Published in FUTUREiOT October 25, 2022, “New Sensing Tech To Make Smart Buildings Adaptive To The New Normal”

“ABI Research forecasts sensor shipments will grow from 18.5 million devices to surpass 300 million by 2030, a CAGR of 35%.  “Traditionally, sensing in the commercial building sensing market has been tied to establish systems, such as heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC), fire and safety, and access control, but a range of additional environmental sensing technologies, sensors, and devices are coming to market at a time of great upheaval in the commercial building market,” says Jonathan Collins, smart home & buildings research director at ABI Research. “As occupancy sensing, or air quality, or energy management, space utilization, and preventative maintenance push further into commercial building operations, systems integrators, building management providers, and sensor and device developers along with manufacturers will have to ensure they select and integrate the best technologies for as many applications as possible,” Collins concluded.”  On the one hand this should make corporate office occupancy more efficient, knowing what portions of the space are occupied and need HVAC and lighting,  and knowing which aren’t so those systems could be shut down. At some future point there may be technology that detects if an individual has Covid or some other transmissible disease in scanning in the lobby and not allowing access to the building. This also presents a huge differential between high-rise Class A buildings that can afford this type of technology and the Class B and C office buildings who either because of scale or type of building cannot.