Technology is a great ally to optimize the resources of a building and to improve its security.

This is becoming increasingly clear to thousands of people around the world. Especially those who live in a smart city. According to Markets and Markets, the global smart building market will experience enormous growth in the coming years, reaching 105. 8 billion dollars by 2024.

A considerable increase if we consider that in 2019 this same market had a turnover of 60. 7 billion dollars. These data show a growing trend towards the construction of smart buildings.
People are aware of the advantages that technologies bring to buildings and how the functionalities of an intelligent building allow complex activities to be carried out easily and improve the safety of the building, among other things.

But before going into detail about the benefits of smart buildings, it is worth addressing the definition of a smart building.

What is a smart building?

The different definitions of a smart building that exist coincide in affirming that they are buildings that have a smart infrastructure that is in charge of obtaining information to automate different processes such as lighting, access, air conditioning, video surveillance, parking, or security.
Thanks to the data obtained through IoT (Internet of Things) devices and their interconnection, a building can automatically manage all the resources optimizing their performance. It can also provide valuable information for an individual to make better decisions to further improve the livability and efficiency of the building. The functionalities offered by smart buildings go beyond home automation systems.

What features does a smart building have?

A smart building offers the following features:

Connecting building systems

A modern building incorporating the latest technology is one that connects all the equipment and systems that exist in a building. In this way, you can be informed of what is happening in real time and access the historical records of what happened a few minutes, hours or days ago so that you can act on the building’s systems remotely in case of an emergency.

Connecting people and technology

Intelligent buildings are those that allow people to take advantage of the latest technological innovations in a simple and intuitive way. For example, accessibility for the disabled, with automated door opening, fall detection, voice control, etc.

Controlling the building’s expenditure

The use of technologies to build intelligent buildings allows their users to reduce the money spent on different supplies such as heating, light, water, etc.

Centralized control of building behaviour

Anyone with access to a centralized platform is able to visualize in a screenshot the behaviour of the building to make the necessary adjustments. It is possible to control and automate systems such as lighting, power sockets, heating, air conditioning, appliances, doors, windows, blinds, irrigation, DHW generators, etc.

Connecting the building to a smart grid

In the next few years, buildings will become more sustainable and efficient, and we will see that they are increasingly able to predict the ambient temperature and contract light according to their needs, such as when the kilowatt is cheaper.

To all this, we can add that the functionalities of an intelligent building bring different benefits.

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What benefits do they offer?

These are the main advantages of smart buildings:

  • Reducing energy consumption: With the implementation of new intelligent systems in buildings, you can reduce light consumption and achieve greater efficiency and sustainability.
  • Improve decision making: When a building has intelligent systems, valuable information can be captured to make the best decision based on empirical data rather than guesswork.
  • Save on operating costs: Intelligent systems in buildings make it possible to reduce building maintenance costs and identify resources that are being paid for but not used.
  • Comply with data protection: The use of technologies that respect the privacy of the building’s users, as well as thermal sensors, allows data to be obtained without the need to capture images of staff or people wandering around the building.

After knowing the benefits of smart buildings, you need to know what you need to implement to build such a building.

What should be implemented to create a smart building?

Creating an intelligent building is very simple if you know what technologies need to be implemented to achieve it. These technologies are part of what the sector calls a smart building system and should be implemented in order to take advantage of the benefits of providing a building with intelligence:

Intelligent sensors IoT

Intelligent buildings need devices that are able to relate to each other thanks to IoT technology and to capture building data in order to automatically optimize the behaviour of all the resources of a building.
These sensors are key in the intelligent building sector and in the other sectors that use IoT technologies. Therefore, in the next few years, its demand will not stop growing. According to Markets and Markets, the IoT sensor market is expected to reach $38. 41 billion by 2022.

System integration platform

These types of buildings also require platforms to manage the various assets of the building and to monitor their behaviour in order to make the best decision to improve their performance.

The ideal platform to create a smart building is Nexus Integra. A key solution to start managing in an integrated and intelligent way the different resources of a building from a global point of view. Nexus Integra provides an integrated operating system for intelligent buildings thanks to the real-time collection of different data sources. The integrated trading platform allows you to combine data from any source such as sensors, databases or external information systems and process it in both real time and historical data. With Nexus Integra’s dashboards, you can monitor the city’s key performance indicators in one shot. In this way, you can ensure that citizens enjoy the best life quality. Contact us and we will inform you without any obligation.

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