Role of Smart Real Estate in PropTech
Smart Real Estate vertical stands on the premise of the following expectations. Both users and investors expect that buildings will operate cost-efficiently and are highly functional at the same time. If operational costs are lower, then occupants will experience more competitive fees that result in better returns to investors.
Until recently, the energy bill was the concern of the tenant and was not included in the original lease agreement. While sustainability and energy efficiency has been the concern of the public, it never really bothered the property owners.
That was until now. As we see utility bills and rent being bundled together and the owner charging an energy-inclusive rent, the need to deliver an energy-efficient building is becoming more relevant.
If with the lowering prices of green and off-the-grid energy systems, the owner can also generate power and cut out the utility company, the concern will move towards the energy usage of the tenant. This, in turn, will create a need for systems where the benefits of energy-savings pass directly to the market participants. This requires intelligent monitoring of energy use through control and monitoring systems and the efficient movement of data between the user of the building and the supplier of space and energy, or in other words, smart building tech.
It would be the perfect problem to solve for IoT if it wouldn’t be for the inherent flaws of the latter. Internet of Things devices require expensive hardware and they need to be connected to the Internet.
Putting a smartphone grade device into every home appliance is inherently expensive and void of standards. Connection to the Internet raises many privacy questions and is prone to be misused.
Instead, companies focusing on distributed systems that are integrated at the manufacturing level, and require only an assembly during home building and not a separate “smart project” will prevail. These systems will work independently of the Internet as a network of low power, distributed nodes that have low hardware requirements and run complex software solutions that solve for the security and reliability of the protocol.
