This audio was created using Microsoft Azure Speech Services
As a commercial building owner, you’re likely always looking to attract and retain good tenants and maintain 100% building occupancy. As we start the journey to resume the occupation of offices, and learning how to reuse space, the importance of retaining good, engaged tenants escalates begging the question, what does a good tenant value? We believe that one of the key elements that answer this question is the implementation and management of systems that enable your occupants to personalize workspaces to ensure their own comfort while increasing overall energy efficiency.
Smart, connected room solutions are now emerging to help you meet the changing needs of occupants. The Connected Room Solution from Schneider Electric ensures the comfort of individual building occupants as well as delivers significant benefits to building owners, developers and managers. It helps to lower operating costs by increasing energy efficiency, make renovations easier and, by technologically enabling the building, generally making properties more valuable for the future.
With IoT at its heart, Connected Room Solution connects sensors and various control devices into an integrated solution that delivers new levels of control. It enables building occupants to control their own space, in terms of temperature, lighting, and blinds, thus increasing their comfort level. According to JLL’s study “A Surprising Way to Cut Real Estate Costs”, when employees are comfortable, productivity can be increased by up to 26% (3% on temperature and 23% for lighting control.
Connected Room Solution also integrates with building management systems (BMSs) to offer enhanced HVAC and air filtration systems control driving energy savings and improved indoor air quality – a primary concern for today’s workplace environment. In addition, cost savings can be delivered by optimizing use of natural light and employing presence detection, so the lights aren’t on when not needed.
10 key benefits of smart building, connected room solutions:
- A better user experience. Seamless integration of lighting, blinds and HVAC enable fine-grained control over occupant workspaces, enabling each occupant to control their own space for optimum comfort, for temperature, lighting and more.
- Design modularity and scalability. Connected Room Solution is highly modular, reliable and efficient. When designing the project, the solution bricks can be repeated a number of times to manage comfort throughout the workspace. The tested and validated solutions can integrate with existing BMSs, HVAC systems and other control systems with a high degree of reliability and project efficiency. This approach can be applied to a great range of building sizes with the same efficiency.
- Flexibility in building layouts and changes. Connected Room Solution software tools enable facility management teams to make changes in building layouts to suit tenant needs with minimal to no rewiring and labor costs.
- Analytics-ready. Today’s systems can already detect the presence of occupants in a given room, and more advanced sensors are now able to count the number of occupants in a room. Combined with advanced analytics, such capabilities enable automated control over HVAC and other systems. As example, when twenty people enter a conference room in summer time, the AC will be adjusted accordingly in order to deliver adequate airflow in the room.
- Increased energy efficiency. Energy metering at the room level combined with analytics, per room per use, enables facility managers to develop energy efficiency plans customized for each tenant, giving tenants the comfort-level they want while minimizing energy costs.
- Seamless integration. The open Connected Room Solution enables the integration of multiple devices, seamlessly and efficiently, via protocols including BACnet, Bluetooth, Zigbee, the Digital Addressable Lighting Interface (DALI) and more, enabling integration of virtually any smart system.
- Simplified system architecture. An open approach also reduces or eliminates the need for gateways in the system architecture, increasing project efficiency from both a technical and financial aspect while enabling optimized operations.
- Enables building certifications. Connected Room Solution can help make it easier for a building to qualify for various energy efficiency and sustainability certifications, such as LEED, BREEAM and the WELL Building Standard. Such certifications are given to highly energy efficient buildings with low operating costs, helping to increase the value of a property.
- Building block for emerging technology. With the comprehensive Connected Room Solution as a base, FM providers will be in position to take advantage of new technologies as they emerge to enable even greater efficiency in their buildings.
- App-based control. Mobile apps can now allow employees to engage with their environment in a whole new way. The creation of building and company specific occupant apps enables property owners to offer other value-added services, such as maps, environmental controls, personalized communications and more. Enterprise-level apps enable facility managers to view and control all connected systems from their phones or any web browser improving their ability to drive enhanced experience, while simultaneously improving maintenance and reducing cost.
It’s clear that smart buildings are the way of the future, and you can implement them today to get maximum value from your buildings. To learn more, watch our Connected Room Solution video.
