Author: DigiConsult ltd

Drones are an innovative solution to deliver sophisticated analytics, provide a visual progress report, and allow worksite managers to track, map, survey, and manage projects easily. Plenty of construction professionals have already chosen Drone to take their projects (and efficiencies!) to the next level. It is your turn to take the leap and reap the valuable benefits with aerial image capabilities as a useful tool for successful construction companies.

Drones in construction

Industries ranging from agriculture to entertainment and media are taking full advantage of the benefits drones offer. One of the most rapidly growing sectors is infrastructure development which includes construction. With technology developing faster than ever, building sites of the future are likely to look very different to today. Drones have successfully been used to provide an objective view of a site’s development, which is particularly useful when disputes arise regarding a timescale not being met. Construction contractors see valuable benefits from using of drones into their business.For builders, an aerial view made possible with a drone allows them to better develop work plans, track progress and monitor and check for problems along the way. Drones are, after all, cheaper than flying manned aircraft.

The Valuable benefits of Drones in construction:

1. Marketing and Sales – Marketing and sales for construction companies require the use of photos and images. Getting aerial images required most contractors to hire an aerial photo company to take shots of a finished project. Drones allow contractors to take pictures of projects that are both finished and in progress.  These images are then incorporated into the company website or other marketing materials. Contractors can also take pictures of projects they are submitting proposals to show a different perspective for their client.
2. Project Management – Professional sports have used game films for years to analyze how teams move on the field. Contractors can use drones for similar purposes. Roofing contractors can see how their projects are set up and how their teams run during projects. General contractors can analyze how their resources are moving on the entire construction site. Opportunities for changes are realized by analyzing different perspectives.
3. Project Assessment – Successful projects start by analyzing construction sites before the work begins. Looking at projects from the actual surface of the project is one perspective. Reviewing the project from an aerial perspective may open up new insights. The new knowledge can generate new ideas of how to manage a project right from the outset.
4. Estimating – All good projects begin with a quality estimate. Contractors look for different solutions on projects that can help them be competitive. Estimators overlook these advantages when they have limited perspectives. The use of drones can give estimators a different look at a project. They increase their chances of bidding more accurately and more competitively.
5. Due Diligence and Evaluations – There are a lot of times when contractors cannot check for problems in a safe manner. This is particularly true with exterior contractors. Roofing contractors, masonry contractors, and others may need to access difficult areas to determine the source of a problem. This may require extensive setup to access these areas. Drones may allow these contractors to access these areas effectively to get the answers they need.
6. Aerial Infrared Scanning – Technology continues to march forward at a rapid rate. New infrared technology has been developed that will allow operators to complete infrared scans of buildings and structures using a UAV drone. The drone is equipped with an infrared camera capable of taking infrared images of the target.

Smart Cities and real estate premises have a huge bank of data, which are not being intelligently deployed. At DigiConsult, with its EC3 platform proposition, a unique and consolidated approach of integrating existing and future technologies of your premises ingesting data from nearly any source in real-time is an opportunity to use data intelligently. An EC3 dashboard connecting all data available on your premises on a single screen in real-time creates possibilities to deploy the data into meaningful metrics to render premises more efficient and in making informed decisions in a timely manner.

Ingesting Data from Nearly Any Source in the Real-Time by EC3

Within these mountains of log data lie valuable information that can dramatically improve your business performance. The EC3 platform powered by Data Analytics provides timely and actionable insights, derived from log data, which not only helps solve operational, security and compliance challenges but also provides critical business information.

In a shopping mall, an EC3 platform can provide the owner and other operational teams with live information / figures about the energy usage, waste generated, asset management, tenants’ details, marketing, green initiatives, security and allied systems and other associated matters with more adds-on as per the client’s specific requirements. An intelligent management information tool of your premises will elevate the level of efficiency with sustainable business etiquettes and better decision-making with instant response capabilities.

In an era of continual technological innovation, property owners should not be missing the opportunity to adopt Property Technology “PropTech”. Real Estate projects and anything related to premises should consider operations-related intelligence to achieve long-term sustainability throughout the building/asset lifecycle To make it happen, an EC3 dashboard is the first step in achieving operational efficiency and the data available on the dashboard have myriad usage possibilities. What sets it apart is the use of intelligent technologies and its ability to achieve integration and management of the clients’ assets and the services provided – utilities, security systems, fire-protection systems, public health systems, and field devices from other systems.

