IoT is all the rage these days when contemplating the future. Everyone wants their hand in the game and to look like an amazing prognosticator. This is one of those future looking trends that I actually agree with. As monitors and sensors become smaller and cheaper they will be natively embedded in more and more items. Your office will naturally start reporting out:
- How often each chair is in use based on embedded motion sensors within the body of the chair. Real time monitoring of space utilization (both personal workspaces and shared areas).
- Real time air monitoring through embedded monitors in the vents monitoring temperature and air flow.
- Who is leaving on their lights at the end of the day. Workstation lighting will come with an on/off monitor that can report which ones are left on longer than others to help you reduce your energy usage.
- Desktop/Laptop on/off monitoring. Same as above but for the computers. Computers take a lot of power to cool – leaving them on costs more energy than the lights.
- Parking sensors by space so that you can understand the true commuter patterns and also parking utilization.
- Building level submetering for water, electric and gas to understand our true usage.
The biggest issue with all of this? It will always be privacy. There is no such thing as anonymous data – even when there are no personal identifiers involved. Parking sensors can be misused because the same people come in early and some people have their preferred parking spot. IT tracking is directly tied to people. Chair sensors can be gamed (although gaming will occur the most in the early days before everyone gets used to how the data is being used and then it will drop off).
Second to privacy though is IT investment. All of this data will need to go somewhere and be utilized through software. This will require significantly more investment by the average real estate group than has previously been invested. Corporate RE spend still typically stands fairly low on the IT budgeting hierarchy. That will need to change.