Smart living needs IoT technology – a smart building case

Smart buildings integrate technologies and processes that create a safe, comfortable, and efficient environment for their residents. Kessler Real Estate Solutions GmbH is working on a concept for sustainable smart housing that offers residents a living environment that can be controlled by voice, app, or conventionally at the touch of a button. Kessler offers active support for the management of these networked apartments and smart living concepts with the CAFM software FAMOS.

An IoT system architecture for future smart building cases

To support the implementation of sustainable smart building use cases for residential projects, Kessler is using the akenza platform as the technological basis for all future IoT applications.

The current architecture supports the recording and storage of electricity, water and heating consumption data in the akenza platform. The data is subsequently made available to Kessler Solutions' facility management software via REST API. The provision of the data serves to map necessary processes in the CAFM system FAMOS, such as an energy dashboard for the neighborhood (energy balance, electricity generation, consumption, comparison with the previous year or month).

In addition to this, digitalSTROM smart metering system was integrated into the IoT platform. This integration allows the readings from digitalSTROM meters to be processed in the akenza platform and aggregated with numerous other IoT data input sources. The integration of digital water & heat meters provides a neighborhood-specific view of energy consumption and commercial processes. In a multi-rental residential project, this data can be used in order to forecast the energy demand per rental apartment.

Intelligent and sustainable living in the future

This neighborhood concept could be compared with other locations and provide important insights for smart living in the future. The results would be made available to tenants for each apartment. The idea behind this would be to show renters a forecast in addition to the measured consumption. In view of the rising costs of electricity, water and gas, it would be important to be able to adjust one's own consumption via forecasts as well as daily overviews in order to identify and manage large consumption points.

For the operator of such a smart housing neighborhood, this concept offers a way to follow tightly the ESG guidelines (Environmental, Social, and Governance). The aim of Kessler is therefore to support the design of a real estate portfolio that supports strategic and economic viewpoints through new sustainability goals and operate buildings in an energy-neutral manner.

CAFM software FAMOS

The current infrastructure allows Kessler Solutions' customers to add more smart building cases over time. The technology-independent architecture of akenza ensures that all components of the system can be easily replaced and that the project is ready for future changes. Additionally, depending on a customer’s needs, other smart living insights can be easily integrated into the akenza platform as it supports integrations of many connectivity providers and device types. This project and further integrations are just the first step towards the smart living of tomorrow.