Smart Building Tech Trends

We wanted to share our thoughts on the top tech trends within the smart buildings industry. The insights, gathered through qualitative engagement with a number of smart building’s key stakeholders, offer a well-rounded understanding of the current top technology trends that are emerging across the industry.

1. Occupant Wellbeing

Occupant wellbeing has always been important, but before the pandemic, it was viewed as a ‘nice to have’, a light benefit. Smaller companies struggled to justify the investment in this area; however, sustainability is driven by government policies, and the associated cost savings benefitting the building managers/owners. Therefore, this was previously seen as the primary driver of smart buildings.

Since COVID, this has all changed. Overnight businesses were facing pressure to make their workplaces COVID safe - air quality, occupant temperature, people counting, occupant control/analytics and contactless operations were all in demand, with the aim of creating a safe workplace but also instilling trust and security to encourage occupants to come into the workplace too.

This has since evolved; as we start to emerge from the pandemic, businesses are adopting the ‘healthy building’ mantra to continue to operate safely and provide occupants with added benefits that they don’t get when working from home.

As a result of making people feel more secure, valued and happy, they become more productive, and staff retention rates increase.

Moving forward, occupants will want to be able to easily find a spare desk, communal areas, quiet areas, see the air quality, light level etc., to make sure it is a healthy environment for them to work in.

Combine this with AI and ML, and the building will begin to learn your individual preferences and act autonomously; for example, it can work out what the desired average temperature is for the occupants in the building on that day. To learn more about what is possible with AI in smart buildings, click here.

2. Smart Energy Management

As mentioned above, sustainability was and remains one of the biggest drivers of smart buildings. Government targets for net-zero carbon encourage upgrades and refurbishments to make buildings more efficient and minimise waste. This global initiative aims to reduce our carbon footprint, and smart technology has an integral role to play.

Smart energy management allows Facility Managers to understand where energy is potentially being wasted and indicated small changes that can be made to improve the sustainability of the building. Depending on how smart the system is, it could make these changes automatically. E.g. powering down systems and devices after 6pm if no one is present.

Using real-time data from IoT devices can provide a continuous feedback loop that improves efficiency throughout the building, revealing insights that can indicate abnormal usage trends, which leads us nicely into predictive maintenance…

3. Predictive Maintenance

Following on from above, predictive maintenance is achieved by smart enabling assets and gathering data to understand when something needs addressing ahead of the issue occurring. E.g. abnormal power surges can indicate an issue; this can be reviewed quickly and addressed before something breaks.

Sensors are a big part of predictive maintenance; they inform Facility Managers when scheduled tests and maintenance is due. It also allows automated tests to be completed, which saves time and money because some manual checks will no longer be required, and it also improves the audit process. Reports can be exported easily, and full visibility is achieved.

Wireless smart sensors can quickly and easily turn an older building into a smart one, retrofitting legacy equipment to gather information about its operational performance and monitoring critical assets like air conditioning instantly provides insight that was not previously available.

Click here to understand more about emergency lighting control and how preventative maintenance is used in this area.

We have an interview with a large sensor manufacturer coming to the amBX - Smart Building Podcast soon. Make sure you subscribe/follow, so you don’t miss out.

4. Flexible Working

Hybrid working seems set to stay. This means that many buildings will need to be adapted. Businesses will downsize, have hot-desking areas, communal areas, meeting room spaces and aim to create more of an experience within the workplace.

The same app used to gain entry into a building could be used for wayfinding or to find an available desk. This can tell the users which areas are near amenities they may want, e.g. a quiet zone near a kitchen so you can make a coffee or a communal area that lends itself to group work.

Occupancy sensors can anonymously monitor traffic flow showing Facility Managers how the building is being used and gauge how effectively spaces are suiting user needs. The additional insight allows Facility Managers to make more informed decisions regarding space utilisation. To understand more about how smart buildings are used for facilities management, click here.

5. Partnership and Collaboration

Partnership and collaboration have increased since COVID. Small, niche IoT companies are looking to partner with big credible IT and BMS companies such as Microsoft and Honeywell, and those heritage companies are looking to partner with smaller, more nimble companies who can plug gaps in their portfolio. This mutually beneficial collaboration is accelerating the smart building industry, making it more accessible.

6. Cyber Security

This is often viewed as one of the biggest barriers to adoption. Security, privacy, integrity, and availability of data are top concerns. Building occupant willingness to provide or share personal information and sign up to IoT services will increasingly depend on whether they trust the entity responsible for storing and analysing the data to protect their privacy and to use the data in a fair, legal and accountable manner.