Forget ‘Smart Homes’-You Need a ‘Smart Office’

Smart homes are all the rage these days. You can control your home’s temperature, lighting, and even monitor it remotely. So this brings up the question-why does your office get left behind? The answer is that this doesn’t need to be the case. Using this technology for your office instead to create a ‘smart office’ can lower your stress and really save you time and money to boot. Here are a few ideas to achieve a smart office and how it can help you in the long run.

Smart Lights

Energy management is a huge thing these days and saving on electricity costs through lights is a great way to get it done. Smart lights have the ability to change lighting conditions based on what’s currently happening in the building. If there’s no one there then they will shut off. If someone is walking along a hallway when it’s dark, the lights can shut on and off in sequences as they move along the hallway so it uses only the light that you really need.


They can also turn on only when it gets dark outside based on outside information from weather apps in some cases. Some of them, like iLumen, can even have a color change based on all sorts of different criteria. It’s been showing scientific studies before that different sorts of lighting can lead to different sorts of moods. If you have the opportunity, create also a roof garden on top of your office. Keeping your roof covered with green grass, plants, and trees will also help you to drastically reduce your company’s energy consumption.

Smart Thermostats

Many people dream about being able to fully control the energy in their house, but when you think about it, this tech goes a lot further in offices. If your thermostat knows when to lower temperatures because no one is in the building, it can save you a huge amount on energy bills. Smart thermostats can even only heat parts of the building that are regularly used, or change temperature configurations based on where people are. This not only will help you save on energy costs at home, but also in your office.

Smart Solar Panels

Solar panels can also be used to power or at least help power offices. And with smart solar arrays, the solar panels can be configured to move to best pick up sunlight during the best hours of the day.  Solar power is on its way up these days. It’s still expensive to purchase initially, with systems going for as much as 80 thousand dollars, but they tend to pay off quite a lot in the long run due to energy savings. This is especially the case since commercial systems are now approaching 35 percent efficiency levels in terms of using solar energy.

Smart Data Analysis

Another good way to create more efficiency in your office is through the use of dashboard technology. Companies like Domo and others provide ways to track your sales and geographical data in real time. You can use this analysis to figure out how to cut parts of your business to encourage efficiency and cut back on waste just like a smart thermostat can but in a different way. It’s surprising just how much you can learn from the analysis of big data.

How to choose the right generator and protect yourself against power outages

The country’s electricity grid is already well into senior status and most of it is in fact well over 100 years old.  More than 70% of the grid’s transmission lines and power transformers throughout the U.S and Canada are more than 25 years old according to the non-profit organization North American Electric Reliability Corp.

With climate change now a major issue and with hurricane season between August and October, and with the appearance of superstorms such as Superstorm Sandy last year, it is no surprise that well over 50,000 customers experienced power outages due to weather-related events.

The Department of Energy was allocated $4.5 billion in 2009 to invest in modern grid technology but when you consider that the cost of outages are between $18 billion and $33 billion annually, you can quickly see that there is a good chance the lights might go out on your home at some point in the near future.

More homeowners are turning to using their own generators as a way of ensuring they get a constant electricity supply. We have put together a guide to assist you in making the right choice when it comes to the right generator for your needs. You can get protected against future power outages, whatever the weather decides to do. Take also a look at this post on high school scholarships if you have children that want to study innovative technology while you don’t have the financial resources to pay for their high school years and a good college education.