In addition to collecting and analyzing the data gathered in real time, EC3 also ensures that emerging technologies such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, IOT, and others will allow Smart Cities, real estates, and other premises to speed up the response time to its users and more so, enhance the quality of decisions taken through the correlation of data from various systems.

Benefits and Advantages of EC3

Transformation of what previously was just a massive collection of raw data into manageable operational insights, can have a direct impact on business performance with an EC3 platform.

• Provide an early warning about problems in premises and infrastructure
• Illuminate root causes of network or system failure
• Enable early discovery of security breaches and compliance issues
• Provide insights into application metrics and behaviours, and many more

Better uptime through dramatically faster issue resolution: Real-time Interactive Analytics enables enterprises to accelerate troubleshooting and root cause analysis. For example, the ability to find that a new exception has occurred 100 times in the last 2 minutes among hundreds of thousands of other uninteresting operational log lines lets you identify and solve the issue as soon as it starts occurring.

Higher productivity through better infrastructure operation: Uncover deeply hidden problems causing infrastructure failures. As an example, identifying a specific router configuration change that is causing applications to experience failures, in turn causing hundreds of end users to sound an alarm enables you to focus on the actual problem rather than chasing down countless dead-ends.

Better products through deeper application analytics: Enable enterprises to gain a richer perspective of application behaviour. The ability to gain instant insights into how a new feature is performing, what the customer adoption of that feature is, and if there are any unforeseen issues with that feature enables you to better understand how your products resonate with your customers. Development, marketing, and sales teams within the enterprises can leverage this insight and build better products, market them more effectively, and have more efficient sales.

Better brand through better security and compliance posture: Real-time Security enables security teams to more quickly and precisely uncover security issues before they cause damage.  The ability to detect a deviation in a behaviour of a user or a system can shine a light on a compromised user account or a server owned by malware that is about to spread. Detecting and acting on security and compliance issues could mean a difference between public image/reputational risk degradation and a stable, trusted brand.

Competitive business through easier adoption of new computing paradigms: Data can be collected and analysed from physical or virtual infrastructure within on-premise data centers. The ability to have the same level of visibility, no matter where the infrastructure lies, enables companies to leverage new computing paradigms, lower their costs, and gain business agility.

Better management of resources: The dashboard provides you with data about energy usage and patterns; you can have insight about the premises energy consumption on a daily basis or a detailed analysis about the hourly energy consumption trends of the different premises’ occupants. If a device is malfunctioning, the analysis can prompt out defects/failures. The same applies to waste management and water management and other utility services.

Better maintenance of equipment: All your plant and equipment and other assets’ maintenance can be easily tracked for faults and future servicing requirements. Failures of equipment can be minimized, rendering your premises up to quality standards and matching customers’ and markets’ requirements and thus uplifting your brand level.

The data processing and correlation feature that an EC3 platform offers can be used as per your requirements to achieve operational efficiency together with sustainable business. As applications and infrastructure change dynamically, an EC3 platform will automatically deliver visibility into what is happening in the IT environment of your premises.

Are you an existing premise or planning a new construction, DigiConsult brings you a tailor-made solution adaptable to your premises irrelevant of the sector you operate. With latest technologies application; Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Analytics, we promise you an efficient sustainable enterprise decision-making. Contact us on +230 2331636.

A few years ago, artificial intelligence (AI) was just a story you find in sci-fi novels. Today, it is a reality we live with every day, from our news feed to our online shopping software, AI is no longer a fanciful concept of the future. It is now something we experience and benefits from today. Zooming in to the construction industry, the data generated in construction sites is growing. AI is where machines exhibit their own intelligence through using algorithms to solve problems using inputted data. Data generated from images captured from mobile devices, drone videos, security sensors, building information modelling (BIM), and others have become a pool of information.

