Urvashi Verma

Construction tech poised for growth

Construction technology, also known as ConTech, is poised for significant growth in 2019 as project margins face increasing pressure from trade tariffs and labor shortages prompt firms to look to tech-based solutions to solve them.

Strong U.S. economic fundamentals will drive further growth in the construction industry, which in 2018 recorded a 5.1% increase in total value according to JLL?s 2019 construction outlook.

Stable growth in the sector coupled with the rise in tariffs on steel and aluminum, concrete, lumber and others which collectively rose 5% last year and persistent labor shortage is laying fertile ground for the adoption of construction technology solutions, especially modular building.

Technology adoption in the construction sector by large general contracting firms picked up significantly throughout 2018, according to the report and is expected to trickle down regionally and reach higher levels in 2019.

The use of drones to monitor and survey construction sites was noted as one of the most commonly used ?ConTech solutions with 54% of general contracting firms already using drones and the largest national general contracting firms reporting 65% – an 11% higher rate of use.

Large general contracting firms also indicated that they are taking technologies that were previously earmarked for pilots and trials and rolling them out across projects in their portfolio as a means of differentiating themselves in an increasingly competitive marketplace.

Construction technology solutions aimed at providing solutions in modular building and building information modeling (BIM) will dominate, according to the report.

Construction technology contech — Courtesy of JLL: Benefits of investing in construction tech

Use of modular construction units to expand in hospitality and healthcare

Nearly two-thirds or 67% of construction firms reported that they expect demand for modular units to increase over the next three years, and 24% of respondents indicated they expected it to remain the same.

Hospitality and healthcare sectors are expected to lead the adoption of modular construction components which offer contractors savings in labor costs and improved timelines.

However, modular construction still a nascent technology solution does pose risks.

The report noted cost savings from field labor from modular building components were lower than expected.

General contractors estimated labor savings from modular units to be between 5%-10%, however, most firms reported savings of between 0% to 5%. n addition, nearly 90% of contractors reported their modular construction process was either not effective or needed improvement.

Investment in BIM expected to grow

The industry is also expected to invest more heavily?in BIM technologies. A BIM is an intelligent 3D model-based process that gives architecture, engineering, and construction (AEC) professionals the insight and tools to more efficiently plan, design, construct and manage buildings and infrastructure.

By serving as a single point of unification for both design and planning BIMs serve as a link for various tech solutions to interface with one another and offers greater transparency, accountability and faster timelines.

The market penetration for BIM systems has steadily grown, with 46% of contractors reporting having in-house staff dedicated to BIM work.

Budgetary constraints and a lack of staffing and?remain the primary obstacles to the adoption of ConTech solutions with more than 40% percent of general contractors respondent siting these as primary inhibitors to testing new technologies.

SquareFoot acquires PivotDesk, enables tenants to rent unused space

PropTech firm SquareFoot, a?commercial real estate brokerage, announced the acquisition of PivotDesk a?subletting platform formerly owned by coworking provider Industrious, which enables office tenants to rent out their unused desk and office space to smaller companies.

SquareFoot says the new acquisition strategically positions the company to meet the growing demand from businesses for flexible space offerings making it a “one-stop-shop” in the commercial office marketplace.

PivotDesk, previously owned by New York-based co-working provider Industrious, has become popular among small startups and essentially provides larger office tenants the opportunity to rent their spaces to small teams that need office space under flexible and cost-effective terms.

PivotDesk will operate as a subsidiary of SquareFoot and neither companies have disclosed terms of the deal.

The rise remote working in and globalization in the workplace has likely resulted in an increase in the number of unused and underutilized office space, and PivotDesk’s platform is well positioned to leverage supply-side dynamics and help office tenants with long term leases better manage costs.

?Planning your team?s headcount five to ten years in advance in order to secure an office lease is an unreasonable ask. Our products including PivotDesk let people break out of the constraints of a traditional long-term lease while still having access to the entire market,? said Jonathan Wasserstrum the SquareFoot’s CEO.

Wasserstrum believes that flex-space offers a value proposition that the commercial real estate industry has long failed to deliver.

