SenseIQ — learnings since launch

Earlier this year, we launched SenseIQ — our integrated IoT services solution for smart buildings. This was our response to the clear demand from tenants, building owners and operators for tools that would allow them to meet emerging regulatory compliance and stay competitive in an increasingly challenging market.

The writing was on the wall for landlords: those looking to retain and attract new tenants needed to improve the performance of their office spaces.

While this partly involves delivering a safe and comfortable working environment, truly making good on ‘performance’ means achieving regulatory compliance, optimising space utilisation and ensuring that buildings are as comfortable and operate as efficiently as possible.

To achieve these goals, building owners need greater insight into their buildings’ performance. It is virtually impossible to make strategic decisions without access to real-time data on a building’s functionality and operation.

While there’s no shortage of providers in this space who claim to offer the right solution, navigating the technicalities of delivering IoT-based smart building systems can be a struggle.

All too often, different sensor systems and data are siloed and difficult to analyse, which renders the desired intel out of reach. Fundamentally, that’s why we built SenseIQ.

In practice: greater experiences, lower costs

From day one, we’ve been using SenseIQ in our home office at 1 Ely Place in London. And the benefits couldn’t be clearer.

From a functional standpoint, the improvements to employee experience were immediately available thanks to the employee app — allowing for desk booking, auto check-in, and the ability to ‘find my colleague’.

This has removed any unnecessary friction in collaborative working and helped us all work more seamlessly around one another. Consequently, space utilisation levels increased by 14% in Q2 last year.

Our overhead costs have decreased thanks to the ability to fine-tune our energy policy, directing resources where they’re needed, when they’re needed, according to real-time utilisation data.

This has also moved us closer to our sustainability goals, creating a more energy-efficient workspace that wastes less by better-aligning HVAC with occupancy levels. In the future, we’re even considering linking HVAC control with the weather forecast for further efficiency gains.

Safer office, healthier team

But it isn’t all about efficiency savings—we’ve also made meaningful steps towards improving employee health as a result of tracking humidity and air quality. Addressing low humidity levels can make occupants feel warmer—saving on heating—and resolve a variety of issues, from dry skin and eyes to static charges that can shock an unsuspecting employee or guest.

In our first week using SenseIQ, we identified unusual spikes in harmful fine particles (PM2.5) in one office corner. We were surprised to learn this was caused by an old, inefficient printer that has since been replaced.

Similarly, we could locate a broken air vent by tracking carbon monoxide levels in the office and identifying areas of high concentration.

Fixing this has brought carbon monoxide levels down to zero and reduced the number of reported headaches among employees in the vicinity.

Believe it or not, the air quality sensors are so fine-tuned that we’ve even measured the impact of our Monday morning banana delivery. Bananas naturally release formaldehyde into the environment, creating a small, noticeable spike in registered levels weekly.

Taken together, this means we can guarantee that our office at 1EP is a healthier, safer environment for our employees to work in—more so than other communal spaces or even their own homes. It’s a powerful commitment that forces us to hold to the same high standards that many of our customers do.