overview
Leaving Legacy Wired Building Systems Behind
Most large commercial buildings rely on one or more building automation systems (BAS), running on wired protocols and infrastructure. These systems automate and control the core building functions, mainly spread across heating, air conditioning, and ventilation (HVAC) equipment. In the new digital world, any conventional BAS is far from efficient, as it fails to deliver timely and granular in-building critical parameters. This all leads to great energy waste, with buildings being responsible for nearly 40% of all global energy consumption.
What Makes a Building Smart?
Smart building wireless connectivity can eliminate the cost and complexity of managing wired cables and isolated point-in-time information. Yet unlikely to fully replace existing BAS operations, IoT offers new levels of efficiency and high-value use cases.
Building managers can transform their facilities by retrofitting existing infrastructure with a network of unified and scalable low-power, battery-operated endpoints. This unlocks improved decision-making based on real-time contextualized data and reinvents facility management.
Key Drivers for Building Digitization
Energy Efficiency
Smart building management systems facilitate on-demand, local equipment control for greater energy efficiency. By connecting core energy systems, building operators can accurately identify areas of high energy use and successfully mitigate costly energy leaks. Coupling disparate heating, cooling, and lighting systems with floor data traffic and tenant behavior, office layouts can be optimized for space utilization.
Staff Comfort and Safety
With wireless connectivity embedded into every aspect of the facility operation, buildings become responsive environments. Designed to adapt to users’ needs and preferences, smart buildings maximize occupants’ well-being. With metrics beyond indoor temperature data, facilities ensure tenant comfort based on usage data and air quality, lighting, and humidity levels.
IoT connectivity can also be used in making buildings secure. With real-time monitoring, facility managers can mitigate theft, intrusion, and collect time-series data for the health of their occupants. People and indoor asset location can also enable restricted access control and provide safety measures.
Operational and Maintenance Costs
Expanding legacy BAS systems implies labor intensive and time-consuming new wiring infrastructure deployments, which translates into great capital investments for any building manager. Wireless connectivity brings new levels of flexibility in adding, removing, and updating connected nodes. Apart from the clear economic benefits, IoT boosts building longevity and lowers maintenance costs by providing insight across building systems and critical equipment.
Wireless Solutions for Smart Buildings
Silicon Labs empowers device makers to capitalize on this revenue opportunity, as more building managers enter the era of wireless technology. Our industry leading wireless chipsets and modules, accompanied by software and development tools, enable secure and robust connectivity across fragmented, multiprotocol smart building environments.
With Silicon Labs, you can enable smart building devices with the broadest selection of hardware, innovative wireless software, and the most robust security with technology support for ZigBee, EnOcean, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth protocols.
Explore Our Smart Building Solutions
rESOURCES
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Designing for a Brighter Tomorrow
Works With Conference 2021