Investments in companies like PivotDesk, which serve as an intermediary space between office tenants and co-working firms is increasing, firms such as Hubble, which is backed by JLL Spark; and LiquidSpace, have also received significant investment in the past few months.

Founded in 2012, SquareFoot uses proprietary technology and brokerage teams to modernize the leasing process from initial search to lease to signing and has made significant investments in its proprietary data and publicly-available listing platform last year.

SquareFoot raised $7 million in a new financing round led by Rosecliff Ventures, with RRE Ventures, Triangle Peak Partners, Armory Square Ventures, last year. ?To date, SquareFoot has closed more than 600 transactions doubling its transaction count and revenue in 2018.

Five steps for a successful smart building deployment

Smart cities are layered and complex systems consisting of an ecosystem of various networks designed to make the urban environment more intelligent and at their core is the smart building. ?While the goal of connecting smart buildings into a larger smart city may seem futuristic, today a plethora of technology and devices exist to make it a reality.

With nearly 90% of our time spent indoors creating an environment which provides optimal conditions for occupant comfort, workplace productivity, and wellness is becoming increasingly important to both commercial real estate tenants and landlords. Here are the top five things that landlords must do prepare their buildings for technology-enabled devices.

1. Robust wireless infrastructure

At the foundation of every smart building is a network of wireless systems responsible for connecting users and devices with applications that can enable them to work and improve efficiencies.

The abundance and availability of optical fiber and CAT6 cabling are the two most important requirements to build a smart building infrastructure. Without ample fiber, it?s virtually impossible to meet demands for connectivity from occupants or the majority of smart building applications in the marketplace today.

Robust in-building systems that use both DAS and small cells add significant value to both rentals rates and appraisal valuations of commercial real estate buildings. Doubling up on fiber and assessing your cellular infrastructure is the first step towards preparing your building for smart building technology upgrades.

2. Choose future-proof device and technology investments

Right now many of the smart technologies in the market place still very nascent. While many vendors quickly adapting to new technology due to a lack of maturity in products and standards it’s important to do your research and identify products to ensure that they and both current and long-term goals.

For example, if a platform is using a connectivity solution that offers no path towards migration to 5G it may not be the best choice for your building.

3. Assess smart building device for retrofit

While most smart buildings today are relatively new, there are plenty of devices in the marketplace that can easily be retrofitted into older buildings. Researching which devices are most suitable for your building based on specifics such as building type, age and leasing arrangements is an important step.

Assessing Interoperability or the ability of different systems to communicate using a standard communication protocol is also important.

For building automation systems, interoperability is achieved by BACnet, Modbus, which are requirements or protocols that manufacturers should meet when designing or manufacturing industry products to enable equipment and devices to communicate and share data.

4. Start small and build your way up

For building owners who are just starting out with smart building technology, it’s best to start small. Equip just one large conference room or auditorium sensors for activation of lights or a parking garage with sensors that enable occupants to identify and reserve space.

After a few applications are deployed to the workflow you will gain experience and insight, which can help you to add other suitable platforms and devices.It?s best to choose a proof-of-concept project directed at a clear and quantifiable problem or that you are trying to solve. ?Applications that drive energy efficiencies from lighting or HVAC systems are best because you can again a direct ROI from those deployments.

5. Update your team’s IT skills

Once operational subsystems are on IP network, the logistics and permutations between various systems become more complex and its important to make sure that building managers and IT teams work together to understand how to best use the new technology.

Most building managers have not been trained to manage software stacks and maintain algorithms that run operations. For this reason, it?s important that your building management staff has the necessary skills to deploy smart building systems.

How private LTE and CBRS are paving a path for in-building connectivity

While the majority of use cases which support private LTE have been in the industrial, manufacturing and supply-chain sectors, with FCC rules regarding CBRS nearly complete, the technology may be an ideal candidate for IoT connectivity in smart building applications where device density is increasing at an exponential rate.

As the number of IoT devices in use reaches a whopping 75 billion by 2025, private LTE is an easy pathway to 5G and can better support dense device environments to enhance both cellular connectivity for building occupants and securely connect smart building IoT devices to the cloud applications and the edge.

Until now, private LTE has been considered a less viable option for in-building connectivity because it operates in licensed spectrum- but that will change soon in the U.S.

