Beacon-Based Solutions: Blessing for Efficient & Safe Workplace

Employees are the core part of any organisation, no matter if it is a question of being a large enterprise or a small one. Shielding health and safety of the employees has been a great challenge for any organisation despite proving to be a long term sustainability factor for a success. Especially, workers working in the most hazardous conditions on this planet full of twists and turns need that extra provision of health and safety, which in turn rewards the organisation to be a success. So for all businesses, occupational safety and health of the OSH is an aspect that you have to really shine light on. Many organisations have led the line to solve this gruesome problem. It is done with the help of BLE technology through beacon-based solutions and beacon-based application development.

Beacons have also been a fundamental part of Internet of Things (IoT). According to ABI Research, it is estimated that by 2020 there will be over 400 million beacons installed worldwide.

Let us have a brief look of BLE technology solutions for health and safety in some of the Real-world cases.

Beacon-Based Solution for Health and Safety

The beacon-based solution should be designed for tracking and emergency communication solution for field workers and miners for connected and unconnected environments. Industry grade sensors should be deployed throughout the area of working to detect any accident like fire, hazardous gas leakage or flood. If any of these happens, it generates and send the alert messages to control room operator. The Beacon device provides supplemental data in the absence of GPS signals and communicate its location data through BLE technology to GPS Locator watch or any other wearable. So it proves to be helpful as the indoor safety purpose regarding location awareness and delivering an ideal beacon-based solution for those who have to work alone.

The beauty of the device is that if any individual wearing this device falls, fall detection automatically sends alert.

Beacon-Based Solution for Asset Tracking

Beacon devices can be formed into absolutely compact size and by their power-efficiency, they can run on coil cell battery for ages. Workers wearing PPE can also make use of beacon devices, that provides a feature to track the assets/ people. Traditionally, there was the use of RFID technology, where scanning was to be compulsory. But with the use of beacon-based solution, you can get rid of scanning.

For example, You can identify a worker in a particular area without scanning his badge. This can be very helpful at mustering points in the event of an emergency. As per ehs today, number of PPE manufacturers are already incorporating the beacons into their products. This helps to make smart PPEs which not only tracks but also manages the safety and security for the workers.

Beacon’s Role in Proximity Warnings

Proximity Based Solution using BLE Device allows business to collect more data, accurate data. Beacons can be mounted on a fixed location or a moving platforms such as forklifts and heavy machinery in a mobile state. This will allow to provide a whole different class of application for safety and proximity warning messages. The purpose of such beacon-based solution is to warn the workers or to stop the truck or machinery automatically. Moreover, warning alerts when the workers are close to a collision with such moving hazards.

Beacon-based Solutions for safer workplace

Beacon-based solutions can be leveraged as a cutting edge technology for social networking concepts. This imparts businesses globally to keep their workforce informed and safe. However there are certain limitations regarding the accuracy of standard geofences. Beacon-based solutions can solve that problem by improving the location accuracy. We know that beacons are more accurate in terms of location tracking. It has more narrow range than GPS, Cell tower triangulation and Wi-Fi proximity. Moreover, they use Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) to provide location accuracy down to a few meters. This further improves if more beacons are present in the same area. Beacons can be attached to transmit the project’s identifying information to any mobile devices that approach its location. The app can detect these beacons accurately to within 20–70m with very little impact on the battery.

Businesses require extremely high location accuracy or need to separate individual project areas within close proximity to each other. Beacon-based solution is a great way to improve the geolocation feature for them.

Proximity solution for your business

The advantages of beacon-based solutions is unimaginable. The future with beacon-based solutions really looks positive. We, at LetsNurture, have our own beacon devices developed. Moreover, we have catered our clients by providing beacon-based solutions for their ideas which are a reason for their success. Kaleri app (iOS and Android) is just one of the many beacon-based applications we have developed for our clients.

Get in touch with us now, if you are having any idea and looking for similar beacon-based solution but do not know how it can be implemented from the installation to the execution.

