As companies explore and implement strategies to adjust to new ways of protecting employees, doing business and driving efficiencies, interest in and adoption of technology to transform buildings into smart buildings are gaining pace.
“For many companies, building-related costs is the second highest expenses item behind employee salaries. Building managers must manage with fewer resources and increased demand from building owners, ageing and disparate systems, new ways of working, increasing demand for user friendliness and space optimisation. Internet of things (IOT) technology addresses all these issues,” says André Strauss, Chief Commercial Officer: Sales at IoT.nxt.
“Many companies have implemented some or components of smart technologies to improve efficiencies in the overall management of facilities – offices, factories, warehouses, retail space – for some time. The new challenges created by the impact of COVID-19 on all business has accelerated the adoption of a range of solutions to transform existing buildings into fully fledged smart buildings,” Strauss says.
“IOT solutions allow for building management system integration, occupancy monitoring, environmental condition monitoring and electricity metering. It provides a building manager with a consolidated view of all systems, real-time visualisation and analytics reports,” notes Strauss.
Nico Steyn, IoT.nxt CEO, says the business disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic demands businesses to be agile. “Moving forward, what is going to become more and more apparent is that it is not necessarily dependent on digital, but the level of improvement delivered by harnessing these technologies.”
IoT.nxt’s building management system integration uses pre-existing integrations done on most mainstream BMS brands and protocols to create a consolidated, focused view of a single or multiple BMS systems. The company’s Raptor edge gateway technology is used to integrate into the BMS via the network or controllers and enables real-time data monitoring and system control.
The company’s CoVision platform, launched in May this year, is a blend of hardware and software that was specifically developed to help companies manage social distancing requirements that are in effect at multiple businesses around the world. CoVision helps with the monitoring and management of public spaces so that social distancing restrictions can be enforced. This technology has paved the way for businesses to make a more sustainable entry into digital buildings.
IoT.nxt’s comprehensive smart buildings solution is active at the Midrand campus of Vodacom (majority shareholder in IoT.nxt) and will be rolled out at the head office of Vodafone in Paddington, London, later this year.
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IoT.nxt
IoT.nxt®’s IoT platform is a digital transformation enabler making the Internet of Things a reality. IoT.nxt® unlocks exponential business value by harnessing the power of system and device interoperability. Their unique technology stack bridges the gap between all protocols in the industrial ecosystem, creating a single integration/translation point. Its patented Raptor gateway allows organisations to retrofit all existing legacy systems with no rip and replace. A powerful data abstraction model further translates anything and everything from the edge, supporting a true subscription based big data model. IoT.nxt® has offices in South Africa, The Netherlands and USA. South African telecoms company Vodacom, a subsidiary of Vodafone, acquired a majority stake in IoT.nxt® in 2019.