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IoT and Clarity™: The Bridge Between Products and Benefits

IoT is a constantly evolving field of technology and can have many different, complex meanings. Facility managers worry not only about learning the technology but staying on top of it as the industry continues to advance. According to Forbes, the IoT is just getting started. IHS has predicted there’ll be 75 billion connected devices by 2020. Understanding how these products can deliver benefits is the key to successfully implementing an IoT solution in your building.

Let’s take it back to 30 years ago. What happened when an employee or customer called and said, “the temperature is too hot,” or “the lights didn’t come on?” You would have to roll a truck to analyze the situation. Is the thermostat set right? Is the filter clogged? Is the fan belt broken? Is the light switch on? Is the breaker on? All of this just to make an adjustment to the operating system.

Between the truck, gas, insurance, supplies, and labor, the whole process added up to an expensive fix. In fact, according to one electric company, this expense can easily exceed $250-500 for each and every truck roll.

But what if you had a way to diagnose the problem remotely? Here lies the beauty of IoT.

With IoT, sensors give you the ability to transfer important data about building systems from the local level to the remote level, allowing you to make decisions without dispatching a technician. Here’s another way to think about it: the IoT sensors are the eyes in your building. They keep you from making unnecessary truck rolls.

Saved maintenance expenses aren’t the only benefit of IoT sensors, however. According to a recent report by McKinsey Global Institute, with these devices, the data you have access to allows you to make predictive decisions that can save energy, thereby lowering operational expenses and helping you run your building more efficiently. Whether you use data for utility incentives, measurement, and verification, proactive maintenance, or simply to ensure the comfort of your employees or customers, you now have smart, real-time data to fit your exact business needs.

As a facility manager, trying to select the products necessary to obtain all these conceptual benefits of IoT technology can be overwhelming. That’s where FSG’s energy management ecosystem, Clarity™, comes in. Clarity™ is the bridge that connects smart building systems to emerging technical benefits.

At FSG, we are product agnostic, which means our energy management experts always help you select the proper hardware and software that best fits your needs. Our Clarity™ team can integrate these products into your buildings whether you have existing legacy equipment, you are adding IoT to an existing system, or you want to include it with new construction. Once your system is up and running, FSG’s 24/7 Clarity™ support team is ready to help you collect, analyze and turn your real-time data into actionable items to service your buildings as needed.

Yes, IoT can seem intimidating, but with Clarity™, it doesn’t have to be. To learn more about Clarity™, watch the video below and email us at [email protected].

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