing video apps like UpScrolled and Skylight Social, which saw rapid user adoption as some looked for TikTok alternatives.
According to estimates from digital market intelligence firm Similar Web, TikTok saw usage dip into the range of 86 to 88 million daily active users in the U.S.
immediately after the ownership change.
That compares with a typical average of 92 million daily active users.
The app has bounced back to more than 90 million daily active users, indicating that many who left TikTok have since returned.
As TikTok saw a small dip in usage, alternative video sharing apps up scrolled and skylight social began growing quickly.
Although only a tiny fraction of TikTok's size up scroll topped 138,500 daily active users at its peak on January 28th, it's now dropped back down to 68,000.
Meanwhile, Skylight Social hit 81,200 daily active users according to similar web's estimates and has since dropped to 56,300 daily active users.
Now overall Skylight Social saw its user sign-ups increase to 380,000 as of late January, the company told TechRunch.
TikTok's usage decline, which prompted some to try the new apps, wasn't driven by the ownership change directly, but rather by how users feared it would impact their TikTok experience.
You see, there were growing concerns about TikTok's updated privacy policy, which gave the app permission to track users' precise GPS location.
This addition could be related to TikTok's tests of a nearby feed to show users' videos from local creators, but was added to the policy alongside the change in ownership, leading to user backlash over privacy concerns.
When reading the privacy policy anew, some users also discovered disturbing language, like how TikTok said it may collect users' immigration status, among other personal data.
However, this turned out to be a reference that was included because of the California Consumer Privacy Act, CCPA, which requires businesses to inform consumers if they collect certain sensitive data.
TikTok does that, in the sense that anything someone shares on the platform and their video content technically becomes part of the platform, so it requires disclosure.
In addition, TikTok experienced an unfortunately timed multi-day data center outage, which caused the app to not function properly, sometimes breaking search, likes, and comments, causing video glitches, disrupting the almighty algorithm, and creating issues with the in-app chat.
While users believe these glitches meant TikTok was now censoring their content, which sent them looking for alternatives.
The company announced on Sunday evening that the data center outage was all resolved, chalking it up to a winter storm-driven power outage.
As users made peace with the new terms and conditions and the outage-driven issues were resolved.
Users, well, they returned to the platform.
Similar web's data shows this.
But there's still hope for the newcomers, as the firm notes that TikTok's usage has been slowly declining over the latter part of 2025, when usage peaked at 100 million daily active users from July to October 2025, compared with the 90 plus million scene now.
And that's your daily crunch.
Today's stories were reported by Sarah Perez and more awesome TechCrunch journalists.