CO2 Monitoring: The Corner Stone of Indoor Air Quality

CO2 Monitoring

CO2 Monitoring: The Corner Stone of Indoor Air Quality

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There are numerous factors that contribute to a healthy and comfortable indoor environment; lighting, sound, humidity, cleanliness and temperature, but since the pandemic, air quality as taken a priority position. On average, people spend approximately 90 percent of their time indoors, where the concentrations of some pollutants are often 2 to 5 times higher than typical outdoor concentrations. Carbon dioxide is one of the greatest contributors to poor air quality. As the number, size and activity levels of the people present in a building increase, so do CO₂ levels, opening the door for widespread airborne contaminants.

The Impact of CO₂ on Health

In poorly ventilated rooms, CO₂ concentration increases rapidly, which crowds out oxygen. Carbon dioxide is considered a simple asphyxiant because it reduces the amount of oxygen available for each breath. For example, a 4 m2 space occupied by only one person, increases CO₂ levels from 500 ppm to more than 1,000 ppm, in just 45 minutes. Now consider the impact a crowded office, classroom or conference centre has on indoor air quality. Excess carbon dioxide concentrations of 1000 ppm-2500 ppm can lead to fatigue, lack of concentration and can contribute to the symptoms of Sick Building Syndrome such as headaches, eye, nose and throat irritation, itchy skin and nausea.

Indoor carbon dioxide can also impact our decision-making and problem-solving skills. A Harvard led study shows cognitive function scores of office workers were 50% lower when CO₂ concentrations reached 1400 ppm. The connection between indoor CO₂ and cognitive functioning is also important for parents. A study done in Texas revealed that most schools had carbon dioxide levels above 1000 ppm, and one in five had levels exceeding 3000 ppm. This level of CO₂ can inhibit a child’s school performance and overall health and wellness.

Amidst the pandemic, CO₂ levels are under much further scrutiny with mounting attention on its impact for transmitting respiratory infectious diseases. If there is a high amount of exhaled CO₂ in the air, there is also a high number of aerosols. If pathogen-containing aerosols and CO₂ are co-exhaled by those infected with COVID, this can significantly increase the risk of infection for everyone else in the room.

Enter Wireless CO₂ Monitoring

The combination IoT sensor technologies and wireless connectivity have become an intrinsic part of indoor environmental quality strategies. Wireless air quality monitoring sensors provide granular real-time insight into not just CO₂ levels, but also other harmful contaminants like particulates, pollutants and noxious gases that can drastically impact the health and safety of occupants. When CO₂ levels reach unsafe thresholds, triggers can be sent to building automation systems to activate ventilation and HVAC filtration. Likewise, when low or no CO₂ levels are detected in specific rooms or spaces, these systems can be turned off to ensure optimal energy efficiency. With real-time notifications, wireless CO₂ monitoring can also prompt manual efforts to improve airflow such as opening windows and doors.

Paired with innovative IoT connectivity like Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN), CO₂ sensors can ensure reliable and scalable data transmission in indoor environments and possess a battery life that span years to minimize maintenance overhead. This is particularly important when it comes to a campus-style deployments such as an office complex or retail centre where a vast number of distributed sensors are required.

As the economy slowly reopens, offices, restaurants, schools and beyond are faced with restoring trust and confidence in the built environment for every individual person. Today, state-of-the-art air quality sensors can be instrumental in minimizing harmful indoor contaminants and facilitating faster responses to acute health risks to deliver enhanced health and wellness and peace-of-mind to all occupants.   

Monitor building health with MYTHINGS-enabled CO₂ sensors from ioAirflow.

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IoT Metropolitan Area Networks: A Quick Start Guide

Metropolitan Area Networks

BehrTech Blog

IoT Metropolitan Area Networks: A Quick Start Guide

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The Internet of Things (IoT) ecosystem is expanding on a global scale. Buildings, cities and industries are undergoing a significant transformation as IoT promises to bring business operations and people’s quality of life to a whole new level. Thanks to ubiquitous wireless connectivity, it’s now possible to turn virtually everything – as simple as a waste bin or a consumable dispenser – into a smart device. Even our surroundings now have a “voice” to report on their current conditions so necessary changes could be made to optimize health and comfort.