Utilisation of AI and robotics  in construction

• Planning with equipment: Artificial intelligence is used in the creation of construction plans. Autonomous equipment is considered as AI as it is aware of its surroundings and is capable of navigation without human input. In the planning stages, AI machinery can survey a proposed construction site and gather enough information to create 3D maps, blueprints and construction plans.
• Administrative roles: Once construction has begun, AI is being used to manage the project and control tasks. For example, workers can input sick days, vacancies and sudden departures into a data system and it will adapt the project accordingly. The AI will understand that the task must be moved to another employee and will do so on its own accord.
• Construction methodology: AI database systems are now helping to inform engineers on how specific projects should be constructed. For example, if engineers were working on a proposed new bridge, AI systems would be able to advise and present a case for how the bridge should be constructed. This is based on past projects over the last 50 years, as well as verifying pre-existing blueprints for the design and implementation stages of the project. By having this information to hand, engineers can make crucial decisions based on evidence that they may not have previously had at their disposal.
• Post-construction: Once buildings have been constructed, whether they are used for commercial purposes or it is a development of new houses, AI systems can be used inside the structure.

The added value Change AI brings to Construction

With the availability of data, AI-based applications have been finding more utility in construction.

Generative Design- Generative design is a form-finding process that can mimic nature’s evolutionary approach to design. Computer scientists have found ways to aid the building design process. It usually starts with clearly specifying the design goals and then explore innumerable possible permutations of a solution to find the best option. It becomes clearer with an example.

Risk Mitigation – Risk evaluation and mitigation happens every day on a construction site. There are hundreds of subcontractors working on different trades simultaneously; there are thousands of issues which get created and managed and everything is changing constantly.

Safety– Construction safety is the number one priority across all job sites. The BIM 360 IQ focused on understanding the behaviour and context around safety issues and then bringing it to the attention of safety managers. The IQ application automatically scans all safety issues on a job site and attaches a tag to them indicating whether it could lead to a potential fatality. Emerging Trends of Artificial Intelligence in Construction

Safety sensors-  The internet of things has automated our home to make our home more energy efficient. Similarly, the internet of things is automating job sites to make them safer. Wearable sensors with abilities of identifying the location of your workers and provide any alerts if a worker slips or falls.

Drones- Deploying drones and drone mapping software such as DroneDeploy drastically cuts down the time to gather accurate surveys maps and aerial images of a job site. This can be used to track progress without having to be on the job site. Additionally, the aerial images provide project managers with an additional perspective to identify issues and conflicts they may not view from the ground.

Autonomous vehicles– Major tech companies and car manufacturers are developing self-driving vehicles. While Uber and Google conduct pilot projects of self-driving cars, Caterpillar has released a line of autonomous mining equipment used for dozing, drilling and hauling.

Robots– Following autonomous vehicles, robots have started to infiltrate our home (hello Roomba) and the construction site.

A unified platform bringing together different controls under one umbrella ushering in a new phase of smart premises management in Mauritius. A unique centre which controls and integrates all existing and future technologies that would be required in any premises, from large-scale real estate to smart city projects, EC3 is the reference. Making all available data useful optimising maximum efficiency of your premises with up most business sustainability etiquettes, it is what EC3 proposes you. DigiConsult uses intelligent technologies and its ability to achieve integration and control of all clients’ assets, from Energy, Security, Water, Sensor and others.

The Enterprise Command & Control Centre (EC3) is now ready to shape the future

A single figure alone cannot tell you much and much conclusion cannot be made from a single data. However, when data analytics is applied connecting different data metrics together, instant and efficient decision can be made for premises management. Enterprise Command & Control Centre (EC3) is one of the largest and most modern control centres in the world. What sets it apart is the use of intelligent technologies and its ability to achieve integration and control of all means. It has been specially developed to integrate different control centres, with information on a single window for efficient and instant decision making. Different premises, from real estate, hotels, malls to smart cities, an EC3 platform adaptable to each project requirement can be set up. To achieve leadership and excellence by managing all your systems the integrated platform will contribute mainly in the management and maintenance of resources for long sustainability and efficiency.

Imagine a dashboard tracking different information metrics and bring them on a single platform where the figures can spell you intelligent decision strategy for the efficient management of your premises. When you think of efficiency in premises, the first click relates to energy efficiency and Air conditioning devices capture a lot of energy. If you are able to get details in real time about the functioning of all your AC (Air conditioning) equipment in your premises and whether an AC  is malfunctioning or one can be switched off or any other decision, the EC3 is the reference to let make a sustainable and efficient decision instantly.

The Architecture of an Enterprise Command & Control Center (EC3)

A platform where you get access within a single window, a myriad information metrics which will be used intelligently to manage proactive and reactive issues that affect business services and operations, technology tools and the infrastructure elements that interact with and comprise IT services for the enterprise. A platform which integrates different information sources from various IT stakeholders and turns this information meaningful with access to real-time information.