The advent of CBRS will create a market opportunity which did not exist before says Roderick Nelson, CEO of Geoverse, which sells licensed private LTE spectrum for smart building applications designed for commercial office and industrial premises.

Geoverse is a licensed mobile operator and neutral host which offers carrier grade indoor and outdoor cellular coverage for commercial office buildings and IoT connectivity for smart building devices provides building owners the ability to monitor, measure and analyze smart building data to enhance tenant experience, save energy cost and enhance workplace productivity.

?Clearly the stimulus to the market is the advent of the CBRS spectrum coming from the FCC. The adoption of cellular wireless has been complicated by the use of a licensed spectrum. Now with the availability of CBRS, the enterprise is capable to take action to deploy cellular technology,? said Nelson in an interview with In-Building Tech.

Private LTE Roderick Nelson CEO of Geoverse — Courtesy of Geoverse: Photo of Roderick Nelson CEO of Geoverse

Private LTE holds significant advantages and the single network platform is well suited for two purposes.

First, it is a superior connectivity solution compared to Wi-Fi for enterprise applications because it offers higher signal and bandwidth performance, security, and has better voice call capabilities. Second private LTE can provide coverage enhancement for drivers of mainstream carriers, said Nelson.

While there are private LTE deployments that use licensed spectrum in the U.S. and internationally, there has never been a large allocation of bandwidth which will come with CBRS.

Based on the diversity of use cases which exist in the licensed private LTE marketplace which range from heavy industrial applications such as mining to logistics, warehousing, retail, education and healthcare, and commercial office buildings, Nelson says he feels confident that its adoption will be rapid once final approvals are granted by the FCC.

One of the main advantages to building owners is that once CBRS moves beyond its final stage of approval, building owners can remove duplicitous costs of deploying Wi-Fi and cellular infrastructure yielding significant cost savings in the long-term by using private LTE.

Private LTE pathway to 5G in commercial office buildings

While 5G offers three primary advantages–enhanced mobile broadband and higher speeds, low latency and massive device densification–it?s densification which will add the greatest value to the commercial office sector.

?We think that in verticals like commercial office, retail and warehousing the density of devices is going to dramatically increase and private LTE an easy pathway to 5G can support high connection density,? said Nelson.

?No other technology in the marketplace today has been engineered for a whole range of devices up to gigabit speed,? he added.

To this point, smart buildings today are increasingly using IoT devices to drive energy management, occupant comfort and workplace productivity and all three are significant to the enterprise market as more building tenants, especially in the technology sector are demanding robust connectivity and more landlords are using smart building devices and sensors to better monetize assets.

As an example, the Edge and Siemens AG ?S?building technologies headquarters in Zug, Switzerland, each deployed more than 12,000 IoT connected devices capable of monitoring everything from HVAC systems, humidity levels and lighting to room reservations and parking space availability.

There is still one government hurdle that is holding up CBRS development: ?the final certification of the Spectrum Access Systems and Environmental Sensing Capabilities (ESC).

How can building owners manage the costs of bringing 5G in-building?

By 2020, large-scale 5G commercial deployments are expected to begin and they make their way across the U.S. Building owners will need to adequately prepare for costs related to bringing 5G in-building and enabling best-in-class tenant experiences. ?

Addressing cellular infrastructure needs for the small to mid-size (SME) enterprise market has become increasingly challenging as the cost burden for in-building systems is shifting away from carriers and falling squarely on the shoulders of building owners.

While carriers are willing to subsidize enterprise solutions for large-scale DAS solutions mostly in stadiums, train stations and other large public spaces, the ROI for SME installation is not always sufficient to justify the costs.?

?5G isn?t going to be a silver bullet but it will create a wireless ecosystem which will play a role in delivering a new connectivity experience,? said Jeremy Edalgo, director of sales of Wireless Infrastructure Services at McKinstry, which has been designing, constructing and operating high-performing buildings for more than a five decades.?

5G In-building — Courtesy of McKinstry: Photo of Jeremy Edalgo Director of Sales
Wireless Infrastructure Services

McKinstry’s network infrastructure services group designs turn-key?DAS, WLAN and other RAN related wireless services and?solutions for enterprise customers, carriers and developers.?