Communication protocols have ceaselessly developed to keep up with the insatiable demand for device interconnection, and so does the network type. In our daily work and home environments, Personal and Local Area Networks (PAN & LAN) are almost omnipresent. Aggregating multiple LANs, we have the Campus Area Networks. And, on a city scale, we are moving towards what’s known as Metropolitan Area Networks (MAN). While MAN isn’t necessarily a brand-new concept, its implications and use are drastically evolving as IoT and next-gen connectivity emerge. If you’re an active player in the IoT space, it’s worth exploring what this network type means and the multifold advantages it has to offer.

[bctt tweet=”While a Metropolitan Area Network isn’t necessarily a new concept, its implications and use are drastically evolving as IoT and next-gen connectivity emerge.”]

What Is A Metropolitan Area Network?

As the name implies, MAN signifies a single network that serves a large urban area and spans tens of kilometers in range. Such an area could be a combination of multiple buildings and campuses or dispersed throughout a metropolis. Traditionally, MAN infrastructure is largely underpinned by a nexus of Ethernet and fiber cable lines that aim to deliver high-speed internet access for urban residents. Nevertheless, today, there’s much more to a MAN architecture than what it used to be.

Metropolitan Area Networks in the IoT Age

With the advent of IoT, new wireless technology like Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN), has seen dramatic growth in recent years. Positioned as an IoT accelerator, LPWAN comes with an extensive radio range of many kilometers together with ultra-low power requirements – a unique combination not available with previous wireless classes but highly critical for large-scale deployments of modular, battery-operated smart sensors. As such, LPWAN is quickly penetrating commercial and industrial marketplaces as the go-to wireless option for smart buildings and industrial IoT.

In urban contexts, a robust LPWAN solution can connect thousands of endpoints distributed throughout a high-rise building simply with the installation of one base station and an antenna on the rooftop. Now, imagine most large buildings within a certain geographical area is outfitted with such a base station and antenna. By this time, we establish a so-called IoT Metropolitan Area Network where enterprises and even individuals can seamlessly deploy and connect smart devices capitalizing on this infrastructure.

Who Stands to the Benefits of IoT MAN?

An IoT MAN delivers immediate benefits for all businesses, regardless of their sizes, to tap into the tremendous opportunities of IoT and smart buildings. For a commercial real estate company, the business case of implementing a dedicated LPWA network to add IoT functionality to its large-scale properties is quite evident. However, mid-sized enterprises or retailers who only own a moderate office and store area within a bigger building complex might struggle to quickly gain Return-on-Investment (ROI) and justify such a network investment in economic terms. That being said, the substantial benefits of smart solutions with examples like remote monitoring of space usage, shop traffic or storage conditions of perishable products, are not to be missed.

An IoT MAN fits perfectly in this context by delivering a readily available wireless infrastructure to make IoT accessible for every firm and achieve economies-of-scale. Any enterprise can easily hook their sensor devices to IoT without the hassle of procuring, installing, commissioning and managing the network infrastructure. The high upfront capital cost is replaced with a modest usage-based monthly subscription fee, thereby accelerating ROI.

From Smart Buildings to Smart Cities and Consumer IoT

Deployed on a greater scale of an entire metropolis, IoT MAN promises just the same advantages for a wide range of consumer IoT and smart city applications. Municipalities can leverage pervasive low power wireless connectivity at minimum deployment complexity to fuel city-wide intelligent infrastructure. Environmental metering, waste management, leak detection, smart parking and traffic management are just a few out of many smart city pillar use cases that can benefit from an IoT MAN. By the same token, individual citizens can enjoy unprecedented conveniences of connected life at affordable prices with smart solutions for pet and luggage tracking, connected home alarms, or fall detection and remote health monitoring of seniors.

Wireless Considerations for an IoT MAN

LPWAN is the perfect wireless choice for IoT MAN as it delivers exactly what a new breed of smart use cases requires. The long range and deep penetration traits of LPWAN are particularly pertinent in dense urban settings to enable reliable communications of outdoor, indoor, and even underground endpoints. Likewise, low costs and excellent power efficiency make it feasible to connect physical devices of all sizes and classes for tracking and monitoring purposes.

Having said that, there are other vital network considerations, not all LPWAN solutions can cater to. The exponential growth of connected sensors and data traffic in the sub-gigahertz license-free spectrum is posing serious Quality-of-Service challenges. To ensure future-proofed network operations and seamless integration of new devices into the IoT MAN infrastructure, interference immunity and scalability of the underlying technology are top of mind. In parallel, reliable mobile communication is paramount to capture numerous high-value use cases that involve moving assets and people.

