This article defines the term intelligent building, discusses the driving factors that are influencing intelligent buildings today, and explains how new Ethernet technologies enable the transformation of existing buildings into intelligent buildings.
An intelligent building is one which integrates various systems to effectively manage resources in a coordinated mode to maximize technical performance, investment and operating cost savings, and/or flexibility. You’ve probably heard the phrase “Someone is too smart for their own good”, but have you ever heard the phrase “They were too intelligent for their own good”? This is because there is a distinct difference between being smart and intelligent. One of my favorite quotes is “Smart people talk, intelligent people listen.” Similarly, the difference between a smart building and an intelligent building is that in a smart building, the user will program systems to act in a manner dictated suitable to the best intentions of the user. In contrast, an intelligent building has the appropriate sensing and processing capabilities to listen on its own and then program itself to do what it sees as optimal. To achieve this, the building must have the relevant sensing capabilities to take as much of the external environment in as necessary, the appropriate communication pathways to transport these data back to the “brain” of the building (which could be located onsite or in the cloud), and machine learning algorithms in its brain to process the information it is getting to dictate the optimal action to take.
The action must then be communicated back out to the relevant systems for execution via the same communication pathways.
READ MORE on Smart Buildings vs. Intelligent Buildings
See related product
See related product
See related product
