What are the challenges of smart buildings?
Long perceived as a passive shell, buildings are now an intelligent place to live and work, taking advantage of technological innovation in digital to meet two major challenges in our society: the ecological transition and the home support of the elderly and disabled.
Whether it is a detached house, a residential building or a professional building, the buildings must meet 4 needs:
- Comfort,
- Security,
- Energy efficiency,
- Data communication, in order to optimize the building’s operation and develop new services.
Home automation issues in the residential sector
As far as housing is concerned, the smart building must be able to facilitate the daily life of residents by allowing them to act remotely on their housing (house or apartment). Thus, we see the appearance of equipment driven and controlled remotely by a smartphone, a tablet or by Internet access (heating, lighting, security, opening and closing doors and windows…).
In addition to the remote-control possibilities, the smart houses must be able to transmit data in the form of alerts to report particular events or malfunctions.
More than just a simple remote control of equipment, the new generation of home automation must be intelligent by offering combinations of actions that are easy to manage and adapted to the needs of each individual. Thanks to these intelligent scenarios with the inter-connectivity between the equipment, the user gains in comfort (music triggering on arrival, switching on the coffee machine, etc.) and achieves significant energy savings (heating on arrival, etc.).
The challenges of home automation in the tertiary sector
In the building sector, the Internet of Things makes it possible to extract very useful data for the technical management of the building and its real estate maintenance. Thanks to sensors, smart meters or other smart objects connected to the technical equipment, the building communication is intelligent too and it makes it possible to support professionals in the energy renovation of the old building stock.
In addition, the exponential increase in the number of connected sensors to provide information useful in active building management (ABM) meets the government’s 2020 energy performance targets of reducing energy consumption by 20%. Thanks to smart building, active building management, in both new and old buildings, makes it possible to measure the environmental impact and optimize the automated operation of technical equipment (heating, lighting, air conditioning, etc.).
What does it take to manage a smart building project?
The implementation and management of a smart building project requires specific skills and a good knowledge of the builder/installer’s needs, in order to adapt the intelligence of the home automation system to the objectives set in terms of comfort, safety, energy consumption, data management and financial costs.
You are a builder and would like to integrate home automation solutions as part of a smart building project? Whether it is a new or old building, you must be able to:
1. Master the specificities of smart buildings
- Know the definition and characteristics of the smart building: performance, comfort, durability, communication…
- Distinguish the specificities according to the type of building: offices, collective housing, public institutions, etc.
- Identify smart building actors: understand their role and the functions of each
- Master the regulatory context: E+/C-, Ready2Services, NF Housing “smart building”.
- Understand the impacts of cloud services and connected objects on buildings
2. Locate the smart building in a global logic: smart city, connected objects, BIM (Building Information Modeling) …
- Determine and control your energy consumption
- Strengthen your operators’ productivity: supervision, remote maintenance, remote assistance and data mining
- Save money by optimizing equipment maintenance
- Increase the use of quality for occupants: comfort, accessibility building, security goods and people
- Improve the image of the building concerned
3. Know how to express your needs and understand the financial costs
- Define the functions of the building
- Develop usage scenarios
- Know the different technical management systems and choose the most appropriate: BMS, BMS, active management of buildings and connected buildings based on digital technology
- Translate your expectations on a special technical specification booklet (CCTP) and define a smart batch
- Evaluate the additional investment costs compared to a conventional building: sensors, smart metering, communication protocols…
- Return on investment: estimate the possible savings in terms of energy and related operating costs
- Forward-looking elements: understanding the evolution of economic models
4. Operating a smart building properly: interpreting data and involving occupants
- Know the mistakes not to make
- Interoperability data: definition and issues
- Giving meaning to the data collected: reading and interpreting the data
- How to get occupants to become actors in smart buildings
How do Overkiz solutions adapt to connected buildings?
At Overkiz, our technological solutions meet the requirements of smart building, thanks to:
Modular, flexible and multi-protocol boxes:
Our boxes are interoperable for connected houses and smart buildings (new constructions, renovations, residential and professional parks).
They are compatible with 20 protocols and 60 OEM brands and allow remote control of many disparate connected objects regardless of their brand or technology. The Hattara® Rail DIN box is specially designed for new building projects.
An installer application:
Designed to pair all connected devices (including those without Internet access), this dedicated mobile application makes it easy for installers to work. It is simple to use, fully customizable, interoperable with major radio protocols and proprietary, multi-compatible with many devices and brands, and offers updates to integrate new products and features.
A “smart home” user application:
Simple and intuitive, it allows users to remotely control many devices and program their own intelligent actions according to their needs.
An e-maintenance tool:
This simple and intuitive tool allows you to perform real-time predictive maintenance and remote monitoring of all installed equipment. With many features (facility mapping, remote product monitoring, real-time alerts in case of failure, real-time dashboards, user account management), this tool can be used by technicians, after-sales service or your company’s marketing department.
A flexible, interoperable and scalable IoT Cloud platform:
Our home automation solutions allow you to connect many products from different technologies and manufacturers and easily add new services over time.
The use of Cloud to Cloud allows you to integrate third-party environments. Don’t wait any longer to turn your building to a smart one!
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