In short, the notion of a Metropolitan Area Network is no longer limited to the idea of ready internet access for city residents. Today, innovative LPWAN technology is giving rise to next-gen IoT MAN that is poised to deliver on the promise of omnipresent and immediately accessible and consumable wireless connectivity. It empowers enterprises, municipalities and citizens to turn IoT and its boundless opportunities into reality at reduced costs, time and complexity.

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3 Remarkable IoT Applications for Fire Safety

IoT applications for fire safety

BehrTech Blog

3 Remarkable IoT Applications for Fire Safety

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Enabling unprecedented visibility into hazardous sources and on-site fire trends, IoT applications for fire safety in smart buildings and cities are game-changing.

Last week, a massive blaze engulfed the Notre Dame Cathedral and destroyed significant parts of Paris’s iconic cultural landmark. The tragedy left Parisians distraught and startled the rest of the world. Firefighters did a tremendous job saving the main stone structure and plenty of valuable artifacts. However, there was significant room for improvement on how the catastrophe could have been prevented and mitigated in the first place.

The blaze is presumably accidental, and its specific cause has yet to be determined. However, the fact that Notre Dame was under renovation allegedly makes it exposed to multiple fire sources. On top of that, basic safeguarding mechanisms like firewalls and sprinkler systems were purposely absent – to avoid major architectural alterations or potential structural damage caused by electrical wiring inside the ancient cathedral. This left Notre Dame much more vulnerable to fire hazards, and its wooden structure obviously intensified the problem.

[bctt tweet=”Providing unprecedented visibility into hazardous sources and on-site fire trends, the potential of IoT for fire safety in smart buildings and cities is tremendous.”]

Elevating Fire Safety to the Next Level with IoT

The event raises a pertinent question, can we do a better job of protecting historic buildings against fire incidents? While it’s impossible to completely eradicate the risk, advanced technologies, like the Internet of Things (IoT), could help us minimize it to the largest extent. Providing unprecedented visibility into hazardous sources and on-site fire trends, the potential of IoT for fire safety in smart buildings and cities is tremendous.

New IoT sensor technologies with miniaturized form and multi-sensing capabilities satisfy specific requirements of historic facilities – as they can be easily retrofitted without modifying or burdening the structure. Additionally, low-power wireless solutions allow these sensors to stay connected on independent batteries for years – eliminating any complex, dangerous wiring. IoT data is powerful in helping combat a fire disaster or even prevent it from happening altogether.

1. Hazardous Source Monitoring and Early Fire Warnings

Buildings under renovation like Notre Dame are highly susceptible to fire threats. Renovation work often entails the use of blowtorches or welding torches to solder pipes or metal-roof components. Drops of hot molten materials are an inherent risk, but even induction heat can ignite a fire in older buildings constructed with highly flammable timber. What’s more, the danger isn’t just limited to where the work takes place. Pipes can indeed transport the heat to other building parts where a flame can break out after hours of smoldering. Besides threats from renovation activities, overheat and malfunction of electrical cables and equipment also play a role in triggering fires.

In this context, IoT sensors can be deployed to continuously monitor electrical systems and identify any active heat sources that are invisible to the naked eye. Once a temperature spike is detected, an alert is immediately sent for relevant inspections to avoid potential catastrophes. IoT temperature sensors also outweigh traditional smoke detectors by detecting ignited fires much faster – even before they emit smoke. In an emergency when every second counts, the sooner an alarm is set off, the more the consequences can be mitigated.

2. On-Site Situational Assessment

Once a fire breaks out, IoT data can support firefighters’ strategic decision in what equipment and approach would be most effective to battle it. Heat-proof sensors can communicate where the fire starts off, its intensity, nature and spreading patterns, as well as whether there are any occupants in the fire zone. Knowing what is happening on the ground in real-time, enables streamlined firefighting and evacuation effort to minimize damage and fatalities.

3. Management of Fire Safety Equipment 

Ensuring critical safety equipment is available when they are most needed, is no doubt a top priority. Smart fire detectors and alarms can report whether they are running low on battery for timely and efficient maintenance. IoT sensors can additionally indicate if a fire extinguisher is missing, or whether a fire door is left open and the automatic sprinkler system still functions properly – in buildings with more sophisticated safeguarding instruments. Digitized management of safety-critical assets eliminates human errors and costs associated with manual checks while providing much higher asset visibility.