IoT based solution revolutionizing Smart Buildings

A consistent challenge for owners and managers of multistory buildings, schools, or building complexes is to keep the operational expenses low. The infrastructure available for managing building energy is designed for massive systems and not for managers with less budgets. This results in high costs of adoption and integration. IoT based solutions can help in such scenarios to collect, analyze, and control data from a multitude of systems, including HVAC, power, and lighting.

Implementing Smart Buildings for Greener Planet

With multiple thermostats and sensors producing data, manually collecting the information and compiling it in spreadsheets become an overwhelming tasks. Creating an extensible, connected platform capable of integrating with building sensors would be effective.

Sensors send the data from equipment such as air conditioners and lighting, and also on the flow of building occupants to the cloud to further analyze. Respective actions associated with the sensors are then triggered. For eg, when rooms are not in use, choosing the right time to turn down the thermostat to prevent waste. This will reduce building management costs — both in utilities and in staff.

Smart Building Scenarios

Numerous building systems, currently lack the connectivity and interoperability to work in unison. There were no means of process automation for efficient energy consumption. How about the thermostats that intuitively adjust the temperature, humidity, and light based on residents’ preferences and climatic conditions? This is now possible with IoT based solutions.

With a solution for home automation, IoT is changing the way buildings will be automated to save energy. Building automation is currently undergoing an pioneering transformation, encouraging the owners and tenants to rethink the possibilities of building management.

A recent McKinsey report on IoT estimates that connectivity can reduce energy in buildings by 20 percent and can lead to a nearly 20 percent increase in productivity.

IoT based solutions improve building visibility and manageability, giving facilities management firms the tools they need to reduce operational costs and provide the best experiences for tenants. This automated solution ensure the best-in-class climate control, energy savings, and maintenance.

Smart schools

The survey of more than 600 IT leaders from Extreme Networks, recorded that the scope of smart schools extends beyond traditional interactive classroom technologies.

The adoption of wearables, sensors located throughout classrooms, eBooks and tablets, collaborative classrooms, and smart lighting and HVAC has transformed the schools to become smarter and serve smart education to the students.

Smart Offices

Smart offices offer the automated heating and cooling systems, lighting, elevators and security are connected by a centralized management solution. This results in potential increase in ROI, more efficient employees, and improved environmental impacts.

Smart factories

Manufacturing industry relies on precision control of equipment and their production environment. With IoT based solutions, the identification of a problem becomes easier giving a fair turn around time to solve and schedule the maintenance.

A recent survey from PwC on IoT in manufacturing found that 35 percent of firms have implemented smart sensors to collect detailed operational data.

5 companies inculcating IoT solutions for smart buildings

Honeywell

Honeywell’s IoT based solution already caters about 10 million smart buildings worldwide. Honeywell implement IoT based solution at that lets building occupants report issues with heating or cooling. People become “sensors” alongside digital counterparts such as sensor.

IBM

IBM is implementing its Watson artificial intelligence and data analysis software behind its projects that make buildings smarter.

ISS, a facilities management company that will use Watson in more than 25,000 buildings to assess readings from sensors on windows, doors, chairs, food dispensers, air conditioning systems and so on.

Legrand

Legrand, a French-based electrical component manufacturer, sees its technology as the glue tying together automation technologies from the likes of Samsung and Cisco. It launched its IoT initiative, ‘ELIOT’, in November 2016.

Schneider Electric

Schneider Electric is considered to be energy management specialist. It introduced smart building product line called EcoStruxure in late November 2016.

Siemens

In 2016, this German conglomerate announced separate partnerships with IBM and consulting firm Capgemini to build even more credibility. The pact with IBM accords on creating a cloud service to help corporate real estate managers gain access to energy efficiency metrics for their facility portfolios.

IoT solutions For Smart Buildings?

If you are looking to build a smarter buildings by implementing Iot Solutions, we can help you. Get in touch with us to know more about our IoT solutions.

Reference: https://www.letsnurture.com/blog/iot-based-solution-revolutionizing-smart-buildings.html?utm_source=blog&utm_medium=Nisha