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Right now, a lot of us feel stressed out about our current situation due to the pandemic. If your employer is already thinking of moving operations back to the office, you might be feeling anxious about it. There are a few things you can do to assuage those concerns, like obeying distancing measures or keeping yourself in good health (body and mind). But with smart space technology, your office can go that extra mile towards safe re-entry.
First, there’s people tracking. Using high resolution sensors we can ensure social distancing throughout the office. The illumenai platform will tell your employer how many people can safely be in the office at once. Not only that, but they can use that information to determine how the office should change in layout.
To enforce the distancing measures, the platform will provide warnings for non-compliance. When the rules are not followed, the system can send alerts. As an employee, you’re also able to report issues while remaining anonymous. The platform compiles the reports and generates a compliance timeline.
Adding to this, smart offices can actively fight against the virus. Viruses thrive in specific humidity and temperature levels. Studies have shown that maintaining between 40-60% humidity could help contain COVID-19. If the air is too dry, our natural defenses against the virus aren’t as effective. If the air is too humid, water droplets containing the virus can allow it to survive on surfaces for much longer. Smart space technology can ensure that your office stays within that sweet spot. As an amazing final touch, a smart lighting module can use UV light to disinfect nearby surfaces. The system will even pause when people are nearby, keeping everyone safe.
If you don’t want to fully rely on the UV sterilization, the people analytics capability can identify all areas of the space that have been used and indicate to the cleaning crew where they need to focus on, saving money and time, without reducing cleaning effectiveness.
Have you ever felt distracted by the noise in your office? The non-stop sounds of printers, phone conversations, and the cacophony of computer keys can be grating for a lot of us. Some use music or podcasts to cover the racket, but these can be distracting in their own way too. One way to suppress office noise is by making use of other kinds of noises. White, pink, and brown noise can drown out the sounds of the office while also promoting focus.
Putting aside the undesirable noise, the consistent noise from white noise generation can help you work. In this study, it’s shown that white noise can reinforce your memory and learning skills. As part of illumenai’s platform, the noise dampening and generation can adjust in each space, both through manual frequency band attenuation, and automatic adjustment of volume.
Using smart technology and IoT, we can now do things that were impossible 10 years ago. We can control millions of smart devices and integrate their data to find insights that can not only increase efficiency and save significant money in operating costs, but also help to significantly reduce Greenhouse gases. The more data we have, the more improvements we can make to our building operations and environments.
We can ensure that buildings are only lit where and when needed, saving up to 90% in electricity costs – that could be $1M per year for a million square foot building!
Additionally, using smart technology, you can reduce your CO2 emissions by around 1,400 metric Tonnes per year!
Energy codes can drive innovation. Smart technology provides that innovation.
Lighting is an important part of any workplace, moreso than you may imagine. Poor lighting can affect your sleep, focus, and health in general. Static lighting (or lights that stay the same through the day) can affect your circadian rhythm, interrupting your sleep cycle. Excessive blue light from screens and LED lights together with sunlight can strain your eyes and impact your ability to focus. Flickering lights can cause headaches and further eye strain. Lack of sunlight can cause seasonal affective disorder (SAD).
At illumenai, lighting is one of many crucial components that combine to create a smart space. We use LED lights that can output warm or high contrast light, and our system can also control RGB lights for full colour control. Lighting can also follow sunlight variations to keep your circadian rhythm regular. If your office already has some natural light sources, the illumenai platform will use sensors to keep sunlight in the lighting of the space. Finally, blue light filters synchronize with the system and follow lighting changes. All these elements work in tandem to lessen or end the eye strain, sleep, and mental health issues.
These are just some of the big benefits that smart spaces can provide for the workforce each day. You can see these and even more benefits in more detail on the illumenai website, where you can also get in contact with us for any questions or concerns you might have. If you’re a business owner and wondering what smart spaces can do for your office, come back next week for our 3 Ways Smart Spaces Can Benefit Your Business
July 23, 2020, 1:24 pm