EC3 is a framework that brings together these elements and enables the enterprise to consolidate management across their infrastructure, tool sets, IT teams and stakeholders.

• Business Units. As enterprise IT teams evolve to serve as internal IT service providers to their business units, a command centre provides the platform to deliver and optimise these services in a multi-tenant way.
• IT and Application Services Teams. Whether enterprise IT is organized by technology towers, service categories or applications, multiple “tower” teams need to collaborate and have a consolidated view across their infrastructure to move fast enough to meet the needs of today’s business. The enterprise command centre provides the platform that teams can leverage to coordinate response and share common services.
• Tools Stack. Enterprises will have multiple IT operations tools in their stack, including IT service management (ITSM) tools and technology- or application-specific monitoring point tools. The command centre integrates this myriad of tools into a single framework that leverages (Application Program Interface) APIs and automation to consolidate alerts, events and metrics across tools to provide the right insights to drive action.
• IT Infrastructure. EC3 has line of sight to all infrastructure, cloud and application elements that are used across the enterprise IT environment. The technologies may or may not be directly owned or managed by central IT, but is part of the integrated framework to provide enterprise-wide visibility.

Use case of a successful EC3 platform in operation

This includes the Dubai Metro, Dubai Tram, Taxis and Traffic Systems Control Centres. (EC3) is fully equipped to manage mobility; to tackle various transportation challenges of the Emirate, and to meet the requirements of hosting Expo 2020. In addition to collecting and analysing all the data gathered in real time, the EC3 also ensures that emerging technologies such as Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, IOT and others will allow the smart-cities to speed up the response time to its users.

As applications and infrastructure change dynamically, an EC3 will automatically deliver visibility into what is happening in the IT environment of your premises. Are you an existing premise or planning a new construction, DigiConsult brings you a tailor-made solution adaptable to your premises irrelevant of the sector you operate. With latest technologies application; Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Analytics, we promise you an efficient sustainable enterprise decision making. Contact us on +230 2331636

Wi-Fi is the popular choice for home and business networks with the possibilities of offering local area networks to operate with minimal cable and wiring. Integrating good working principles for Wi-Fi in your smart buildings will tone up compatibility and efficient communication between your devices to create a smart environment. DigiConsult can assist you in integrating a proper Wi-Fi networking approach in your smart buildings to ensure proper communication and security between your devices and allowing business partners to be more productive and focus on the assigned task regardless of location.
About Wi-Fi networking and its working principle

Wi-Fi is one type of wireless technology creating connectivity between devices. There is a range of hardwired and wireless network technologies which are been used to deliver the intelligence within a smart building, including Ethernet, WiFi and Bluetooth. The Wi-Fi is a really mature technology and has now a large ecosystem which makes this technology reliable with affordable equipment.Wi-Fi is a high-speed internet connection and network connection without use of any cables or wires. The wireless network is operating three essential elements that are radio signals, antenna and router. The radio waves are keys which make the Wi-Fi networking possible. The computers and cell phones are ready with Wi-Fi cards. Wi-Fi compatibility has been using a new creation to constituent within the ground connected with community network. The actual broadcast is connected with in sequence, in fact, it is completed by way of stereo system surf as well as the worth of wires with monitor to classification prone. Wi-Fi allows the person in order to get access to web any place in the actual provided area. You can now generate a system within Resorts, library, schools, colleges, campus, personal institutes, as well as espresso stores as well as on the open public spot to help to make your company much more lucrative as well as interact with their own customer whenever. Wi-Fi compatibility can make surf with stare to company using their inspiring cable television much a smaller amount force down.

Smart Buildings wireless communications

Smart Buildings needs vary depending on the type of the building but generally, it is about allowing a better control and monitoring of the building itself and how it is used. There are a lot of different equipment developed nowadays allowing us to do so. Actuators, automation and control equipment are a part of it but the main components are the sensors. Indeed, a lot of sensor is needed throughout the building in order to be able to collect all the information needed and with the appropriate granularity level. All use wireless communication technologies and most work by harvesting energy from their environment (solar, heat, mechanical, induction, …)

Wi-Fi integration in Smart building for data communication with sensors

Smart Buildings and Wi-Fi technologies get the data and communicate with the sensors, actuators and automation and control equipment. There are only two possibilities: with wire or with wireless technologies. Running cables through all the building would involve an extremely high deployment cost, especially when retrofitting an existing building. Therefore, the wireless technologies are the only alternative. And their versatility is a strong advantage. The final goal would be to use only wireless device and run them on batteries for years or with harvesting energy from the environment.  Indeed, expensive and proprietary technologies can’t compete that much with cheap emerging technologies promoted by strong consortiums. The diversity of technologies is also a good point since the needs won’t be the same for a Smart Home and a Smart Building.

