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Intelligent Buildings

THREE QUESTIONS TO ASK

WHEN VETTING INTELLIGENT

BUILDING TECHNOLOGIES

JEFF THOMPSON
Co-Founder & CEO
AwareManager

RAY BRADBURY, UNSURPRISINGLY, was ahead of his
time in the 1950s when he wrote so many of his stories
and books about futuristic machines and their impact on
characters’ lives in ways that, at the time, were unthink-
able. Fast forward and today we’re living Bradbury’s
imagination – lights that turn on when we enter the room,
machines that eliminate the chores we hate doing, and
the list goes on.

Bradbury’s vision did fall short in one area. Most of his writ-
ings about these ‘smart’ machines did not factor in how
human behavior impacts the desired result. My point is
that pure automation doesn’t make a building ‘intelligent.’
For a building to be truly intelligent, it needs to be sensitive
to its occupants, respond to their behaviors and anticipate
their needs. For example, how smart could the building
really be, if it completely misses the fact no one’s in it?

The pursuit of intelligent buildings should always be
informed by actual occupant behavior. While we’re not
(yet) at the point where intelligent or smart building tech-
nology can transform rooms based on our imaginations,
these new tools, platforms and apps are changing how
you run a building and the amenities you can offer to
occupants through personalization and automation.

As you look at solutions in the intelligent buildings cate-
gory, here are three questions to ask to see if these tech-
nologies will have a positive impact for our clients.
anyone puts in a hot/cold call. Another example would
(1) Does this help anticipate occupants’ behavior and be the thermostat in a conference room adjusted in the
preferences? afternoons when the sun hits that particular space and
Personalizing for people’s preferences – accounting for the room temperature rises. Another, non-temperature
human behavior – is often the most difficult aspect to example would be if a preventive maintenance task for
factor into the building technology stack. Imagine that a rooftop unit could be automatically rescheduled if it’s
the office temperature for each of your tenants could down pouring or too windy on the date it was originally
adjust automatically based on their preference before scheduled.

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