Harnessing data in homes and buildings

60-minute session

Since Google, Facebook and other companies located in Silicon Valley, showed the rest of the world the hidden power of harnessing data, attempts to replicate the success of the largest corporates in the world have been legion.

In 2017, the Economist published a story titled, ‘The world’s most valuable resource is no longer oil, but data’, which has seen a lot happen since globally.

End users have accepted the need to trade data for convenience and comfort, although the regulations have grown around the user privacy. Another important aspect is that data is now a target for many companies, either in the software or hardware industry. Some predict that hardware will become less important while software will gain importance, with data driving the change.

Furthermore, the once-off sales targets are shifting to subscription plans everywhere, thanks to Netflix and Spotify, based on data and services. The home and building industry does not escape from this debate.

There is a great opportunity for all the stakeholders involved in this industry, especially when tackling energy management, although there are some challenges that need to be addressed:

• Data coming from different sources, applications, and vendors… complicate the task of processing it in the most optimal way.
• The lack of standard interfaces imposes barriers for the software developers to extract the data smoothly.
• A vendor-locked approach keeps the data in silos, thus not contributing to synergistic solutions that enhance the data compilation.
• Security is crucial, and so it has to be at the centre of the equation.
• The ethical usage of the data, and the need of offering alternatives where data is not shared while maintaining the level of comfort.

In this recorded discussion, contributors to the KNX technology talk about the problems faced by the new business models in the home and building automation industry and will provide their vision on how it can be solved.

Speakers:

Christian Kiefel, CEO | ProKNX SAS

Dario Tolio, CTO | Ilevia srl

Jesús Arias, Membership & Business Development | KNX Association cvba