The Security aspect with Wi-Fi technology

Security is impartment element in the Wi-Fi technology. Security is our personal decision but having a wireless connection we should pay attention to protect our private details. We can connect easily to unsecured wireless routers. The problem is any one is connected to your wire less router using the data like download games, download apps and planning terrorist activities, shirring illegal music and movie files etc. So it is necessary to provide security to the wireless technologies based devices. All routers have a web page that you can connect for configuring the Wi-Fi security. And turn on WEP (Wire Equivalence Privacy) and enter a password and remember this password. Next time when you will connect your laptop Wi-Fi router will ask you to enter the connection password and you enter that password.

DigiConsult is the reference for keeping abreast of the latest technological development. DigiConsult can assist you in integrating a proper Wi-Fi networking approach in your smart buildings to ensure proper communication and security between your devices and allowing business partners to be more productive and focus on the assigned task regardless of location. Contact us on +230 2331636.

The building management and building automation market is changing fast. Internet of Things  is impacting the industry with smart buildings as one of the fastest growing cross-industry IoT use cases. Buildings today are more connected than ever. It is not unusual to control temperature, lighting, and other mechanical components automatically or remotely. With the IoT making it possible to access data about everything from temperature to equipment effectiveness in real time, it is easier than ever to control and monitor a facility remotely. The data collected by the IoT allows facility management teams to be more effective in preventing maintenance issues and reduces the time spent on repairs and regular maintenance tasks.

DigiConsult help you understanding the accelerating role of IoT in intelligent building management

The Building Management badge is predominantly for system integrators and partner companies which have been working in the building management and building automation field. It is an evolving landscape, whereby the Internet of Things is a key game changer .Since the traditional main background is mechanical, they originally provided rather simple automation services for HVAC equipment such as boilers, air handling units, chillers and heat pumps in commercial buildings. Over the years their skillset moved from traditional HVAC controls and the understanding of essential thermal dynamics of creating heat or cooling in a building to more advanced skills.These include programming and networking skills at a proprietary level as the technology evolved to control systems and integration into third party systems, whereby they, for instance, acquired knowledge about how lighting systems and fire systems work and about security access control and video technology. Most BMS partners don’t install the latter but they are able to connect to them. However, this is changing too and that’s where the Internet of Things comes even more in the picture. Today they are looking at this new challenge and opportunity to move to a complete Internet Of Things approach which requires true open IP protocols connectivity and network design, using hubs.

IoT makes building management become more central 

So, today it has increasingly become a mixed environment in the ongoing integration of IT and OT, in this case in the BMS space, with the need to combine several skill sets for a more future-proof offering in times where IoT becomes more important.  The integration of IT and OT is indeed key. Once a challenge for partners is to understand how they can bring these two technologies together in order to create a building that will add value to the customer.

Interestingly, this convergence and integration, along with changing demands, is putting building management more central again. This is also related to the growing importance of energy in the whole commercial building management equation. In a sense, that also brings us back in time.

In the early days of building management, the systems were called building energy management systems . Then people started dropping the ‘E’ and talked about a building management system instead of an energy system. Later on, with the advent of the IT world of things, buildings were designed around the network connectivity.  If you combine those evolutions, the Internet of Things and IT networks, there is somewhat of a debate as to whether the full IT needs to remain independent from the BMS or whether the BMS is part of the IT system. As you can imagine, IT executives aren’t keen to have a BMS on the same bandwidth as the office network. These are the kind of challenges that show up and impact our BMS certification program. We also see an evolution happening in BMS and IoT with a shift to the edge and an impact on the thinking about the network. Intelligent building management and IoT – standards and protocols amidst the movement to the edge

While the network architecture did not change a lot, the use of hubs and/or switches entered into the BMS world.  Many saw this as an opportunity to move the BMS onto the already installed IT infrastructure of the building but due to the earlier mentioned concerns, there was a choice for separate networks.