Edalgo says that while the company is seeing a greater interest from customers regarding enabling a 5G connectivity experience, there is no industry standard for how to create it and many buildings today are not even fully optimized for 4G/LTE.

“In-building systems still need to be brought up to the 4G standards and need to have MIMO systems and bridge connections with faster data throughputs,” Edalgo said.

Eliminating redundant costs for 5G network improvements

One of the primary means of controlling the costs of bringing 5G in-building is to eliminate the need for redundant infrastructure by pushing active components to the edge. To achieve this goal more building owners are opting for systems which use a combination of small cells and DAS.

?That?s the model we are seeing from enterprise customers because it covers a wide range of building types from multi-residential, mixed and office spaces,? Edalgo said.

Using small cells as a signal source can add more value especially as DAS systems start to evolve and push active components to the edge which enables in-building systems to better manage the RF environment than what is provided by traditional antenna systems. ?

McKinstry aggregates several carrier-specific small cells from each carrier to the head end of a DAS to provide a robust connectivity infrastructure. Advantages of this model include faster deployment times and lower costs because small cells are quicker and cheaper to deploy compared with a DAS base station from a carrier.

To manage the increasing costs of bringing 5G in-building, more owners using pay-as-a-service models, which reduce their CAPEX costs and enable them to budget expenses for OPEX, said Louis Levy who leads the Wireless Infrastructure Business unit at McKinstry.?

Courtesy of McKinstry: Louis Levy
Business Unit Leader
Wireless Infrastructure Services

Levy says that while more Fortune 100 customers are becoming interested in outlining a technology roadmap towards smart buildings the value proposition from improving cellular service of occupants to improve ROI is more clear when compared to reaping benefits from IoT-based connected devices through 5G.

?People get why they want to monitor things inside of buildings, but how this is all going to work remains uncertain. ?It?s not an easy an answer as putting a DAS system in, CBRS which may enable Private LTE networks for the convergence of IoT sensors may be the best option but those standards still need to solidify,? said Louis.

Commercial real estate investors remain optimistic as market plateaus

Commercial real estate investor sentiment remains optimistic, quelling fears that effects from a maturing late stage cycle, rising rates and considerable pullback from Chinese capital would significantly dampen market performance in 2019.

Two-thirds of investors described the market as being somewhere in the ?middle?not quite a boom or bust,? according to a report released by research firm Real Capital Markets.

Significant opportunities for growth exist in both primary and secondary markets but will likely require more work to identify, underwrite and close, the report found.

Underwriting will continue to move towards a more conservative approach due to factors such as rising rates, the maturity of the cycle, the pullback in Chinese capital.

?For the past decade, we?ve experienced unprecedented levels of investment activity where each year established another new record. With words like ?plateau? and ?flattening? now entering the lexicon, it?s important to note how far the market has come and that in these good times, plateaus are part of a healthy cycle,? said Tina Lichen, COO of Real Capital Markets.

Rising rates impact commercial real estate investor sentiment

While rising interest rates are playing a bigger role in commercial real estate investment, rates are not likely to change buyers? market positions — at least, not this year.

?There is a lot of noise and over-exaggeration regarding market conditions. The volatility of the stock market creates greater opportunity for real estate because of the stability this alternative investment provides. As a broker or an investor, it?s the perfect storm,? said Kevin Mansour, managing partner of The Mansour Group, a division of Marcus & Millichap. He remains very optimistic about 2019, especially for investors looking to acquire properties up to $20 million.

The survey found that multifamily remains the preferred asset class among 35% of investors, with industrial as a close second (28%) due to a stable outlook driven primarily by e-commerce growth. Niche-oriented assets such as data centers, net lease investments and specialty office also remain attractive, while retail continues to lag.

Courtesy of Real Capital Markets: commercial real estate investor sentiment

Higher rents have continued to propel the multifamily sector, with significant foreign and domestic capital waiting to be deployed in this sector.

However, experts express concerns about the future outlook as upstarts of new construction have waned, leaving investors wondering whether ample business and corporate expansion will take place to boost the sector in the?coming year.

Multifamily investors are also closely watching the continued increase in rents.

