As the smart building universe continues to expand, the next generation will be characterized by more connected systems, devices, and applications than ever before, but something these structures won’t have: more wires.

For many years, the phrase “smart building” conjured images of miles of wiring running up and down elevator shafts, behind walls, under desks, and around conference rooms, connecting a variety of equipment, systems, sensors and devices throughout an entire building. Now, increasing numbers of Smart Buildings, increasing numbers of connections within those buildings, and new Smart Building applications are calling for a new approach—lower cost connectivity, lower power consumption, and comprehensive indoor coverage that reaches every connected device.

That is why wireless is now taking on a much larger profile. For LoRaWAN® in particular, smart buildings represent the technology’s fastest-growing market segment. A broadening variety of smart building applications creates an opportunity for building operators and service providers to look seriously at wireless and LoRaWAN.

Smart Building Use Cases for a Wireless World

Building automation has often been cited as the biggest use case for smart buildings, but building automation is really more of an umbrella with a growing number of individual use cases underneath it. At the same time, building automation efforts have become enveloped in broader post-pandemic, return-to-office Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) strategies. These programs leverage smart building technologies to make buildings healthier and more environmentally conscious places in which to work and live.

Here is just a handful of smart building use cases that are increasingly being served by wireless IoT connectivity today:

• Indoor air quality: Post-COVID, there has been a heightened acknowledgment of the importance of monitoring and maintaining healthy indoor air quality. In a smart building, wireless indoor air quality sensors can be placed in every room and office to present real-time data on CO₂ levels and more.
• Water and gas leak monitoring: Wireless sensors deployed on water and gas pipes and other components can immediately detect leaks and alert engineering staff, potentially saving building owners huge repair costs if leaks are caught early, also increasing safety.
• Utility metering: Smart metering via wireless sensors can improve smart building operating costs and efficiency by keeping tabs on energy and water usage.
• Presence and occupancy awareness: Non-invasive detection of people occupying a space within a smart building can trigger automated responses of lighting, environmental systems, security cameras, and more, helping to conserve operational costs when spaces are not occupied and increase comfort and safety when they are.
• Temperature monitoring and HVAC control: Wireless IoT-connected thermostats and sensors can detect changes in room temperature based on changing occupancy and trigger HVAC adjustments for maximum comfort and appropriate energy consumption. These smart, connected systems also are key to a major smart building benefit—lower carbon emissions.
• Window and door monitoring: Another nod to both energy consumption and occupant safety and security, as leaks and breaches in windows and doors can be detected by wireless sensors that trigger an automated or human response.
• Food and cold storage monitoring: Wireless sensors in smart building kitchens, refrigerators, and freezers and other food storage areas can monitor temperature, humidity, and other sensitivities that affect food spoilage, saving costs and improving safety.
• Asset tracking and monitoring: Wireless sensors can be placed on equipment, machines, carts, pallets, or other items that frequently change location within a smart building, so real-time location data is always available. Equipment like copy machines and printers also can be monitored for ink usage and predictive maintenance needs.
• Security system management: Wireless IoT can automate control of security cameras and alarms in and around a smart building.
• Smoke alarms and emergency lighting: Smoke and fire detection systems can go wireless, along with off-grid emergency lighting to aid in evacuation and disaster response.
• Parking area monitoring: Parking garages, lots, and even individual spaces can be monitored for security and real-time updates on availability and location of unoccupied spaces.
• Pest control: Connected rat traps and other pest control systems in and around the exterior of smart buildings can update building staff when they have landed their quarry.

What all of these applications have in common is a demand for large numbers of sensors to be deployed within every room, office, elevator, hallway, stairway, and entryway of a building, as well as on environmental control equipment, plumbing systems, windows, doors, refrigerators, parking spaces, copy machines, carts, and yes, rat traps. As smart buildings become packed with IoT sensors, a wired approach to linking all these sensors makes a lot less sense.

What LoRaWAN Delivers

This high density of IoT sensors requires comprehensive and reliable indoor connectivity coverage that penetrates walls to reach every endpoint device. Another key requirement is low power consumption, as connected sensors in smart buildings may need to be deployed in tight and hard-to-access spaces, such as on plumbing, machinery components, and high ceilings. Ideally, that calls for battery-powered sensors that can live long lives and need infrequent maintenance attention.

In addition, because IoT sensors are increasingly being deployed just about everywhere within the smart building, achieving scalability at the lowest possible cost is becoming a top concern.

While any wireless IoT connectivity method is a better, more efficient, and less costly fit than wired connectivity for these needs and conditions, LoRaWAN is particularly well-positioned as the LPWAN IoT connectivity method with the highest accessibility, widest availability, and most robust ecosystem capable of providing and supporting the widest variety of affordable smart building IoT devices and applications.

Perhaps the most important feature that any wireless IoT connectivity can bring to Smart Buildings is the ability to work with all of the industrial automation technology standards that make Smart Buildings smart. LoRaWAN’s high accessibility is demonstrated by how it smoothly integrates with widely used smart building standards such as BACnet, Modbus, KNX through gateways, controllers, and other software. LoRaWAN also is supported through single-platform smart building IoT ecosystems, such as Tridium’s, all of which means LoRaWAN is well-prepared to be incorporated into existing BMS.

The ability to integrate with other standards and ecosystems is a direct reflection of the flexibility and openness of LoRaWAN, which also extends to how LoRaWAN is capable of supporting a variety of different deployment models. For example, building managers can deploy LoRaWAN on their own and have it working with an existing BMS or part of a new smart building design using technology pieces from different suppliers. Meanwhile, LoRaWAN is also a popular choice for indoor coverage among big public network operators who would serve smart buildings—even those who offer their own cellular coverage–like AT&T, Verizon, Swisscom, Deutsche Telekom, and more.

The flexibility of LoRaWAN also is on display in smart building environments where other indoor wireless connectivity methods also are deployed. For example, LoRaWAN can serve a wireless backhaul path for data coming from endpoint devices using RFID or Bluetooth. That data may be destined for the cloud for processing and analysis that keeps smart building operations on track, but another benefit of LoRaWAN is that it also could serve as the nervous system for a smart building’s edge computing architecture, allowing more data to be processed in-building instead of in the cloud.

There are already numerous smart building deployments around the world that employ LoRaWAN as their IoT connectivity foundation. For example, shopping centers are using LoRaWAN in smart building initiatives for applications like energy monitoring for sub-metering, indoor temperature and air quality monitoring, and leak detection. In other cases, LoRaWAN is connecting smart meters in apartment complexes and residential towers to help building operators and residents cut energy costs and improve energy efficiency.

The next generation of smart buildings presents an opportunity for building operators and service providers to make smarter choices about connectivity. Wires are out. Wireless, and specifically LoRaWAN, is in.