The “Smart Home”–a home wherein wireless lighting, appliances, HVAC, and computer systems communicate with one another under the direction of the homeowner–once considered a futuristic concept is quickly becoming the standard in new home construction. Such cooperative and intelligent design not only serves to enhance the homeowner’s comfort, energy use, and control, it also easily adapts to meet the homeowner’s evolving needs. Over time, this enhanced awareness and control leads to substantial savings in time, money, and energy.

Since the industrial sector consumes about one-third of the energy used in the United States, it makes sense for it to also turn to “smart” technologies. Referred to as the Enterprise Internet of Things (E-IoT), this “smart” information technology (IT) has been called the next wave in industrial settings; yet, only 43% of owners and managers surveyed by Daintree Networks were familiar with the concept.

E-IoT: Defined in Simple Terms

Enterprise IoT can be defined as the variety of wireless networks, devices, and sensors within a building’s infrastructure that are controlled by intelligent software. As these systems are connected through the internet, they allow companies to collect data, analyze what is happening across a building or across a portfolio of buildings, and make ongoing improvements that have a tremendous impact on operational efficiencies and reductions in energy. Analytics tools used in conjunction with E-IoT devices and networks also advance capabilities in identifying system performance anomalies, supply-chain errors, and system degradation issues before they result in wasteful and expensive business failures.

Lighting: A Natural First Move

Warehouses, distribution centers, and manufacturing plants utilize many types of machines and systems that consume energy. As the most prevalent networks in buildings and as the most accessible, controlled lighting, HVAC, plug loads, and small devices are often the lowest hanging fruit when it comes to E-IoT building automation. The easy access and immediate advantages of lighting LED retrofit projects in particular make them a natural first choice in implementing E-IoT automation. “Smart” systems raise lighting above a simple binary operation to a mode of data communication that can help facility managers and building owners learn more about their energy usage, and how they can use it more efficiently. The success of lighting retrofit projects also provide dramatic momentum in implementing interactive systems as a whole. For while lighting automation may be the most prevalent in a pure energy savings point of view, it is only one piece in a “smart,” collaborative infrastructure of devices and hardware which provides greater control over new contexts and safer, more-lucrative, and more-automated experiences for employees and customers alike.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our conversation on the Enterprise Internet of Things: Key Considerations.

Source: Daintree Networks
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