Beyond Historic Buildings

The Notre Dame incident is a reminder of how cultural heritages deserve thoughtful care and supervision. But IoT applications for fire safety certainly extend beyond the scope of historical buildings. For all large-scale industrial, commercial and residential facilities, the consequence of a similar fire could lead to the disastrous loss of lives and/or irreversible impacts on the environment. In such modern buildings, potential use cases are boundless with decentralized fire suppression systems, optimal escape route calculation and LED-based navigation or predictive maintenance of complex safety-critical systems – all powered by IoT sensor data.

An IoT-enabled fire safety network doesn’t have to cost a fortune to be deployed. Emerging wireless options like Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) can deliver peace-of-mind with lower capital and operational expenditures. Having said that, reliability, scalability and power efficiency are similarly important network criteria. At the end of the day, it is worth investing in an effective safety system than watching valuable properties falling into ashes.

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How LPWAN and Cellular Can Work Together to Create a Powerful IoT Architecture

LPWAN and 5G

BehrTech Blog

How LPWAN and Cellular Can Work Together to Create a Powerful IoT Architecture

While often seen as two competitive connectivity options, LPWAN and cellular, specifically the emerging 5G technology can, in fact, interoperate in a single IoT architecture to improve solution versatility and applicability.

5G rollouts are a hot topic this year. Global telecoms are in a race to announce their launch plans, vying for the first move advantage. After almost a decade of development, 5G is finally getting closer to reality. This new generation of cellular connectivity has sparked lots of excitement, mostly due to its promise of gigabit data speed. Alongside its expected dominance in the consumer space, 5G is also advocated as a future catalyst for Industrial IoT (IIoT) innovations.

The reality is, even with distinct advantages in terms of reliability, security and low latency, 5G, similar to previous cellular generations, cannot cater to all IIoT use cases. This is because of the inherently extensive application range and heterogeneous network requirements in the IoT space.

We often compare cellular against Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWAN) as disparate communications options. However, in many scenarios, a combination of LPWAN and cellular can create enhanced value and functionality in both the smart city and industrial landscape. So, how can these two solutions complement each other and what does the (I)IoT architecture look like?

 


YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE: [IIoT Survival Guide] Top 10 Criteria for a Successful LPWAN Deployment


1. Cellular Serves as The Backhaul Connection for Private LPWA Networks

Promising ultra-reliable, low-latency communication, 5G is predicted to support time-sensitive process control and augmented reality in future digital factories. However, IIoT is never just about factory automation. In reality, a much larger number of IIoT applications require deployments of power-independent, wireless sensors that live on a single battery for many years. Often times, IIoT networks for remote monitoring, worker safety or energy and facility management, entail low-bandwidth connections of numerous granular data points to report the status of individual assets and workers or critical environmental parameters on micro-zone levels.

For these networks, cellular solutions, whether 3G, LTE or the new 5G, are simply too power-hungry. Additionally, expensive device data plans blow up network costs and present a major adoption barrier. Existing gaps in cellular coverage are another concern for connecting assets at remote, inaccessible locations.

In this context, LPWAN – deployed as a private, local network – provides power-saving, scalable “last-mile” connectivity for factory-wide, battery-powered sensor networks. LPWAN can also reach remote, underground locations where cellular infrastructure is absent. Thanks to significantly lower device and subscription costs, these solutions offer a more affordable option for data collection from massive endpoints.

On the other hand, due to the simplified, small-footprint design, LPWA networks are not IP-based. As such, they lack the ability to communicate data to cloud platforms on their own. That’s where cellular comes in as a versatile backhaul connection. High-bandwidth cellular networks can replace LPWAN in the next step of the IoT data chain to transfer large bulks of aggregated data from a central LPWAN base station to the cloud. With this architecture, companies can optimize the cost structure of their IoT networks by aligning data costs with actual data usage at each network component.

LPWAN & 5G

2. LPWAN and Cellular Co-exist in A Public Network Infrastructure

For smart city applications in urban areas where cellular infrastructure is literally omnipresent, the co-existence of LPWAN and cellular in the same public network pays off in multiple ways. From local authorities and urban developers’ perspectives, this removes the heavy lifting of network deployment and management, thanks to a city-wide unified communications infrastructure. The use of public IoT networks also takes the infrastructure (i.e. base stations, antennas) component off from the cost equation.

