There are over 1500 not-for-profit housing associations across the United Kingdom, with 2 million homes lived in by over 5 million people. The sheer amount can often leave long delays for property repairs and upkeep, with many slipping through the cracks, leaving housing associations with significant repair bills. When a property hasn’t been maintained or severely neglected it can cause further problems such as mould and dampness. In some instances, faulty or broken equipment such as a fire alarm or carbon dioxide alarm can be dangerous and against the law with possible penalties. (more…)

Industrial IoT 4.0

While the number of smart and connected devices continues to grow at an expeditious rate, IoT is no longer just about monitoring equipment performance. Increasingly, the value of IoT comes from collecting machine data to distinguish efficiencies that can be made for improvement. In today’s unprecedented global economy, routine visits to check a machine’s status or service can be an unrealistic and costly exercise. Remote monitoring of Industrial IoT devices offers several benefits to manufacturers of all sizes. Connected IoT devices make operational and performance data about machines fully accessible anywhere and at any time. Autonomous manufacturing with IoT allows key decisions on changes in strategy to be made instantaneously to match the data.

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Why are smart buildings important?

What are smart buildings?

Smart technology might appear to be a fairly new term for most people, but it can be traced back to 1966 when the very first home automation platform was invented by Jim Sutherland and named Echo lV. The device was capable of storing recipes, relaying messages, turning appliances on and off and controlling the temperature of the building. (more…)

Bluetooth has been viewed by many as a convenient way to listen to music and connect your mobile phone to the car audio system. Bluetooth was seen by many sectors as a consumer technology. The rise of IoT technology increases the usage of Bluetooth with it soon becoming the primary connectivity to over 60% of wireless IoT devices. Where mobility is needed Bluetooth has the ideal connection for sensors and IoT devices out in the field, where distances for wireless connections can be more than a kilometre rather than measured in a few feet. The case for asset tracking and large-scale sensor networks makes the use of Bluetooth across industrial spaces compelling, this combined with Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) provides convincing connectivity solutions for IoT devices of all sizes. (more…)

Data aggregation

I watched a recent video posted to a news network which showed a policeman in the USA discussing with the householder why the parents needed to persuade their daughter to remove inflammatory social media posts. Whilst the content was fascinating from a news perspective, more interesting, (to me anyway), was the fact that the video feed was shot from the in-vehicle CCTV, parked several metres away, but the audio was from the policeman’s vest microphone. The audio was clear, crisp and captured clearly the conversation from all parties gathered near the front door. (more…)