These days a world without technology sounds either medieval or dystopian. Everything is getting smart, our phones, our homes, even our cars. Why not our workplaces too? We’re not talking about machines taking over our actual jobs like in the big industrial manufacturing, just some improvements to the environment so we can be more efficient and feel more at home – a smart office solution!
Creating better living conditions in homes is a must, but making better working conditions is kind of neglected even though there are breakthroughs. Smart technologies and LoRa®, in particular, give ground for all sorts of improvements in the daily life of the average person, be it at home or the office. Let’s talk about the possibilities for the workplace here, shall we?
Firstly, let us make something clear here: the office itself is an asset as everything else that the company has. Not to exploit it to its full potential is a waste of opportunity. Let’s say you have a fridge, but you use it as a storage space for shoes. You could do that and it will do the job, but you are wasting it away. The same is true for the office. It could be just a space where the workers do their jobs, but it could be a tool for them, and you as well!
There are a lot of aspects of the “smart office” idea and here we will try to cover as much of them as we can.
Today’s technology lets you do upgrades in every aspect of the living conditions in a given space. Or you could start from scratch and use that to build a whole smart building if you like. With the right tools, almost every aspect of the office space and workflow can be made more efficient.
Lighting, temperature, humidity, and dustiness
Those are the most basic environmental variables in every closed space, where someone will spend most of the day, that affect one’s well-being. They are as important as everything else in the office surrounding us like chairs, desks, and computers, for the productivity of the employees. Bad lighting will cause eye problems as easily as an uncomfortable chair will cause back problems. Those are matters that may not seem important at the moment but in the long run, they will cost businesses more in the form of unhealthy employees, leading to lower productivity, time on leave, etc.
There are a lot of options in the market. All sorts of sensors and nodes that help monitor and regulate those parameters are available. With a simple network of a gateway and a few sensors, you could have the data needed to develop the perfect living environment. With a bit more money and more sophisticated add-ons to that network, you could make it regulate itself and automate the whole process. Switching lights on and off, turning on the air conditioning when needed, and so on is easy with the IoT.
Better use of space
This is an interesting one. People underestimate the importance of arranging the items in an office in such a way that they are both accessible and comfortable to use. One example is the nightmare that cable management is! It comes easy when there are no cables, right? LoRa allows wireless communication between devices that can give some much-needed rest to the IT cable guy, who won’t have to do all the wiring needed just a few years ago.
Fire safety and security
Good interaction between HVAC systems, lighting, and shading as well as a uniform control strategy is possible with some automation. This is the whole idea of the smart office – synergy! But it is not enough and nearly not the end of the possible improvements. Employees, and everyone for that matter, need to feel safe too. This is where high-tech fire safety and security systems come to mind. Immediate notification in case of emergency, automated evacuation systems, and protocol can save lives. They ensure appropriate access and simplify security processes. What’s more, all systems are flexible and might be adapted quickly and inexpensively to new room requirements and layouts.
Cost-efficient
The cost is one of the main concerns of every business owner. But IoT is aiming not only to make the work easier but more profitable and inexpensive too. Digitalization is the key to making your building cost-efficient while going easy on natural resources. Today’s networking capability and virtually unlimited computing power and storage provided by the cloud, allow digitalized building life-cycle process. Sensors producing and evaluating data enable smart offices to reply intelligently to their environment. As an example, by forecasting the weather, the user demand, and also the power consumption, they additionally optimize energy consumption.
Eco-friendly
Optimizing more processes in the workflow will result in increased efficiency. That means less waste of resources. And in today’s world, this must be one of the top priorities of every business. Not only it is a good deed, but it has financial benefits too! The no-waste policy not only saves money, but it is also smiled upon by the government, which means possible subsidies.
Interactive – people to people and people to office
Here your imagination can go wild! Even in Star Wars Episode IV Han Solo doesn’t have wireless headphones! To be fair, that happened in a galaxy far, far away.
Boosted workplaces bring people together, enabling effortless workflow and collaboration between employees. There are systems and solutions that will help to identify any problems which might occur in the workplace. One example of this is the detection of ghost meetings and such occurring that the work doesn’t benefit from. See live insights into the usage patterns of your meeting rooms, offices, and modern workplace environments using smart technology! Through ongoing monitoring, you will gain a better understanding of your team’s behavior, helping you to improve their overall working experience. They will also have control over the working environment, making it perfect for their needs.
Removing menial tasks and unnecessary obstacles, smart office solutions let employees focus on what matters.
By streamlining the employee-to-facility management channel, smart office solutions can also radically reduce the time and effort to report broken or missing equipment. Easy and effortless reporting leads to quicker repairs. And so on.
A smart office creates value in different areas of the business, ranging from saving energy, better utilization of real estate, and employee productivity. We probably missed some of the many benefits of the smart office. We hope that by reading this you got some inspiration and ideas on how to make your workspace better.
Everyone knows a happy worker is a productive worker. And in the right environment, being happy comes so much easier. If you are smart your office will be too.