Leveraging the best of both worlds, LPWAN and cellular can potentially serve a vast spectrum of smart city innovations. For applications requiring only periodical or event-based transmission of small messages, LPWAN is ideal, providing excellent cost and power performance. Examples include smart metering, waste management, intelligent parking, smart lighting, or pollution and disaster management.

On the other hand, for applications demanding high-throughput data streaming, cellular connectivity, especially the upcoming 5G, will be instrumental. Typical examples are surveillance cameras, autonomous drones for security and transportation purposes, connected vehicles and mission-critical voice communications.

Summing up, while it makes sense to have a single communications solution in certain cases, a combination of multiple options can deliver elevated flexibility and functionality to serve a wider range of IoT/ IIoT applications. At the end of the day, no connectivity solution is use-case agnostic and new network requirements may emerge as companies move forward in their IoT strategy. For network operators, marrying LPWAN with cellular connectivity in their offerings will consolidate their value delivery by effectively addressing a broader breadth of end customers’ challenges.

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Impending Insect Wipeout: How IoT is Saving the Environment

IoT for Saving the Environment

BehrTech Blog

Impending Insect Wipeout: How IoT Is Saving the Environment

In the face of massive insect population decline, here are three ways IoT can save the environment and help reverse the imminent extinction.

You don’t need to be an environmentalist to know that our world is on the verge of an ecosystem crisis. For the last few weeks, media has reported startling rates of decline in the global insect population. According to a recent scientific review, more than 40% of insect species are disappearing worldwide with one third being particularly endangered. The total number of insects is plummeting by 2.5% annually, eight times faster than mammals, bird or reptiles. Among the most affected are bees, butterflies, dragonflies and beetles. If this trend continues, they could completely die out within a century.

With insects accounting for two-thirds of total earth species, this wipeout would have a devastating impact on our planet. These tiny creatures are an integral part of the ecological food chain; they pollinate three-fourth of the world’s crops, replenish soils and control the pest population. Their extinction will most likely result in a disastrous collapse of our natural ecosystem.

The loss of habitat resulting from deforestation, urbanization and intensive agriculture is the leading attributable factor for massive insect decline. Coming next is the increasing use of pesticides and fertilizers that lead to contamination and soil acidification. While we can’t stop all of these activities at once, controlling and minimizing them to the largest extent is critical in helping reverse the imminent catastrophe. Thankfully advanced technologies like the Internet of Things (IoT) and Low Power Wide Area Networks (LPWANs) are powerful allies in this journey. Here are 3 examples of how IoT is saving the environment.

1. Maintain Biodiversity and Prevent Illegal Deforestation

Strictly regulating deforestation and preventing illegal logging are the most important measures to protect biodiversity and the remaining natural habitat for insects. Nevertheless, poor management practices of preserved national parks and wild forests, given their massive scale and constrained ranger resources, is alarming. LPWAN-enabled alert systems can connect massive, geographically distributed ultrasonic, infrared and vibration sensors attached to the trees. These sensors constantly listen for the sound and movement of chainsaws, trucks and other logging equipment in unauthorized zones.

A cloud platform with built-in intelligence analyzes sensor data for surreptitious logging and can trigger automatic alerts when suspicious events arise. This allows for monitoring and circumventing illegal activities in real-time while eliminating manually intensive tasks like patrolling. Minimizing deforestation not only contributes to sustaining biodiversity, but also helps curb global carbon emission and slow down global warming in the long run.

2. Optimize Agricultural Practices and Cut Down on Chemical Use

While we’ve mostly discussed the negative impacts of pesticides and insecticide on human health, they are already killing non-target insects on a vast scale. When it comes to agricultural best practices, the key is to control, not eradicate pests. Wiping out the entire pest population on a farm is almost impossible and can cause significant financial and safety costs. Similarly, excessive use of fertilizers can diminish crop health while causing severe environmental and health issues.

Thankfully, precision farming, with the advent of IoT, now helps farmers use agricultural chemicals in the most efficient manner possible. Inexpensive, low-power smart sensors can connect traps and listen to pest sounds to report pest levels in different field areas. Likewise, they can capture data about soil and crop health alongside weather conditions on granular field zones.

Leveraging this information, farmers can make strategic decisions on when their crops need spraying (e.g. only after pest levels surpass the set limit). Additionally, variable-rate application, which aligns spraying rates with the need of specific field sections, can be executed to optimize chemical use. Sensor data on pest counts also facilitates effective application of pheromones – a sustainable alternative to pesticides. Taking a step further, machine learning algorithms continuously analyze historical data on chemical use and crop yields to suggest how farmers can better reduce waste and improve their farming practices over time.

