Tech Briefs Magazine - March 2022 - Sensor-11

Smart Buildings Can Make You Healthier and Happier
Tech Briefs: How do you deal with the
T
data?
Tech Briefs: There's been a lot written
about how smart buildings can save energy.
However, I'm interested in how you
can improve conditions such as people's
health, sense of well-being, and productivity
in commercial buildings. I'm thinking,
for example of lighting controls,
HVAC controls, measuring air quality,
things like that.
Dwight Stewart: Igor has a platform
that can unify a building's infrastructure.
It enables you to use Power over
Ethernet to a node rather than end to
end cabling for each separate application.
You can connect different sensors,
for example, motion and daylight sensors
for lighting control. You can hook
up sensors for indoor air quality so you
can measure CO2, PM 2.5 particles,
VOCs, and other metrics. The node can
even act as a thermostat - it can connect
directly to nearby HVAC device controls
and include a display.
Through the platform, you can not
only see all the metrics that you care
about to create healthy spaces, but also
deliver outcomes.
Tech Briefs: So, the user would be able
to write rules into your software platform?
Stewart: Yes, we have a software technology
stack comprised of three different
things. One is our node, which connects
real-world devices to our software
- you can have nodes in the ceiling
every 10 square feet. At each node, you
can connect nearby devices, whether
they're lights, or sensors, or actuators for
devices like window shades. This gives
you
a
great amount of
Stewart: We have Application Programming
Interfaces (APIs) that allow you to
create your own programs. So, for example,
if you have elevated levels of CO2 in a
room, it can be a real problem. It increases
drowsiness; you can become really irritable;
you can make rash decisions. It also
o find out about the contributions integrated
building systems can provide
to enhance the working and living
environment inside a commercial building,
I interviewed Dwight Stewart,
Founder and CTO, Igor, Inc. (West Des
Moines, IA).
indicates that the same air is cycling
between different people's lungs. Let's say
there are five people in a room, you get
elevated CO2, which means that that the
same air is breathed in and out, probably
being exchanged between people. So,
when you think about the pandemic, it's
more and more likely that you're
exchanging germs when that CO2 level is
going up. There are a lot of different reaExceptional
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versatility.
Whether on day one or two years after
you've installed the system, you can add
or remove things easily and quickly.
Anything you connect to the node will
show up as a device on the network as
soon as it is connected, and you can then
start to program it. Say, two years from
now a new device comes out that can
sense a type of chemical in the air that
people are starting to care about.
Sensor Technology, March 2022
Cov
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Tech Briefs Magazine - March 2022

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