Smart buildings extend traditional building automation with more sensors, open data access and analytics. The building automation system remains the control core for HVAC and lighting, but IoT adds wireless occupancy and air-quality sensors, sub-metering, and integration with booking and security systems. The data lets operators run ventilation on demand instead of on schedule and spot equipment that is wasting energy.
A common deployment is occupancy-driven lighting and heating in an office that is only partly used on any given day. The challenge is integration: legacy systems speak BACnet or KNX, new sensors speak LoRaWAN or Zigbee, and someone has to map it all into one data model. Retrofitting an existing building is usually harder than specifying a new one.
Part of the IoT Glossary. Spotted an error or a missing term? Tell us.