IoT solutions for smart buildings provide detailed insights into energy efficiency, health and safety, and security, simplifying tasks such as temperature control, fire detection, access control, and much more.
Read on to learn more about how IoT is influencing smart buildings.
What is a smart building?
A smart building is a building that uses Internet of Things (IoT) devices to enable efficient and economical use of resources while providing a safe, comfortable environment to occupants.
Smart buildings use a wide range of existing technologies and are designed or retrofitted to allow for the integration of future technological developments.
The IoT devices used – electronic sensors, building management systems, and more – are connected to the internet and to each other. They are usually also connected via an app which allows both management and occupants to easily interact with the devices.
IoT in smart buildings simplifies tasks such as:
- Building temperature control,
- Smart water usage,
- Pest control,
- Fire detection,
- Security and access control, and
- Structural health monitoring.
IoT sensors are essential to making these applications possible. They enable the collection and analysis of real-time data with the purpose of:
- Improving the energy efficiency and sustainability of buildings,
- Reducing maintenance costs, and
- Enhancing occupant comfort, security, and safety.
Examples: How IoT is utilized in smart buildings
The Internet of Things is being utilized in intelligent buildings in a wide variety of ways all over the world. Let’s investigate some of the most important and valuable use cases for smart buildings by looking at specific examples of problems that IoT is helping to solve.
Building temperature control
IoT for smart buildings is transforming the way that contractors manage heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in commercial buildings.
IoT-enabled building temperature control allows companies to intelligently monitor and control the performance and condition of HVAC systems.
This enables companies to:
- Detect inefficiencies, excess power consumption, or excess vibration for preventative maintenance,
- Improve energy efficiency by monitoring usage trends and even weather predictions, and
- Easily and quickly diagnose problems through remote system monitoring.
Smart water usage
Water efficiency is critical because rapidly increasing populations, pollution, and climate change place significant strain on freshwater availability and quality. To ensure the future security of freshwater resources, new approaches to water management are required.
In the United Kingdom, for example, the average person uses 150 liters of water per day. This volume is generated by showers, flushing toilets, using hand basins, cooking, and other activities.
Aguardio is a Danish company that creates water efficiency solutions that use data to nudge people into reducing their water usage.
Aguardio helps digitize bathrooms and reduce water usage with:
- IoT devices that monitor shower times and toilet leaks, and
- A web app that provides immediate access to data thanks to cellular connectivity.
Pest control
Vermin such as rats, mice, moths, and cockroaches inflict operational and financial pain on companies by contaminating buildings, spreading disease, damaging stock, gnawing wires, and more.
Standard pest control involves setting out a large number of poison traps in various locations around a building. This approach is inefficient because it requires the use of more traps and poisons than are actually necessary. Additionally, the traps should be checked on a regular basis to ensure that no unwanted pests have made their way inside.
Traps deployed in this manner are frequently unused, are inefficient at catching outbreaks of vermin early, and inspecting them by hand is an expensive and time-consuming task.
IoT solutions for smart buildings can facilitate pest control by:
- Enabling the deployment of smart traps,
- Allowing technicians to check on deployed traps with just a few clicks via pest control portals, and
- Keeping costs affordable for pest control companies via scalable pricing and low data usage needs.
Fire detection
House fires are one of the main concerns for occupants, designers, and builders. For a long time, singular sensors have been used for fire detection. However, these sensors cannot measure the severity of the fire to alert emergency response units.
Through the implementation of integrated detectors, IoT solutions for smart buildings can address this problem.
The integrated detectors can register different elements such as heat, smoke, and flames. The system algorithm within the solution then calculates the fire’s potential and broadcasts the predicted results to relevant parties.
This makes it possible to:
- Quickly alert occupants, property owners, emergency services, and local police stations of danger,
- Increase system reliability and reducing costs by minimizing false alarms, and
- Provide fire departments with real-time data for test purposes without endangering the lives of building occupants.
Security and access control
When it comes to building security, access control is one of the most important aspects.
IoT enables the use of security systems including intelligent locks, card readers, keypads, alarms, and other related devices.
The employment of IoT-driven security and access control solutions in smart buildings makes it possible to:
- Configure applications to both automatic and manual operation of locks and controllers,
- Access systems via mobile apps and devices from anywhere in the world, and
- Receive detailed notifications and alerts from your access systems in real time.
Structural health monitoring
Modern buildings are more structurally sound than ever – but accidents still happen. As buildings and critical structures such as bridges and dams are constructed and age, the need to ensure their safety and longevity rises.
IoT solutions for smart buildings can help prevent building and structural collapse from occurring, as well as extend structural lifetimes through predictive maintenance.
IoT sensors deployed in smart buildings make it possible to:
- Gather and analyze data to monitor structural deterioration,
- Detect and identify structural defects before they escalate, and
- Alert occupants and relevant parties to defects and imminent safety risks.
How Onomondo helps make buildings smart
Onomondo is a global cellular network and IoT connectivity platform made for IoT.
We help enable IoT solutions for smart buildings by providing efficient connectivity for IoT devices, deep insights for easier troubleshooting, and complete control over network steering.
Smart buildings rely heavily on devices that have good coverage, low power consumption, require minimal management, and are low cost.
We provide access to modern cellular IoT technologies such as LTE-M and NB-IoT, which are ideal for IoT, for improved coverage, penetration, and reduced power consumption.
Furthermore, our pay-as-you-go data subscriptions and always-on SIMs simplify SIM management and tie pricing to the moments when your devices create value.
Would you like to learn more? Get in touch with one of our experts to learn more about the advantages of a modern connectivity solution designed for IoT.