?Rents now represent a higher percentage of gross income than ever before. While this is good for the landlord, it?s not good for the consumer?at either end of the spectrum. At some point something has to give,? said Wayne Vandenburg, chairman and co-CEO at TVO Capital Management, which owns and manages multifamily assets in the U.S.

Investors suggested that while 2019 may be a status quo year for investing, 2020 — an election year — may see things slow until the results and a clearer direction are known.

Smart parking gains traction, attracts investment from CRE landlords

As the race to attract top talent continues to drive enterprises to offer the best in class employee experience, more forward-thinking landlords are investing in smart parking technology.

Atlanta-based real estate investment firm Invesco, in collaboration with its tenant MSD Pharmaceuticals, has invested in a smart parking system to solve the problem of a lack of parking availability for its employees.

The smart parking system designed by Spaceti, which uses a proprietary IoT sensor and software platform, solved the persistent problem of parking scarcity at the pharmaceutical provider?s Prague offices.

?MSD is growing really fast. We are now occupying two buildings with more than 1400 ?employees and only 200 parking spots which was starting to become an issue. We wanted to give our employees a chance to check available spaces in the garage prior to coming to work,” said Jana Dusatkova, facilities manager at MSD?s Prague offices.

“We also wanted to use the smart parking system to do an analysis and see how our employees are using the garages,” she added.

MSD?s employees would regularly drive their cars to work only to learn that there was no space available to park. Now?by checking availability via a customized mobile app employee can decide whether to drive, take public transport or use a ride-hailing app and reserve spaces in advance.?

?When it comes to buildings, buildings don?t work for us – we work for buildings,? said Aakash Ravi co-founder of Spaceti in an interview with In-Building Tech who left IBM with seven co-founders with the aim to make ?buildings work for people?.

Aakash Ravi co-founder Spaceti — Courtesy of Spaceti: Photo of Aakash Ravi co-founder of Spaceti

Ravi describes the company?s platform which offers a full suite of services including occupancy monitoring, well-being and air quality monitoring, as well as wayfinding and geo-location technologies as literal building blocks that connect disparate systems in the fragmented CRE ecosystem through technology.

?There are so many pieces that go into smart buildings. There are a lot of blocks that exist in the built environment that are technologically fragmented. Spaceti provides a win-win interface that combines these blocks together to make buildings assets more accessible to users while increasing value for both CRE tenants and owners,? said Ravi.

Spaceti's Proptech digital solution — Courtesy of Spaceti: Model of Spaceti’s digital property solution

Spaceti?s plug and play smart parking system uses battery-powered tiny easily placeable dome-shaped sensors that send data to a cloud-based analytics platform using the GSM cellular network is simple, easy to maintain and requires no connection to main power.

The system can be installed in new or retrofitted into older buildings in a matter of days and customers can start collecting data immediately.

Initially skeptical, Spaceti?s customer MSD Pharmaceuticals and property landlord Invesco who have been forerunners in the adoption smart building technology decided to bank on the smart parking app.

?We were pleasantly surprised how quickly and easily the process worked. The beauty of the whole set up is that minimal changes to the existing system if any are needed at all,? said Tom?? Fiala, director of Asset Management at Invesco who added that he sees smart parking and digital access as trends ripe for significant growth in the future.

PropTech equalizing the playing field between landlords and tenants

Ravi says technology-based improvements are generating greater transparency between landlords and tenants.

?Insights from data analytics of how occupants are using space lead to better decision-making for both parties when it?s time to renew- equalizing the playing field,? says Ravi.

For the tenant, applications like Spaceti do a deep-dive into how employees are using and navigating their existing space enabling them to identify pain points and improve employee experience and for landlords, they lead to better asset monetization and add direct value to their property in evaluations and appraisals.

CRE landlords shifting mindset to tech to compete with third parties

Landlords are becoming more strategic about how they are using building assets to enhance tenant experience and monetize under-utilized assets through data analytics-based applications.

According to a recent survey by JLL, the clients who adopted CRE technology were 3x more profitable than those so were less engaged with innovation.

There has been a shift in thinking among CRE landlords who are recognizing the role technology plays remaining competitive in a marketplace where third-parties and intermediaries like coworking providers have already gained significant traction.

