New Cars are High-Tech, Like Most Buildings

When my family parted ways with our last car, we decided to buy a brand new vehicle. Our new car comes with a monitoring and control system. Because I work for a company that provides similar technology for buildings and mechanical systems, I immediately noticed some interesting parallels.

Our vehicle provides real-time information, as well as historical charts, all via a few dashboards. For real time, the vehicle calculates miles per gallon, rate of speed, power delivered to each wheel, center of gravity, miles until empty, among other things. In terms of historical numbers, the dashboard shows miles per gallon on a variety of time frames, distance traveled, and trip performance comparisons. Thinking back to PowerWise, our dashboards provide real-time information and reports on performance, costs, and use for a building and its mechanical systems. The knowledge helps people ensure their buildings are efficient and reliable.

Beyond the reports, this vehicle has the early features of what will become self-driving cars. Radar detects the distance between me and the vehicle in front of me. When running the cruise control, I can toggle the safe distance between me and the car ahead of me. If I drift out of a lane, the car provides corrective steering to nudge me back in the right direction. I view these features similar to controls provided by PowerWise. Thermostat controls are available to set schedules, which will adjust the thermostat automatically on the set timeframe, or I can adjust the setpoint manually. The admin “super-user” has full control over the settings, but also allows regular users make small temperature changes.

When I purchased the car, the salesman told me that I will receive phone calls, emails, and letters from the manufacturer once the vehicle hits 5000 miles. The salesman also reports that the vehicle adjusts how it runs based on my driving behavior. The car is digesting information from all the sensors and resulting calculations, making updates to how the engine runs, and sends data to the cloud. Amazing.

Could you imagine doing that with a building and all the important mechanical systems? Of course I can. We already do that! I work with this technology every day, and discuss the solutions with clients and potential customers. While monitoring and control technology may seem amazing in automobiles, the concept is becoming mainstream in buildings and mechanical systems, where it started.

So, as you drive down the road in your car and consider all the monitoring, control, and safety systems available, think about how your home or commercial building can enjoy the same benefits. Monitoring makes the building’s performance fully known and transparent. When you make changes or adjust equipment settings, you can immediately see the impact. A technology like this can provide important benefits for your buildings and mechanical systems - and for your peace of mind.