Optimizing Property Management with IoT and Video Analytics
Swept up in the Smart City revolution, we see the significant impact of the Internet of Things (IoT) innovation on urban spaces and their inhabitants. But IoT infrastructure goes far beyond city planning and optimization: Smart building features, including connectivity, are being integrated into property and real estate projects. In fact, 43% of building managers in the United States believe that their properties will be impacted by IoT in the coming years.
While recognizing the value of these solutions, many property managers don’t realize how IoT technology can be integrated into existing buildings, optimizing how they are managed and maintained, helping them identify and proactively respond to problems, and increasing predictability and productivity.
Promoting Sustainability with Smart Sensors
Buildings are major consumers of energy, accounting for 40% of the United States’ total national energy consumption. Much of which is related to heating and cooling, but it also includes lighting, elevators, and other electrical systems. By integrating smart, connected infrastructure that can be centrally controlled, you can reduce utility costs and drive energy efficiency.
Leveraging the data from the connected sensors, you can derive quantitative insights about energy consumption. Property managers can even integrate this data with forecasting and trends relating to weather, daylight hours and building occupancy, and set the HVAC and lighting systems based on actual intelligence about when it’s used and needed.
Increasing On-site Safety and Security
Beyond mitigating costs, reducing risk and maintaining building safety is of major concern to property managers. Much IoT innovation revolves around increasing safety and providing robust security solutions. For instance, many buildings rely on video surveillance for monitoring activity, detecting threats and responding to incidents; however, by enhancing existing video surveillance infrastructure with video analytics technology, buildings can extend their security capabilities.
Video Content Analytics minimizes the risks of human error or distraction, enabling security to configure alerts to trigger calls to action for suspicious behavior, such as activity in restricted areas or attempts to enter the building through alternative entrances. It can also be used to investigate incidents which have already occurred, by searching video for evidence and identifying suspects that were captured on video.
Optimizing Traffic Flows and Throughput
IoT applications, such as video analytics, can also be used for optimizing traffic flows within a building. By transforming unstructured video data into a searchable and quantifiable asset, video analytics enables the visualization of data to understand popular pathways within a building, the most common entry and exit points, where bottlenecks tend to form, which spaces are underutilized and the reasons why. With this actionable intelligence, property managers can adopt an intelligent approach to renting, selling and utilizing building space, making decisions based on data insights and optimizing operational efficiency.
By analyzing trends and activity, buildings can anticipate high traffic based on past events or detect crowds forming in real-time. For instance, leveraging the data from smart sensors in a building parking lot, the property manager can prepare for higher traffic when sensors detect the parking lot filling up. As a result, the manager can ensure there is proper security coverage, access to enough entryways and exits, and pathways within the building are comfortably navigable.
Facilitating Comfort and Cleanliness
By simply utilizing the building paths data, property managers can facilitate efficient and timely maintenance. With the ability to identify a popular pathway, building managers can prioritize the cleaning of high-traffic areas. Aggregating this traffic data over time, the building manager can analyze trends about movement throughout the building and predictively hire cleaning and maintenance staff based on movement trends and patterns.
Smart sensors, such as Video Content Analytics systems, often include an alerting function, so building managers could even proactively detect messes and mobilize cleaning staff: For instance, an alert can be configured for every time a certain number of people has entered the building. This way the building manager can ensure the high traffic areas are cleaned in proportion to the actual traffic within the space.
According to Gartner, “IoT will help reduce the cost of energy, spatial management and building maintenance by up to 30%.” With systems such as video analytics and smart heating and cooling solutions, properties can mitigate risks and costs and drive operational efficiency, while improving quality of life for occupants and leaseholders.