?Landlords are realizing that if they don?t change their mode of thinking, other third-parties like WeWork will essentially become agents to help companies find space, leaving them out,” said Ravi.

“The risks of sitting on the sidelines are too high, especially when you think about the loss of access to valuable data which will consequently be controlled by third-parties in the future,? he added.

In compliance with GDPR, Ravi says Spaceti serves as the processor of the data and is allowed to transfer it from one place to another- ?but does not own it.

?When it comes to the owner of the data that depends on the solution. Generally, it?s the tenant who owns the data because it?s based on their space, but in most cases, landlords and tenants work closely to share data and insights,? Ravi said. ?

To date, Spaceti’s platform is deployed in more than 40 projects in 12 countries and the company is aggressively expanding operations in the US and Asia.

Spaceti was the winner of the 2018 MIPIM Startup Competition, a collaboration between the world’s leading real estate industry event company and PropTech accelerator MetaProp NYC, and was identified as one of the most promising and innovative companies poised tackle 21st-century urban challenges.

WeWork revamps workplace app, allows members to advertise services

WeWork, recently re-branded as The We Company and is once again transforming the workplace. Now the largest occupier of office space in Manhattan is revamping its app to enable its nearly 500,000 members to offer up their skills and services to others in the network.

In a series of software updates expected to be released in the coming months, the app will streamline reservation processes, enable members to connect professionally and offer their services and products to one another.

The company says the member app, which was originally designed to serve as a social networking site and reserve conference rooms and desk space, needed to do more.

?It turns out that people didn?t want just another social network,? said Andy Palmer WeWork?s vice president of digital product. ?What they were really looking for was a way of solving work-related problems.?

Improvements to the app will include the ability for members to scroll through available rooms and choose with a single tap.

?We found during our research that about 40% of members booking rooms want one immediately, and 80% want one for that day. The current app was not built to handle that effectively,? said Palmer whose team interviewed hundreds of members and used machine-learning to examine more than 100,000 posts to derive insights from which to build the app?s new features.

WeWork’s app solves workplace problems

Members also indicated that they wanted to know more about where to connect with like-minded people and get advice from experts in their fields, the new app features push notifications that send information about events based on their specific area of interest identified by members and enables them to connect to experts with relevant experience and advertise services and products.

Compared with tenant branded apps offered by commercial brokerages like CBRE and others, WeWork’s app offers a much wider range of industry experts and professionals to connect with. ?

The new features are likely to be big game-changers for entrepreneurs, freelancers and small companies that make up more than 30% of WeWork?s membership base and among a series of recent steps the company has taken to propel the base. ?

Last month, WeWork launched its first membership free co-working retail site where it now sells member merchandise and products. WeWork also announced the acquisition of Euclid, a platform which tracks workplace productivity and occupant use patterns just last week.

Although WeWork says the changes are aimed at fostering collaboration among its member community, ?they also present an opportunity to collect data from users about their work habits and lifestyle preferences.

While it remains to be seen exactly how these changes will play out in the future, one thing is clear- WeWork is well on its path towards transforming the workplace.

What’s the difference between NB-IoT and Cat-M1 IoT ?

As the use of IoT devices continues to proliferate at an astounding rate so have connectivity options designed to support their use.

The number of IoT connected devices will reach a whopping 75 billion according to a recent analysis by Morgan Stanley. In recent months the number of technology solutions designed for IoT connectivity options using Cat-M1 and NB-IoT has been on the rise.

While both are technologies well-suited for IoT sensor and device connectivity in smart buildings, they address different types of use cases based on their capabilities.

What is Cat-M1/Cat-M/LTE-M?

Cat-M1, known as LTE Cat-M1, operates at 1.4 megahertz bandwidth and supports higher device complexity. Cat-M1?s wider bandwidth allows it to achieve greater data rates, lower latency and more accurate device positioning.

Cat-M1 also supports voice and mobility and has specific use cases for LPWAN applications like smart metering, in which only a small amount of data transfer is required.

Cat-M1 is compatible with the existing LTE network which makes it attractive to carriers like Verizon and AT&T. Adding Cat-M into LTE networks requires a software update.

What is NB-IoT/Cat-M2?

