How to make buildings smart?
I think that most of us, if not all of us, must have heard of a Smart City concept. Smart City is based on creating and implementing new solutions, using new technologies, in order to improve the quality of citizens’ lives on every level. According to this line of thought, Smart City wouldn’t exist without Smart Buildings. But what do we mean by a Smart Building?
First thing that comes to my mind is making building management easier. Everything should be managed on one platform — lighting, temperature, people flow, access control and so on. According to Memoori.com, the majority of planners intend to integrate lighting, HVA, security systems into a single platform. Why? IoT solutions are much more technically and financially attractive, as simple as that. There is no need to have many solutions and teams responsible for each of them separately. Organizing managers’ work is clear, they can gather data in one dashboard and analyze them.
But let’s have a look from a building visitor point of view. Technological advancement level of a building plays a crucial role in customer experience and impression of visit. Integrated systems sound cool, but how do they exactly work? Let’s have a simple example of partially integrated Building Management System (BMS).
Most employees have an access control card, which allows entering defined areas. This means that every time one goes to work, one has to find the card, use it in order to enter the elevator. Then, there is a common problem with elevators, especially in the morning, when everyone wants to use them. It can take some time to finally get to the office, particularly when the elevator stops on every floor, so that other workers could also get to their offices. Then, once again, a card has to be used to open the office door and finally — that’s the end of your route and you can get along with your assignments. Sounds familiar?
In Indoorway, we don’t like to waste time. That’s why we do our best to simplify everything and make our lives more convenient.
Use case — Indoorway solution for employees
Knowing the fact that most people keep their phones close, Indoorway provides access cards also in an electronic version. In order to open the door, you have to slightly turn the mobile device with an installed application. The movement is recognized by the card reader and the door. If you’re allowed to enter the office, the door will open. Since the access control is merged with elevator management, the elevators’ movement is optimized thanks to the data movement gathered from application users. Data such as rush hours or places with the highest interest can be defined and vertical movement can be therefore adapted. Due to this, people don’t waste time waiting for elevators or searching for their access control cards.
This case shows the great advantage of data analysis. Nowadays, we still have solutions based on calculation and formulas, which illustrate only theoretical scenarios, whereas real building scenarios should rely on real observation in order to give the best possibility to optimize building processes.
Smart Building also means connecting buildings with the city. An external visitor contributes well to this process. Guests play an important part not only in building management, but also their wellbeing may influence the business scenarios. Parking problems, time wasted on waiting for an elevator or looking for a guest card — everything has impact on guests feelings and attitude.
Use case — Indoorway solution for guests
We have reached the above-mentioned conclusions after our business meetings and visits. We are passionate about simplifying things and processes — that’s why we came up with a solution to boost experience of guests visiting the office.
As it can be seen, everything is much simpler than in case of a regular process. Detailed information about the invitation is sent automatically, which saves both guest’s and host’s time. A QR code with all necessary data is generated for the guest, so that, after scanning, the desk clerk could issue the card with access to the right floor and office in an easy and fast way. Thanks to the microlocalization, guest is lead to the meeting spot. The route is shown on the screens in the office, so the person won’t get lost. The host is informed via app once the guest reaches the destination or enters the restricted area.
Fully integrated IoT enabled BMS system to give many possibilities, which will be appreciated not only by the building administrator, but also by the guests. For every building manager, it is of high importance to make a good impression on a visitor. That’s why data analysis will be helpful in optimizing every aspect associated with visitor and tenant management.
