Smart Building Technology: Examples and Opportunities
Wednesday, 2nd February 2022
In 2019, over two-thirds of companies stated their intention to increase investment in smart building technology. But the pandemic supercharged this demand. Current estimates expect the smart building market to grow five-fold by 2028.
Across the world, businesses recognise the value of better connected, smarter, and more efficient buildings. And while our workplaces have already undergone dramatic changes in recent years—with hybrid working and digital workplaces leading the way—smart building systems are ushering in a new revolution.
Infogrid is driving this transformation. By combining the smallest IoT sensors with artificial intelligence technology, our Healthy Buildings System enables companies of all sizes to drive efficiency, support their employees, and bring down costs.
Here, we want to show you some of the most compelling examples of smart building technologies—and what benefits they’ll bring for you.
What is Smart Building Technology?
Smart building technology refers to the tools you can use to monitor, analyse, and optimise the way your buildings run. These systems can help you make your workplace healthier, happier, more productive, and less costly to manage, from boosting energy efficiency to improving indoor air quality.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is at the core of smart buildings. IoT technologies enable more profound insight into the everyday objects in your workplace—from pipes to furniture, from heating systems to windows and doors. Intelligent building technology turns these conventionally inert things into connected devices with IoT sensors.
From here, the opportunities are potentially limitless. Equipped with these sensors, your buildings can provide real-time updates on building usage, energy consumption, maintenance, cleanliness, air quality, viral risk, and more.
In short, smart building solutions give you greater visibility than ever before on the health of your commercial buildings. Let’s see it in action.
How do smart buildings work?
Smart buildings work by extracting data from the built environment and translating it into live, actionable insights that you can use to improve your building’s efficiency.
At Infogrid, our Healthy Buildings System works through three main steps: IoT sensors, AI-driven insights, and a single data hub to track your buildings’ performance:
Smart sensors. At Infogrid, our smart building solution starts with the world’s smallest easy-install, zero-maintenance IoT sensors. Deploy them across your building portfolio, and they’ll collect data on indoor air quality (IAQ), occupancy, footfall, viral risk, climate, and more.
Artificial intelligence system. Real-time data from our sensors are fed through AI algorithms to provide you with targeted, actionable insights you can use to optimise your buildings.
A central dashboard for data tracking. Receive critical data in real time from wherever you are—all on a single screen, no matter the size of your portfolio.
Smart Buildings: Use Cases and Opportunities
What opportunities does smart building technology offer? Here are just some of the ways our Healthy Buildings System can revolutionise the way you manage your buildings:
Track occupancy
Infogrid’s 2022 Return to Work report revealed how the pandemic has made employees more aware of—and more concerned about—the health of the workplace than ever before. With attitudes to workplace wellbeing changed for good, we expect office occupancy to remain a critical concern.
Thanks to smart occupancy sensors, managing occupancy and building use has never been easier. By delivering data on footfall and room use to your central dashboard, Infogrid’s system shows how many employees are using different parts of your office space at any given time.
With this information, you can better enable social distancing and reassure staff.
Monitor and improve air quality
According to Infogrid research, 58% of employees would feel more comfortable returning to the workplace if their employers tracked indoor air quality (IAQ) data. Incredibly, 56% want to see IAQ data themselves. With smart IAQ sensors, you can make this possible.
Our IAQ sensors can give you insight into carbon dioxide levels, temperature, humidity, light, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), particulate matter, and other indoor air pollutants in your workplace. That’s all the data you will need to improve your IAQ.
Start by optimising your heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system, removing pollutants or improving cleaning— ensuring a healthier working environment for all your employees.
Find out more: How to Improve Indoor Air Quality in the Workplace
Remote maintenance
For facilities managers, manual, on-site maintenance can be costly and inefficient. Thanks to smart building technologies, it doesn’t have to be this way.
With Infogrid’s sensors, you can turn manual tasks into smart, fully automated processes. For example, we can install leak detection sensors onto your buildings to help prevent water damage through automated alerts. Or we can help you monitor pathogens such as legionella—entirely remotely.
We saved one facility management company 81% of labour time on compliance by automating maintenance.
Optimise climate control
Uncomfortable temperatures, low humidity, and inadequate lighting all impact employee productivity and wellbeing. According to one study, only 1 in 3 employees believe the temperature of their workplace is ideal for them to do their best work.
Smart technology can help you do better for your employees while improving your buildings’ energy efficiency. By tracking temperature, humidity, ventilation, and lighting trends in different parts of your facilities, you can reduce energy costs while ensuring that your staff have the optimal conditions to work in.
Infogrid can make this happen. We helped one supermarket save $1.6 million every year just on their HVAC system.
How Can Smart Buildings Improve Your Workplace? 5 Concrete Benefits
Why bother with innovative building technology? Simply because it can transform the way you manage your building. Here’s how:
Better understand your building. Efforts to make workplaces more efficient have been held back by a lack of data on how buildings run. Thanks to smart systems, that’s now changing. They offer concrete insights into your building, from heating to lighting to pipe health, occupancy, and air quality. Ultimately, deeper knowledge means greater control.
Drive sustainability. The built environment is responsible for 39% of the world’s carbon emissions. If businesses and nations are serious about meeting their climate targets, there’s no choice but to make buildings more efficient.
Smart technologies make this possible. With our IoT sensors, we helped one retail company save 800 tonnes of carbon dioxide a year on its HVAC alone.
Improve employee wellbeing. Employees deserve a healthy place to work. But that’s not just in their interest. According to one study, improved air quality can make employees 8% more productive—equivalent to an average of $6,500 a year per employee.
Enable staffing efficiencies. Manual maintenance—including cleaning, air quality monitoring, leak detection, and employee headcounts—is time-consuming and ultimately costly for facilities managers. By better understanding your building, you can make smarter maintenance decisions and save on staffing costs.
For example, we saved one London theatre 2000 labour hours in a year.
Bring down costs. IoT solutions save you money in the long run. Between reduced staffing, energy efficiencies, and predictive maintenance interventions, smart building technologies lower the cost of running a building—for both businesses and facilities managers.
Get in Touch with Infogrid
At Infogrid, our smart building technology helps organisations and facilities managers create happier, healthier, and more productive workplaces for all of their employees.
We want to help you too. Learn more about the stats in our recent report on the Hybrid Workplace.