3. Save the Bees, One Hive at A Time

Bees are among, if not the most important pollinators for our crops. Sadly, they are undergoing a critical Colony Collapse Disorder that has been escalating over the years. In the US alone, honeybee keepers lost 44% of colonies in 2016 and if nothing is done, we will lose the entire honeybee population by 2035.

IoT is now giving rise to innovative solutions that enable beekeepers to remotely monitor their hive conditions round-the-clock – whether at night, in the winter or during extreme weather. Battery-powered in-hive sensors provide temperature, humidity, acoustic and even odor readings that demonstrate bees’ health and activities. Additionally, tracking hive weight can help calculate the amount of nectar gathered and predict whether the bees could experience food scarcity in the winter. As such IoT data helps beekeepers identify unusual patterns in real-time for early intervention to prevent large-scale colony losses.

As IoT offers more opportunities to save the environment, LPWANs provides the versatile backbone connectivity needed to fully realize such opportunities. These networks outweigh alternative wireless options in critical criteria like costs, battery life, range and ease of installation and management. This in turn helps reduce adoption barriers to innovative solutions mentioned above. Combined with tighter environmental regulations and organic alternatives to pesticides, IoT and LPWAN promise to benefit global insects and our biodiversity in enormous ways.

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3 Benefits of Smart Parking for Business

Smart Parking

BehrTech Blog

3 Benefits of Smart Parking for Business

With more than 88 million cars and light vehicles sold annually, the commercial sector and large enterprises are facing progressively more parking issues. Ensuring enough parking space are available for customers, employees and visitors is a top priority for retailers, hotels, hospitals and enterprises.

As parking demand escalates during the day, uncoordinated, inefficient parking management can impair profit and performance for businesses. For example, retailers want customers to stay in their shops for one to two hours during which time free parking is offered. The problem is, non-customers can also capitalize on this and take up valuable parking space.

Furthermore, blindly driving around to search for a parking spot can be a very frustrating experience. Customers, employees and visitors often end up driving somewhere else, resulting in lost revenues and reduced productivity. It additionally increases emissions and environmental footprint, while contributing to the energy bill for ventilation at indoor parking facilities.

Bottlenecks in parking management are not just limited to peak times. Outside business hours, enterprise-owned parking areas are often shut down, leading to wasted space as citizens run out of street parking options, especially at the city center.

The Smart Parking Solution

In the wake of the Internet of Things (IoT), smart parking systems provide an innovative answer to these challenges. Low-power magnetic, ultrasonic, or optical sensors embedded in the ground record whether and how long a certain spot is occupied. This sensor data is wirelessly routed to a gateway and then transferred to a cloud platform for analytics at enterprises and building owners’ control rooms.

By enabling unprecedented visibility into parking spaces, smart parking solutions provide significant benefits for your business.

1. Pinpoint Inefficiencies through Parking Duration

Real-time information on the parking duration of individual vehicles helps companies identify unusual or illegal parking activities for proactive responses. For example, supermarkets and retailers can monitor excessive parking time that could imply unauthorized use of their parking areas. Other problematic behaviors such as overtime parking or one car occupying two lots can be instantly detected with automatic alerts. Likewise, a parking space that is left empty for weeks suggests potential issues that require a check.

2. Improve Parking Experiences and Curb Emissions

Data streamed and stored in a cloud enables the development of specialized services for stress-free parking experiences. API-fed user apps, digital signs or light indicators retrieve real-time parking data from the cloud to inform and navigate drivers to the closest available parking spot. In addition to preventing frustration and lost productivity, this also reduces carbon footprint and enhances air quality at indoor parking areas.

3. Optimize Facility Usage and Create New Revenue Streams

Sensor data reveals powerful insights into which spaces or areas have the highest and lowest parking traffic. This helps facility owners decide where to expand more parking and where to scale back accordingly. At the same time, misuse of dedicated parking spots or emergency access roads can be detected and controlled more easily. Smart parking solutions can also enable enterprises to generate extra revenue on their parking spaces outside operational hours.

Viable connectivity is at the heart of every IoT architecture. When it comes to smart parking systems, cost and power efficiency, alongside ease of installation and management are leading requirements. On top of that, extensive coverage and deep penetration capability are a must to ensure reliable data communications in indoor and underground parking facilities.

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