What this book covers

Chapter 1, An Introduction to IoT and Smart Buildings, lays the foundation by defining the IoT and smart buildings and how they interact. Traditional building issues will be identified, and we’ll discuss how IoT smart building solutions resolve these. It also covers the history and evolution of building control systems and how smart buildings contribute to smart cities.

Chapter 2, Smart Building Operations and Controls, explains how a building comprises several systems, each operating independently with a few connected to each other. This chapter shows how these systems benefit enormously by adding IoT devices that can monitor, measure, report, control, and optimize various functions when connected to a common IoT network.

Chapter 3, First Responders and Building Safety, demonstrates how IoT helps first responders to better understand the building with access to a visual display of the building’s footprint, which draws on both real-time situation alerts forwarded from dispatch as well as stored building floor plan and firefighting equipment location data. You’ll learn how the incident commander can see the building footprint and interior plans, the location of fire hydrants, and how building operations can achieve significant improvements in building access, security, and communications.

Chapter 4, How to Make Buildings Smarter with Smart Location, identifies how building data can be enriched with the location context. This chapter demonstrates how location-based services are being used to increase efficiency, improve safety, and enable a more enhanced user experience. It will demonstrate that smart locations are physical locations equipped with networked sensors to give owners, occupants, and managers more information about the condition of those locations and how they’re used.

Chapter 5, Tenant Services and Smart Building Amenities, outlines how building owners and operators introduce IoT and smart building solutions to improve their operational efficiency (therefore reducing cost) and to improve occupant satisfaction (that hopefully increases revenues). This chapter will explore the numerous applications that have been developed to improve almost every aspect of building management and occupant interaction points.

Chapter 6, The Smart Building Ecosystem, shows how new buildings incorporate IoT solutions as part of their initial design, and existing buildings add IoT components to make the building smarter. This chapter highlights the five major components; IoT sensors and devices, edge or cloud computing, analytics software, a user interface, and a means of connectivity to produce enormous amounts of data to manage a smart building.

Chapter 7, Smart Building Architecture and Use Cases, demonstrates how smart buildings today are not designed from the top down; rather, they are assembled from the bottom up, pulling together components that are independently designed and implemented separately from each other. This chapter reviews the various components, the importance, and the challenges of developing a smart building architecture and review several use cases. NIST cybersecurity best practices are introduced.

Chapter 8, Digital Twins – a Virtual Representation, demonstrates the digital replica of physical assets, processes, people, places, systems, and devices used for various purposes within the building. It shows how a digital twin virtual representation of the physical building is embedded with rich information about spaces and assets that can offer significant benefits to building owners.

Chapter 9, Smart Building IoT Stacks and Requirements, discusses how the complexity of smart buildings can be overwhelming, especially when there are numerous vendors, products, and technologies involved. This chapter introduces the Smarter Stack used to map existing building systems, IoT devices, and technologies to compare or identify gaps in a vendor’s product or from a customer’s requirement perspective.

Chapter 10, Understanding Your Building’s Existing Smart Level and Systems, demonstrates that to begin any smart building undertaking, you must first understand what the current systems are and how they are configured and connected, and then determine what modifications and new systems will be required. This chapter introduces several industry smart building assessment programs to determine the current level of a building’s smartness.

Chapter 11, Technology and Applications, focuses on the technology and applications required to make the building smart. It examines an extensive list of smart building application opportunities available to deliver smart requirements, along with examples for each. It defines the role of middleware in delivering these applications and concludes with a review of the codes, standards, and guidelines to be considered to prevent becoming locked into proprietary solutions that may prevent expansion later.

Chapter 12, A Roadmap to Your Smart Building Will Require Partners, offers a roadmap for existing and new buildings to make your building smarter as each new system is integrated. It makes references to previous chapters to indicate where that chapter’s subject matter fits into the roadmap and identifies the various partners that may be required beyond the construction crews.

Chapter 13, The Importance of Smart Buildings for Sustainability and the Environment, reminds us that smart buildings use IoT to share information, control operations, and enhance human interaction. In addition, because buildings require a lot of energy to operate, smart buildings are equipped to better manage energy usage, and this chapter provides ways to reduce carbon footprint, foster sustainability, and endorse eco-friendly alternatives.

Chapter 14, Smart Buildings Lead to Smart Cities, theorizes that buildings are an ideal starting point from which to grow smart cities. This chapter demonstrates how buildings are a microcosm of a city with similar needs to manage resources, water, energy, lighting, emergency services, security, and other services. Along the same line of reasoning, smart buildings are a microcosm of smart cities and therefore serve as the ideal launching point to grow and develop smart cities.

Chapter 15, Smart Buildings on the Bleeding Edge, discusses how the growing development of cloud computing and data management links together multiple data sources, inputs, and user types into a cloud of useful information to create a more efficient, effective, and engaging smart building. But what’s next? This chapter will explore the evolution of smart buildings, introduce the unified building, and list what many consider to be the smartest buildings and cities at the end of 2022.