The future is bright for the IoT

As costs come down, it will become easier to implement, and more companies will take advantage of the benefits it provides. As such, maintenance technicians will need to become more proficient in turning data into actionable insights, in addition to their current skills.

In the coming years, the IoT will become the norm, instead of the exception. As companies find ways to overcome cost, connectivity, and security barriers and gradually update their maintenance systems, it will be easier to implement the IoT in commercial buildings of all types.

Imagine having, at your fingertips, the ability to track factors such as temperature, humidity, rain levels, wind speed, Doppler radar forecast, severe weather alerts, heat index, and barometer/pressure. This can happen by integrating weather data facilitation in building to reach energy efficiency and for better decision making. You might not be able to control the weather, but if you integrate weather data into your Building Automation System (BAS), you can at least control how your building reacts to it and take preventive measures to minimise damage.

The correlation between Building Automation System and Weather Data Forecast

Generating a moderate climate, reduces heating and cooling loads in buildings to enjoy maximum comfort while ensuring energy can be reached with the Building Automation System. Weather data can help facilities professionals make decisions that dramatically reduce the amount of energy and water used by building systems. With sensors to detect humidity and outside air temperature, most building-automation systems (BASs) are already making informed decisions about mechanical-system operations based on outdoor conditions. You can improve mechanical-system performance and achieve ta argeted efficiency level of HVAC (chillers, boilers, and chilled-water and ice storage). You can determine the viability of on-site alternative energy. Weather data can help you make informed decisions about the feasibility of installing photovoltaic or wind turbines, as well as predict a realistic return on investment. Be it a blizzard or a tornado, or other inclement weather, having access to forecast data helps ensure that both the building and its occupants are safe from Mother Nature.

Integrating weather data with BAS for optimal efficiency reach benefiting building occupants and owners:

1. Better performance: Forecasting provides building occupants with arguably the most valuable resource known to man – time. A building, which collects and compiles data on the weather based on the location in which the building is situated can adequately predict when temperatures will be high or low in the near future. With this information, the building owner can have ample time to make the necessary preparations to accommodate the building’s needs. This proactive move could entail redirecting energy from the heating system to the cooling system in warmer days and the reverse in colder days. Based on the accumulated weather condition for a given period of time, buildings can predict with a certain degree of certainty as to how the following periods’ weather conditions and the impact it will have on the building’s energy consumption. This provides flexibility in planning and budgeting along tangible outcomes

2.Optimised Responses: With the advent of IoT technology, commercial buildings have at least one form of smart device running within the property. It doesn’t matter if it is a smoke sensor in the kitchen or a motion sensor in the lobby cameras, most commercial buildings have some form of smart installation. By incorporating data from the weather, these sensors can be further programmed to relay automated energy-saving actions.

 In addition, using the IoT sensors for weather-related data could help with related events such as protection against flood damage. Most IoT sensors provide data such as temperature, wind speed, humidity and precipitation. When there is a forecast of heavy rain, the precipitation data can be particularly helpful in building defences against flooding of your building.

3.Easy Maintenance: There is always the need to have components looked at or changed over time. A stormy day could make maintenance very hard or impossible to accomplish. Collecting and correlating data on the weather allows for maintenance to be programmed on the best possible day when weather conditions will not stand in the way. By incorporating the local weather data along with the equipment data like the HVAC, you can benefit by identifying the peak operating performance as well as when the equipment is not performing optimally.

Smart Lighting has entered rapid development with the evolution of technologies, the emergence of new products and relevant concepts. Applications of smart lighting now have a more diversified market range, including commercial/industrial lighting, outdoor lighting, residential lighting and public lighting, among others. Among these fields, smart lighting solutions are first adopted in public and outdoor places. The expansion of global smart lighting is leading its way in residential application as smart home is gaining popularity.

The smart lighting system

A smart lighting system is controlled from one central unit that doesn’t actually require any kind of manual input or adjustments. While the main controls can be switched on and off by a person; it is possible to switch these lights on or off, or even to adjust the brightness or colour, from an app on your smartphone.

With smart lighting systems you, the homeowner, have more control over the lights that are on and off in your home – even if you’re not physically in the house.  A bit like programmable lights in workplaces, many smart lights can be set to turn off when they don’t detect movement for extended periods of time. This could be anything from ten minutes to half an hour, for instance, and would mean that the arguments over lights being left on in bedrooms when kids are downstairs would be a thing of the past.

