Connected smart sensors play a significant role in establishing smart HVAC systems in old buildings. By having sensors in the existing system, components and back-end software providing data analytics, old buildings can also receive benefits from smart HVAC systems.
Upgrading HVAC to a smart system is a good start, as long as you don’t paint yourself into a corner. While investing in sensors and IoT gateways you should consider if the data could be re-used. For instance, a temperature sensor/thermostat is needed to control the heating/cooling. But, that temperature data could also be sent to a tenant app, used to signal if a window is open, used for statistics and optimizations, and so on. Also, if you have many properties you would be interested in collecting all data from all the properties to a remote common control center.
When you are in the process of investing and upgrading to save money, you should think about the whole picture. Or as we say at Sensative; “think big, start small and scale fast“.
