he Internet of Things (IoT) is rapidly evolving and becoming a standard part of new commercial and residential buildings. Property owners and managers have integrated more and more technology directly into commercial spaces to improve workplace environments and increase efficiencies, as well as collect highly valuable data that allows them to make better choices.

IoT is the next evolution of smart buildings, allowing smart devices and sensors to communicate through an online system, explains Siemens Industry General Manager for Alaska and Hawaii Dan Hart, though the modern concept of a smart building started gaining traction in the ‘90s.

“There was a big movement to move buildings into an electric interaction,” he says, explaining that most heating systems were controlled by pneumatic air systems at the time. In a pneumatic air system, as the air temperature in a building warms or cools, a spring in the thermostat expands or shrinks accordingly, forcing air pressure to move a heating valve up and down.

They worked, but the technology was somewhat primitive and definitely limited. Many buildings with pneumatic air systems were upgraded to electric; this electrification of infrastructure also facilitated a move toward direct digital controls.

“You had electric actuators, and they were connected to systems that were called direct digital control systems,” Hart says. “It was still pretty basic, but there was some kind of level of interaction with a PC.”

This meant that by the mid-‘90s building owners or operators could monitor and control a structure’s temperature remotely.

For about a decade, buildings were designed or updated with various systems that could be controlled remotely but existed in isolation. The next step was getting these systems to interact with each other—and their operators.

“You’ve got these different systems from different manufacturers that are now talking to one another and coordinating their interaction in the building,” Hart says.

A strong example of this in Alaska is at UAF, Hart says: several systems in a number of buildings work in conjunction with each other through a server.

The benefit of intra-network systems is that a building manager or systems specialist can access the server and identify issues with the building. Particularly in Alaska, this can help address problems with energy efficiency; however, operating and maintaining such systems still requires a trained professional.

“The difference now is we’re trying to get interaction between people and buildings without having to have any kind of deep knowledge of either these kinds of advanced systems or really any deep knowledge of how a building works,” Hart says. “The IoT environment, really, what it’s providing is a more user-friendly interface for information that people may care about.”

IoT interactions are common in commercial spaces with reliable sensors that are connected to an electrical or digital system. These sensors allow for the control of temperature, humidity, lights, and security systems access, as well as metering for overall electricity and natural gas usage.

The ability to tie a building’s energy performance directly to its energy usage is highly valuable: especially in a state known for its high energy costs, wasted energy can be damaging to an entity’s bottom line. Siemens estimates that 30 percent of energy, on average, is inefficiently or unnecessarily used.

But data left in a void doesn’t help anyone or anything. “The next step was, okay, we’ll get the data out, massage it in the cloud, and then send information back,” Hart says.

Hart provides an example of how smart technology can improve workflow: traditionally, maintenance personnel for a commercial building might check air filters every few months to ensure they don’t need replacing. Once they do need to be replaced, the maintenance person would most likely fill out a form and submit it to the procurement office, which would then order the necessary filters. Once the filters have been shipped and arrived, the procurement office would need to update the maintenance person, who would pick up the new filter and replace the old one.

Alternatively, a building with an integrated IoT system would identify that the filter needs to be replaced, order the new filter, and notify maintenance personnel when the new filter arrives.

In fact, Siemens estimates that facility staff spend more than 45 percent of their time troubleshooting programs and managing system repairs. A robust smart building can significantly reduce that amount of time, allowing workers to focus on issues that can’t be monitored or attended to by AI (artificial intelligence).

And the benefits go beyond simple maintenance: an advanced smart building is capable of helping businesses reduce capital and operational expenses, increase asset efficiency, optimize security, and grow revenue, Hart explains.

He identifies the Anchorage School District as another example of successful IoT system integration.

“They’re really focused on natural gas and electricity [usage] for every single school in the school district,” Hart says. “That’s kind of a big undertaking because the Anchorage School District is like more than ninety buildings.”

By collecting energy use data from each school and compiling it in the cloud, administrators are able to plot usage trends to determine ways to save taxpayers’ money.

These data points are becoming increasingly important as climate change impacts temperatures in Alaska.

“The temperature that we use to design a building for in Anchorage is different than the temperature we used to design it for, you know, thirty years ago,” Hart says.

To maximize efficiency, building systems need to be flexible and responsive to long-term climate changes.

As with other technology that improves efficiency long-term, an automation system designed to boost a building’s operational efficiencies often has a high price tag during construction. A basic system could increase the cost by roughly 2 percent to 5 percent, Hart says.

“If it doesn’t need a whole lot of human interaction and it’s a standard straight up office building, you’re probably closer to that 2 percent number,” Hart says. “If you’re looking at a building more like a laboratory… where there’s some complexity in the ventilation or you’ve got to build up a system that is more interactive, that’s probably more than that 5 percent.”

Hart says he’s seen project owners struggle with the sticker shock of adding several million dollars to the price of a building despite knowing the long-term savings, and it often prevents an organization from choosing to follow through with an integrated IoT system.

“It’s buying habits of people—it’s always been really hard for people to make that investment. Even if they know it’s going to reduce our energy costs by 5 percent year over year for thirty years and it’ll pay for itself in the first ten,” Hart says. Infrastructure is expensive and requires significant capital; property owners planning a new building, or even renovating one, generally have set or limited budgets and need to reduce upfront costs.

But the competitive edge smart buildings can provide goes beyond energy efficiency—they can create personalized workspaces that boost employee productivity, Hart explains.

In this situation, a building has thousands of data points, meaning that lighting and heating can be adjusted to meet an individual’s preferences.

“Big tech companies, for example, have a hard time competing and hiring and retaining software engineers, and they’ve learned that they can retain these people better if they have a good workplace experience,” Hart says.

In 2018, Siemens acquired Comfy, a company that specializes in “intelligent workplaces for dynamic businesses.” Comfy designed a platform that allows companies to create more comfortable and efficient workspaces by decreasing the required amount of office square footage, developing feedback loops between employees and facilities, advancing flexible work models, and ensuring building visitors and employees follow safety protocols among other real-time, data-based solutions.

Hart says that focusing on building occupants as critical and individual sources of information has been a growing trend for about three years; however, technological advances generally affect all businesses in time, and the evolution of smart buildings—and how they can positively affect a company’s bottom line—will only continue as technology improves.