Smart Lighting for smart home residentials

The major factors driving the growth of the smart lighting market include modernisation and development of infrastructure to transform homes into smart homes, need for energy-efficient lighting systems, increasing adoption and decreasing cost of LEDs, increased demand for intelligent solutions for smart homes systems, and growing awareness about energy savings among consumers and governments worldwide.

The development of smart lighting, a significant part of smart home and smart cities, will also be given priority in the public domain. Smart lighting systems can improve the energy efficiency of cities, bringing immediate practical benefits. The application of smart lighting can significantly save power, improve public lighting management system, and save maintenance costs. This is why smart lighting has attracted increasing attention in city construction.

In addition to smart street lights, smart lighting is gradually penetrating into public places such as stations, airports, underground stations, underground parking lots, schools, libraries, hospitals, gymnasiums, museums and so on.

Smart home lighting appears as a new opportunity

With smart home lighting, you can save more energy, thus helping both your wallet and the environment. This is because a smart light allows you to determine when exactly your lights will be turned on. If you have already left home and cannot remember if the lights are off, you will not need to physically double back. You can check remotely, even from halfway around the world. It also helps you increase your home’s security, in that you can turn lights on and off remotely to increase visibility and deter burglars. One of the signs that alert burglars to an empty house is when all the lights are off. If you are away from home travelling, you can schedule your lights to turn on for an hour or so each day.

The smart home is getting popular with lighting possibilities of improving life quality, work efficiency, and facilitate better management. With the improvement of living standards, the application of smart home lighting will bring more opportunities for the lighting industry. More and more applications of it will appear in residential buildings in the future. The smart home and smart lighting will promote and facilitate each other, so smart lighting in residential fields will have the fastest growth in the next few years.

Indoor application of smart lighting market is growing

In residential applications, smart lighting can be installed according to the requirement of a particular room or an entire house. The incorporation of wireless technology in smart lightings would help the market for residential indoor application to grow at a high rate. Reducing energy consumption has become a major objective for building owners, governments, utilities, and other stakeholders. Replacing existing lights with more energy-efficient lighting sources, such as LEDs, is one of the ways to reduce massive energy consumption; however, it is a small-scale solution for the issue.

Industrial and commercial applications take a share of global smart lighting market

Smart lighting plays an important role in industries, which have strict requirements of lighting. Industrial lighting is mainly used in buildings and factories, which have high power consumption and more concerns on industrial needs and safety. Lighting in plant buildings can be connected to external controllers, while the number of switches, time period of lighting, and brightness can all be set by smart lighting system. As for lighting outside the plant, it can be automatically adjusted according to the brightness of natural light. Indoor lighting can also be adjusted based on different needs, different seasons and weather etc., so that the lighting will be human-centric, and can assist in operation, save energy and avoid dizziness.

As for commercial lighting, it focuses more on energy saving and social benefits. For instance, in commercial buildings, the lighting systems always work for over twelve hours throughout the day, resulting in huge power consumption. Therefore, smart lighting can be used to save energy. The large number of lighting needs also lead to applications that combine other smart technologies. Currently, commercial lighting systems are also undergoing large-scale upgrade to smart ones.

Smart Lighting system has myriad possibilities offering for your smart homes as well as intelligent application in smart cities. Digiconsult Ltd has the right solution fitting your project needs accompanying clients throughout the digital transformation wave with end to end engineering consultancy services. For more information contact here or on 230 2331636.

As fibre replaces copper cable in more buildings, Passive Optical Network (PON) is setting the stage for the internet of the things. Systems that use one signal source to connect many devices are ideal for Smart Cities connectivity use case. The PON network connectivity complimented with wireless and fibre cable guarantees economic improved quality of life in driving smart and connected cities

About PON network for Smart Cities connections

Cost-efficiency, reliability and durability the intrinsic nature of optic fibre cables supports the rising data traffic by making networks more reliable and efficient. The use of ready and easy-to-install optic fibre networks helps bridge the digital gap by leveraging on the appropriate network channels that would enable the use of mobile, video, voice and data services.

With multiple device usage in Smart Cities and better connectivity with the core elements like farming, municipalities, construction, power, resources and infrastructure, PON network boost the development with smart connections possibilities.

