IoT is helping Smartworks create the workplace of the future by increasing employee productivity and lowering down energy consumption by 15 per cent.

Co-working space provider Smartworks is using its own operating system for office to stay ahead. In conversation with ETCIO, Harsh Binani, Co-founder of the company talks about their implementation of IoT to cut energy consumption and make it easier for employees to find a meeting room when they need it.

How are you trying to create a workplace for the future?

We have made a lot of investments in building Smart OS (Operating System) to run the office. Smart OS is a combination of a variety of proprietary apps that we have built, combined with a lot of external applications at a higher level. This not only drives our internal program but also a customer-facing interface which touchpoints with our customers.

Our entire endeavour is to map and create an ecosystem which drives client engagement at all the touchpoints and unifies all the services. Right from your entrance to the Smartworks office to your exit, we map all the touchpoints digitally.

Similarly, we have a visitor management system where rather than entering the details manually, the visitors who come here, can easily walk in seamlessly using a smart pass on his phone and enter an access controlled environment in Smartworks.

How are you making the HVAC system intelligent?

We have also invested a lot with a third party on making the HVAC (Heating, Ventilation and Conditioning) systems intelligent. This allows an employee to control the temperature of his surroundings up to 25 m in radius. It not only controls the temperature but also shows the air quality, humidity and airflow.

The exciting developments that have happened in the last 6 months are the meeting room management and booking system.

It is something which is fairly unstructured in offices and a lot of meeting rooms end up getting booked without any prior notice. And similarly,, who’s using the meeting room? What’s the purpose, a lot of analytics that needs to be done in a meeting room that is the problem statement that we started with for this entire meeting room solutions.

What role is IoT playing in making workplaces smarter?

We have developed a proprietary meeting room scheduler application, which works on IoT. We have tablets installed outside each of the meeting rooms which is also integrated with our Smartworks app. Through this app, one can book the meeting room. The distinguishing factor is that it only allows you to use the amenities of the meeting room if you have booked it.

Once you have booked the meeting room, you can switch on the light using the electrical connections within the room. Through this, we are not only able to plug-in the leakage of energy consumption but also gives the power to the user so he can control all the elements of the meeting room.

Through the Smartworks application, the user can also book beverages or snacks that they want to order during the meeting. So both these features combined to make a very powerful experience within this.

The entire HVAC intelligent extract application ends up using less electricity. So, automatically through the tailoring of the entire system, we are able to reduce the electricity consumption at a high level which helps in reducing the carbon footprint. Since the last 6 months, we’ve reduced our energy consumption by more than 15 per cent.