BSEE
NETWORKING & DATA MANAGEMENT
How LoRa enhances buildings with smart technology
By Marc Pegulu, Vice President, Wireless and Sensing Product Group, Semtech
Smart homes, smart oces, smart cies – wherever you look connecvity and intelligence are increasingly prevalent and at the core of this inexorable movement is the smart building. According to the latest figures, the market for devices that connect and interact in commercial real estate facilies via the Internet of Things (IoT) grew more than tenfold from 71.2 million in 2015 to over 791 million just five years later
f course, an expansion of this magnitude usually means substantial expense, especially in terms of creating brand new smart buildings. However, new buildings are not the issue here because they can be designed from scratch and have smart technology integrated into their structure from day one. The real issue for most building managers wishing to remain viable in the digital age is when existing buildings need to be brought up to date. The problem is that installing new networks into an existing structure with many hundreds of connected devices has the potential to become an extremely complex, time-consuming and costly exercise. Just laying all the miles of cabling required would be logistically challenging, not to mention the need to have a power source close to every device to ensure uninterrupted operation. The capital expenditure and disruption associated with this scenario could discourage even the boldest building engineer from taking on such a seemingly insurmountable task.
O Using LPWAN technology
It is possible to improve the efficiency of communications and building management operations within already occupied premises with a low power wide area network (LPWAN) technology. Using LoRa, a long-range and low power wireless technology based around sensors powered by batteries with lifespans of over 10 years, making existing buildings more intelligent can be a straightforward and cost-effective process. Also, since the sensors are battery-powered, there are no restrictions on where they can be located, meaning they can be put in hard to reach places that would otherwise present a significant problem. Other benefits include the ability to distribute data via a single gateway to recipients that can be up to 30km away. With robust signalling, the technology has no problem penetrating through the structures of several buildings with zero interference or signal loss, even in dense urban areas.
Building managers looking to retrofit LoRaWAN smart networks to an existing facility will be interested in a piece of kit that not only delivers all of the above but also does not require the installer or building manager to have extensive knowledge of IoT technologies. Designed for the smaller facility, the ‘LoRa Smart Home’ transceiver for LPWAN-based smart home and consumer applications delivers a low power means of achieving broad coverage for IoT devices that are connected to sensors and actuators. Safe, environmentally friendly and convenient to use, the Smart Home device has a simple and flexible network architecture that enables it to operate as an end-to-end solution in its own right or as a complement to other more familiar means of data sharing, such as Wi-Fi. By providing connectivity for low-cost and battery-powered end points – whether indoors or outdoors – the new kit interacts seamlessly with smart key locks and lighting to make network extension straightforward while creating a bridge to the growing number of LoRaWAN B2B and B2C solutions that are populating today’s IoT market.
uLoRabased Energy Usage Opmizaon System
Reduce real estate management costs
For the broader commercial real estate market, there is the ‘SmartOffice’ solution that has been developed specifically for the task by the technology services provider Capgemini. Based around LoRa devices and the LoRaWAN open protocol, SmartOffice is estimated to be capable of reducing real estate management costs by between 10 and 15 per cent. Also, Capgemini’s solution enables a single gateway to reach sensors across an area of 10,000 square meters, which again helps to minimise installation and running costs.
In practice, it’s possible to achieve major savings by installing presence sensors, meeting room sensors, desk sensors and comfort sensors (which monitor temperature, humidity, air quality, noise, light and much more) so that building managers are able to maximise office occupancy and so make the use of buildings as cost-effective and efficient as possible. For example, equipped with accurate data on how many members of staff are on-site and how efficiently meeting rooms and offices are being used, a building manager can monitor any changes in the office environment, decide how to use facilities for maximum productivity and schedule maintenance for precisely where it is required and when it is most convenient.
For organisations with smaller budgets – or just fewer complex facilities – the modular ‘Smart Building Reference Kit’ enables those in charge of buildings to implement LoRaWAN-based solutions on a step-by-step basis. To begin with, the manager can install the kit’s 20 sensors, two gateways and global 4G hotspot in the most convenient locations and choose what elements they wish to monitor.
This could be as straightforward as checking whether security doors are in fact locked or what the environmental conditions are in certain parts of the building. A key benefit of the Smart Building Reference Kit is that it enables a manager to validate network coverage in a building, ascertaining a gateway’s range of coverage simply by altering the location of sensors throughout the building until optimum coverage is achieved. To add to the ease of use, all data collected by the kit is displayed on a simple dashboard which the user can access via a standard browser.
No longer a daunting task
With access to these different types of kits based on LoRa long-range low power technology, building operators concerned with creating, managing and upgrading connectivity within their facility need no longer consider the process to be daunting – and certainly not insurmountable. Now it is possible to retrofit existing operations by setting up an IoT network within a very short timeframe and within a set budget. The network can then be expanded when it suits – either in terms of coverage or cost – rather than being dictated by what the technology makes possible. In this way, LoRa can enable buildings to be enhanced and brought up to date with smart IoT-based facilities without the need for extensive technical knowledge and without managers having to worry about causing major disruption or having a negative effect on productivity and efficiency within a facility.
18 BUILDING SERVICES & ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER APRIL 2020 Read the latest at:
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