The developments to strengthen the network architecture and spectrum helps smart cities’ primary infrastructure facilities such as traffic, security, lighting, power consumption to be managed and secured via internet. This would mean a streamlined access to a much organised traffic system, healthcare facilities, power, water and other infrastructure facilities.

Role of PON network in Driving Smart and Connected Cities

The recent smart cities developments are prepping up to accelerate high-speed broadband networks on optic fibre cables. To response to these connected smart cities demand, a very high FTTH/B or fibre to the home/business rate is required, leading providers of the premium optic fibre cables are doing their bit. To strengthen the hold the of optic fibre networks, industry experts have come up with the idea of deploying Passive Optical Network or PON by network operators to facilitate advanced voice, video and data services to customers using fibres. Additionally, fibre network convergence or collaboration of various communication services in a single access network allows the growth of communication and network technologies, increases users and boost the service providers’ capacities.

Other added advantage of network convergence is that it would serve as a single resource that can be used across multiple services delivery platform.

PON Communications Solution for Distribution Automation in Smart cities

High reliability and security– A distribution grid’s communications network has complex structures with numerous terminals. It needs to run reliably 24/7, and be secure enough to prevent interference and data loss.

High environmental adaptability– Distribution terminals often work in harsh outdoor environments where strong electromagnetic interference and lightning strikes occur.

Flexible networking and easy expansion Distribution grid architectures change rapidly and communications systems expand continuously. This requires that terminals quickly adapt to network architecture changes.

Easy maintenance and management – The communications network should support fault, configuration, performance, and security management. Numerous, complex optical links require automated fiber resource management.

Technology has disrupted every industry including healthcare, business, finance and others. Healthcare remains the fastest to adopt technological changes to revolutionise the diagnosis and treatment of the body.  Internet of Things (IoT) offers a multitude of benefits such as improving the effectiveness and quality of services by deploying it in medical devices. IoT initiatives in health care revolved around the improvement of care such as remote monitoring and telemonitoring as main applications. towards a more integrated and mature IoT-enabled eHealth reality

Internet of Medical Things improves patient experience

The internet of things has a myriad of applications in healthcare that benefit patients, families and physicians alike. Some hospitals are using the internet of things in healthcare to keep the tiniest patients safe and healthy, while others are using the technology to keep track of inventory. 

When patients go in for surgery they are tagged with real-time location system(RTLS) badges that track their progress through from the pre-op room to the surgical suite to the recovery unit. Family members follow the process in real-time on a big-screen TV in the waiting room. Patients are identified on a Tableau-generated screen with individualized numbers to anonymise them and comply with the privacy requirements of HIPAA.

The RTLS system is part of a wave of Internet of Medical Things applications that take Internet of Things (IoT) technology beyond common uses in healthcare such as managing medication inventory and into the realm of improving the patient experience. While asset tracking and connecting medical devices are important roles for the Internet of Medical Things.   Internet of Medical Things-based analytics track that time precisely [and] ultimately can improve patient experience and connection with doctors.In addition to delivering news to family members, the Stanley RTLS system also provides important information to physicians and nurses to make surgical workflow more efficient.

Towards a more integrated and mature IoT-enabled eHealth reality

• The vast landscape of healthcare stakeholders and IoT possibilities – healthcare is such a vast ecosystem and once you also start including personal healthcare, the pharmaceutical industry, healthcare insurance, RTHS, healthcare building facilities, robotics, biosensors, smart beds, smart pills, anything remote and the various healthcare specializations, activities and even (treatments of) diseases, that list of Internet of Things applications in healthcare quickly becomes endless.
•  Acceleration in all IoT use case and applications in healthcare ahead– Traditionally fit more in a consumer context (get an increasing place in the relationship between consumer/patient and healthcare providers and payers. Patient engagement and consumer consciousness play an important role here and in the relationship with healthcare payers also incentives and Premiums do. Introduction (monitoring, tracking, maintenance and so forth) is certainly also going to keep growing; albeit at difference paces, depending on the hospital, country and so on. Some will start with tracking anything from medical equipment and patients to hospital building assets and beds, others will move to the next stages.
• Internet of Things in the context of healthcare transformation and the challenges of information-driven healthcare- In a health data context de facto quite some data from medical devices and monitoring systems ultimately end up in Electronic Healthcare Records (EHR) Systems or in specific applications which are connected with them and send the data to labs, doctors, nurses and other parties involved.