Your future is now!

The Internet of Things (IoT) surrounds our lives. Smart speakers, mobile apps that control lights in your living room, cameras in your refrigerator, and other technological developments have revolutionized the way we interact with the internet, but even more importantly, the actual buildings in which we live and work.  This trend towards technological implementation looks to continue into 2020 and beyond, as the investment in the IoT industry is projected to top $1 trillion next year.  Between a worldwide shift towards an internet-centric economy, the continued omnipresence of mobile technology, and the coming advent of 5G networks, IoT is becoming the standard and not the exception.

Forward-thinking architects, technicians, and building managers have taken note of this as well, and have begun to prepare by installing and equipping their large private sector facilities with more sophisticated versions of the sorts of IoT you used to only be able to interface within your homes.

Traditional buildings contain heating, cooling, lighting, and other systems that are often decentralized and have to be manually operated or metered. Thankfully, this is no longer necessary. Thanks to recent IoT and BACnet, these systems are more commonly becoming integrated and connected. This allows all of these systems to be easily controlled from a single hub that can fit in the palm of your hand.

For example, an automated, cloud-based BACnet certified product can now seamlessly link your facilities personnel with the many diverse building systems they oversee, helping them monitor and control:

• Boiler systems
• Internal and external lighting systems
• Heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning levels and schedules
• Energy meters (and the scope and story of their readings)
• Building controllers
• Rooftop units
• Security operations (activation, alerts, access records, cameras, and more)

Unifying these systems in strides made in IoT software with BACnet connections tools like ODIN, even if they each have automation devices from different manufacturers, has several major benefits in store for the building management industry as we delve deeper into the 21st century.

• Cost: Fewer systems to manage, when paired with a centralized operation, means lower material costs and simplified management.  Money can then be devoted to essential systems, as fewer resources will need to be sunk into costly training and operations personnel who’ll need to operate more traditional separate systems.

• Time: Because these systems can be controlled and monitored from anywhere, it’s becoming easier than ever to operate them in a time-efficient manner and avoid unnecessary delays or travel within and without the building.

• Intelligence: Real-time insights and extensive analytics available from the cloud allow your building to operate at peak productivity as your management team has the context to be more responsible and react more quickly.

• Customization: Give security guards access to the lighting systems at night, and executives access to data on energy cost analytics.  In a customizable system with tiered controls, access to certain aspects of the BAS can be delegated to the parties that need them, so that not everyone has to go through the BAS manager.

The Internet of Things has only begun to demonstrate the ways in which it can automate and simplify previously complex processes in building management.  So far, these boosts in flexibility and observability have proven that investing in your choice of a BACnet product or object and a BACapp powered software to manage them is abundantly worth it.