NB-IoT, narrow-band IoT,?supports ultra-low complexity devices with a very narrow bandwidth of 200 kilohertz and data rate peaks of about 250 Kbps.

NB-IoT is best suited for very low data rate applications in extremely challenging radio conditions and its most common use cases include utility meters and smart building sensors which often do not require massive data transmissions capabilities.

NB-IoT is considered a less expensive option because it eliminates the need for gateways to aggregate sensor data and communicates directly with the primary server.

Huawei, Ericsson, Qualcomm, and Vodafone are actively investing in commercial applications of NB-IoT.

NB-IoT versus Cat-M1

Both options link low powered battery operated sensors and devices used in smart building sensors, utility metering devices, wearables and trackers.

NB-IoT and Cat-M1 can both sleep for extended periods of time and operate in discontinuous reception and power saving mode functionalities which greatly reduce power consumption on battery-operated devices which is critical.

Cat-M1 and NB-IoT also both support enhanced signal coverage per base station.

Compared to NB?IoT, LTE Cat M1 is ideal for mobile use cases, because it handles hand?over between cell towers much like high-speed LTE.

For example, if a vehicle moves from point A to point B crossing several different network cells, a Cat M1 device would behave the same as a cellular phone and never drop the connection.

An NB?IoT device, on the contrary, would have to re?establish a new connection at some point after a new network cell is reached. For this reason, Cat-M1 is better suited to applications where sensors are placed on moving devices or require higher data transmission rates with no interruptions.

While these superior capabilities make Cat-M1 more expensive when compared to NB-IoT they may not be required in many smart building use cases.

For example, using a sensor to check boiler systems located in the basement would better be?suited for NB-IoT, however, to track an elevator which goes down to the basement Cat-M1 would be the better connectivity option because it’s a moving object.

While NB-IoT and Cat-M1 each have unique capabilities, they are not mutually exclusive and are often used together.

How artificial intelligence is improving security in commercial office buildings

Artificial intelligence poised to play a significant role in improving occupant safety in today’s commercial office buildings.

Advancements in chip architectures and facial recognition technology are now making it possible for AI-based video analytics software to be used to manage huge volumes of video data to enhance the safety and security of people in buildings and businesses.

The majority of video surveillance today is done manually with security personnel simultaneously attempting to view multiple video screens to identify anything that might represent a security issue.

While it is easy to identify an intruder or explosion using this method, it?s often difficult to identify theft, unauthorized entry by an intruder or the delivery of the suspicious packages because many of these incidents go unnoticed in traditional surveillance systems.

The inability to effectively identify these kinds of threats inhibits security personnel from taking pre-emptive actions which are often necessary to prevent public harm.

The volume of data and manpower required to effectively monitor buildings today is reaching unmanageable levels making the provision of security both costly and less inefficient.

The costs of hiring more security personnel to manage an increasing number of security cameras are often too high while the ability for the human eye to comb through video surveillance to find anomalies is extremely time-consuming.

Artificial intelligence enables better management of voluminous video data

The amount of video surveillance data has become so massive that law enforcement systems are unable to cope with the volume and vital information often is missed because the majority of the video is never viewed.

Now, through the use of artificial intelligence video analytics, security in commercial office buildings and campuses can be significantly improved.

AI-based security surveillance systems can serve as a virtual security guard with unlimited capacity and endless attention spans capable of monitoring videos 24 hours a day seven days a week.

Today a number of security companies Aegis AI, Evolv Technology, Deep Sentinel and others provide automated video and facial recognition technologies designed for airports, large venues, stadiums, offices and other public places that can significantly enhance security and public safety.

Machine learning algorithms can be trained?and customized for unique environments and circumstances based on inputs such as facial features, detect zones, masks and camera angles.

For example, Chicago-based startup Aegis AI has developed a system capable of detecting a gun-in-hand adding a layer situational awareness to its machine learning algorithm which alerts first responders in emergency situations in schools, office buildings, and other public locations.

When a machine based AI spots suspicious activity its send alerts for human verification to security personnel who then review and assess risks and decide the best course of action.

While training algorithms to detect situational awareness is not an easy task, today self-learning and deep learning systems used to identify objects have matured to an advanced level and are enabling the use of AI technology in security systems across the world.

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