Better Buildings, Happier People: The Power of IoT

GridDuck sits down with Dan Bosak of Enlighted to discuss all things buildings, data and design.

Dan Bosak, International Development Partner at Enlightened

If you’ve ever sat inside a freezing-cold office and wished the building could adjust to your temperature, you’re not alone. Smart building technology exists that can anticipate people’s needs – whether it’s lighting, desk space, or even ordering a pizza. A leader in the field of IoT, Enlighted uses incredibly advanced sensors to help its clients get the most out of their spaces. Owned by Siemens, the brand is in more than 1000 sites and 60 countries, counting Google, Pfizer and Microsoft as its clients. 

GridDuck has recently become an Enlighted ecosystem partner to generate actionable energy data that adds value to daily life. Dan Bosak, international development partner at Enlighted, talked to us about designing technology systems that are human-centric and why he’s worried about the future of artificial intelligence. 

You work with some of the biggest companies in the world, yet many people won’t have heard of you. How would you explain Enlighted’s business? 

If you ask me to tell you what Englighted is in one sentence, I would say we create value out of data that benefits organisations. Technology changes all the time. What we use today will likely be forgotten in 10 or 20 years, but the tangible benefits of actionable data will never be forgotten. That’s why Siemens bought Enlighted four years ago, not because of the quantity, but the quality of data generated from its sensors and how we can build value from it. 

Why should people care about putting sensors in buildings? 

Anyone can make sensors. China makes zillions of them. Sensors simply produce very raw data that in and of itself means nothing. Comparing very raw data to purified data is like comparing a Rembrandt with a quick sketch of getting groceries. What we do is take multiple sensors and process the data so that it becomes useful. This can help organisations better understand how people are using spaces – with heat maps, for example. The same technology can be used to book desks and other services as well – it could connect to pizza deliveries, for instance. It’s literally making buildings smart by interacting with people so that they feel better and work better and more efficiently in their environment. What we ultimately do is sell solutions, not products. 

IoT systems have come in for some criticism for having security weaknesses that could be exploited. How do you overcome this scepticism?

There are multiple threats globally and there are legacy protocols used by IoT that are vulnerable to attacks. Our protocol – the language our system speaks – is not the one typically used by the internet and it has never been made public. If the protocol for transferring data is public, then you need to start adding keys and encryption to make it secure. With Enlighted, hackers might be able to listen to the data being transferred from our sensors, but they can’t understand it. Google did all sorts of penetration testing and they couldn’t hack into Enlighted’s system, so it’s incredibly secure. I don’t know of another system on the market that can support so many buildings and so many sensors.

An NHS Foundation Trust in Manchester worked with you to reduce energy costs related to its lighting, with results that far exceeded expectations. 

They wanted to unlock the power of IoT for healthcare facilities. We replaced over 900 fluorescent lighting fixtures with Enlighted-empowered LEDs. If you replace an old system with LEDs, you are normally looking at a saving of 60-70% maximum. The official energy savings we achieved was 91%. But we never promise our customers superficial savings or environmental benefits like reducing CO2. The latter can often be abused or exaggerated. Of course we can help save energy by regulating lighting based on the presence of people, movement and preferences, but it’s up to our clients to decide what to do with our data. Armed with information, they can adjust how their building is used so that it’s more efficient, with energy savings becoming an indirect benefit. 

On top of that, we can fine-tune light so that it suits people best, including creating light that follows the pattern outside. New research has shown that if you change the colour or intensity of the light, patients in hospitals can recover quicker and feel more calm. 

You make a clear distinction between giving clients data and making decisions for them. 

In one project for the University of Birmingham, we installed about 20,000+ sensors to create a smart ceiling. Each sensory node has a processor and memory, so it’s like a computer in itself. They approached us to find out how the spaces across the university were being used, because they wanted to know whether to invest in a site further away or just use the existing space better. It’s our responsibility to help organisations understand exactly how spaces are used based on the data, but we don’t make any decisions.  

The technology is very powerful and with that comes additional responsibility… 

Our smart ceiling connects to the back end and the back end connects to mobile phones, so that you’d be able to locate someone, but we don’t monitor mobile phones and uphold people’s privacy. When we work with hospitals we can track people who carry beacon tags but that’s only because they are doctors or nurses on duty. When a doctor wants to take a break, he can disconnect from the tag and leave it with someone else. In a factory, for example, you might have a sensitive piece of equipment that has to be moved around. With location-tracking beacons on it, we know where it is at all times and can locate it when it’s needed. 

Hybrid working is on the rise, a development that has seen many buildings under-occupied. Does that make a difference to what you do? 

Our main clients are IT companies that have a flexible understanding of work. We can generate data based on everything happening inside a building, whether people are there or not. But our goal is always to make our system more human-centric. It’s about people and we must never stop being people-centric because then there is a danger that you could make a building too automated. If that were to happen, buildings would stop catering for people but instead for the process. 

Enlightened uses machine learning to enhance what it can do, but you worry about artificial intelligence. Why? 

I’m a physicist by education originally and I try to think in concepts, and I could easily imagine a world where humans would not have the power of making the final decision and it really is scary. 

I think the fear of artificial intelligence is justified. I’m not apologetic about technology just because it’s technology. We use machine learning at Enlighted to increase the accuracy of positioning things in a building, but machine learning only does what we can’t. It’s like having a heavy tool that makes our hands stronger. It can also find patterns and logic that we would not be able to see because we only think in two or three-dimensional planes. It gives more power to our brains, which is perfectly reasonable and for the sake and benefit of humanity.

The problem is when we decide to not be responsible for decisions and we let software make decisions, which is the difference between machine learning and artificial intelligence. Artificial intelligence is machine learning plus allowing machines to decide and that’s very dangerous. 

How do you partner with companies like GridDuck? 

We have eco-partners who can provide us with valuable expertise. These partners help us get data out of different sources that can integrate with our system. That means we can add even more value to our clients. There’s the potential to create huge value in hospitals and factories as well. 

What are you working on that has the power to be transformational?

We are working on having a common data transfer through ceilings without the need for wires, a local internet or anything else that’s vulnerable. This smart ceiling would take even more data and transfer it across buildings to make them even more insightful. Think of it as an information superhighway where data can come and go through buildings to different devices, even robots. Let’s say you have a robot that cleans the building – you don’t want this exposed to the internet because it can be taken over by hackers and then the robot can become a terrorist. We’ve analysed even this possibility and taken measures to ensure it can’t happen. 

Dan Bosak is an international development partner for Siemens Building Robotics and Enlighted, a brand creating positive transformation out of spaces.