Even with an in-house technical support team, there are occasions when IT support is working remotely away from the server room. In fact, in today’s world remote access to network systems is the standard and not the exception. Remote control has now advanced into the office environmental and access control capabilities. Remote support and environmental automation is made possible using IP-ready management consoles and applications.
The XBUS commercial and environmental console is used to control several components remotely. These devices makes possible for support personnel to access environmental applications and devices over the network, whether in-house or remotely, using standard IP protocol. Examples of commercial environmental automation applications include:
• Keyless entry controls in office buildings and hotels
• After-hours indoor lighting
• Window blind control
• Outdoor lighting automation
• Lawn and landscape sprinkler system settings
• Server and network support and administration
• UPS management
In earlier implementations, the costs associated with remote control often limited commercial and environmental automation to large, complex facilities. Today, everything from home offices to large institutions benefit from the convenience and reliability of remote access over the internet.
Environmental automation is also used in building management for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning temperature control, as well as for food refrigeration and fire sprinkler system monitoring and management.
Climate control is one way building facility managers seek to reduce energy consumption. One example industry is the self-storage industry. Self-storage companies often own large capacity buildings which may be single implementations or an entire chain of properties managed in locations throughout the country. The ability to control lighting, entry access and temperatures in these facilities remotely and automatically results in tremendous energy savings.
The issue of large energy bills affects nearly every industry. Utility companies reduce costs by using IP-managed meter readings. The usage readings are collected remotely from water, gas and electrical meters.
Another scenario is in large office structures where thermostat controls aren’t locked and easily changed by occupants. Reducing the building internal temperature during off-hours saves energy dollars too. Automatically controlling the temperature controls eliminates the dependence on an employee to lower the temperature on the thermostat after hours.
Lighting is another energy drain that can be managed remotely and automatically with commercial environmental controls. While there is a cost to implementing environmental automation solutions such as these, studies indicate that the investment is quickly returned by reducing energy bills buy as much as 30-35{d4f7c08805e41e9b9974dfba619ed7230ec2da6e442055d48085a7994e8adaef} annually.
Energy monitoring and control systems such as the XBUS help business save money on energy costs which can be redirected to other priorities. The XBUS is a low-cost solution easily implemented to solve a number of different remote management scenarios.
