What are the advantages of smart building and IoT? Conventional building automation vs. smart building assistant

What is a smart building?

Put simply, all of the building's communication interfaces come together centrally to recognize data correlations and are prepared in a user-friendly way via a single point of information (such as Eliona) and made available via UX.

1) On/Off. Isolated systems without control or analysis options.

2) On/Off via app. Isolated systems with the ability to control their own behavior and view their own data.

3) On/Off plus reading of data at a central location. The systems are still used in isolation, with integration between them, data extraction, data collection and the display of analyses being carried out at a central location.

4) On/Off with UX and bidirectional data exchange. Building UX defines the technology experience, systems are selected according to their benefits and contribution to the vision. The integration enables two-way communication, which allows uniform control in the building and via mobile apps as well as central analysis.

5) On/Off with UX and bidirectional data exchange via central data gateway. Building UX defines the technology experience, devices are selected for their utility and contribution to the vision. Data Gateway communicates with a single layer that provides a single building interface. The components are designed to be easily upgraded over time.

Let's take a meeting room as a concrete example and analyze the parameters of humidity, temperature and occupancy:

Conventional room monitoring - The conventionally wired sensors are connected to the building management system and read out in the expert system. The journey of the data ends in the data silo and cannot be processed any further. Roughly simplified, we estimate approx. CHF 2,500 for the sensor, the cabling and the engineering.

Room monitoring via IoT and Smart Building Assistant - The wireless and variably positioned IoT sensor sends the data to the Smart Building Assistant via a central gateway. Roughly simplified costs: CHF 100 for the sensor, CHF 100 for the gateway and subscription costs for the smart building software of CHF 100/month.

In terms of costing, conventional room monitoring pays for itself after around 2 years and is cheaper than the IoT solution in the longer term. Theoretically.

In contrast to conventional building automation, smart buildings look at the big picture and think in terms of overarching business processes. In addition, the specific benefit for the end user plays a central role. The data does not end up in a silo but can be passed on to the end user. An employee can now check the comfort of the meeting room and derive measures without an expert system or call up the occupancy of the meeting room (occupied/free).

Indirect monetary added value has an impact. When integrated into the overall ecosystem of an infrastructure, many processes can be simplified and employee or customer satisfaction can be significantly increased - which in turn increases efficiency and performance.

Room monitoring is just one example among many. Within a smart building, the values of various assets can be significantly increased and tailored to target groups. The following graphic shows just some of the possible examples, which are also shown in Eliona, for example.