07814 123 648Smart Buildings
While every smart home is a smart building, not every smart building is a smart home. Enterprise, commercial, industrial and residential buildings of all shapes and sizes — including offices, skyscrapers, apartment buildings and multi-tenant offices and residences — are deploying IoT technologies to improve building efficiency, reduce energy costs and environmental damage, ensure security and improve occupant satisfaction.
Many of the same smart technologies used in the smart home are also deployed in smart building technology, including lighting, energy, heating and air conditioning, and security and building access systems.
For example, a smart building can reduce energy costs using sensors that detect how many occupants are in a room. The temperature can automatically adjust, turning on cool air if sensors detect a full conference room, or turning the heat down if everyone in the office has gone home for the day.
Smart buildings can also connect to the smart grid. Here, smart building components and the electric grid can talk and listen to each other. This technology can manage energy distribution more efficiently, handle maintenance proactively and power outages can be responded to more quickly.
Beyond these benefits, smart buildings can provide building owners and managers with the benefit of predictive maintenance. Janitors, for example, can refill restroom supplies when usage sensors monitoring the soap or paper towel dispensers indicate they are low. Maintenance and failures also can be predicted in building refrigeration, elevators and lighting systems.