Connected Lighting Iot

As cities grow, smart street lighting will play an important role.  According to the United Nations, 68% of the world population is projected to live in urban areas by 2050. North America, one of the most urbanized regions of the world, had 82% of its population living in urban areas in 2018.

The latest beacon technology is enabling new applications in healthcare, higher-ed, and commercial real estate.

Initially, energy savings was the central driver for smart building technology adoption. Substantiating that investment was straightforward and easily backed up.  Fast forward a decade, and many building owners and managers now realize the additional benefits of a connected, sensor-laden technology infrastructure that supports building efficiencies, predictive maintenance, physical security, and increased occupant safety, comfort and productivity. Energy savings remain part of the conversation, but it is not the only motivation.

Editor’s note: This popular post was originally published in February 2018 and has been updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

The term ‘Internet of Things’ is a growing topic of conversation. What exactly is the Internet of Things (IoT) and what does smart lighting have to do with it?

Today, most facility managers are looking to increase building efficiencies while also preparing for the Internet of Things (IoT). Maintaining or increasing building efficiencies is no small task in its own right. When you add the impending explosion of IoT and smart building applications that ‘every facility manager should be prepared for’, the knowledge level and number of decisions required by facility management increases exponentially. What IoT applications should you launch and what infrastructure will need to be in place to support them?

Higher education is undergoing profound changes.  Declining enrollments, changing student demographics, and waning retention rates have institutions sharpening their competitive edges. In the fight to recruit and retain a larger share of the dwindling pool of potential students, many schools are looking to build new or retrofit their aging buildings. However, universities are finding limited capital funding is forcing them to do more with less.

This blog post is the second of a 2-part introductory series on Data Analytics in Commercial Real Estate. In part 1, we showed that data analytics leverages verified data to reach decisions rather than using intuition or guesswork and is core to driving strategic business decisions.

Implementing or improving a data analytics program in commercial real estate requires upfront planning and several critical steps. Here’s a quick checklist to follow:

“Data” is increasingly important to all organizations in the way that energy, raw materials and talent are. It has become an essential resource – table stakes, really – for today’s operations. And while “big data” is a buzzword that sometimes deters decision-makers from paying further attention to the topic, there are compelling reasons to look past the hype and focus on substance instead; that is, to put technology to work to extract business value from data.

Gartner, a global research and advisory firm defines big data as high-volume, high-velocity and/or high-variety information assets that demand cost-effective, innovative forms of information processing that enable enhanced insight, decision-making, and process automation.

Most facility managers today are using building management systems (BMS), also known as building automation control systems (BACS), to control and monitor some of their buildings’ mechanical and electrical equipment such as heating, ventilation, air conditioning (HVAC), and safety and security systems. Centrally managing these individual systems has enabled facility teams to take advantage of a number of operational and energy efficiencies. For many facilities, however, the lighting system has remained separate from the BMS. This has translated into an opportunity loss. Further optimization of energy usage and operations through lighting system and BMS integration could be significant.