Siemens has created a real-world showcase of a future workspace, installing its IoT-enabled smart office technologies Comfy and Enlighted in the UAE for the first time.
Comfy’s app allows employees to personalise their workday through real-time interaction with the office environment, while its analytics dashboard gives businesses valuable insights into space utilisation and building operations.
Comfy integrates with smart sensor technology from IoT solutions provider Enlighted, a Siemens company, to deliver smarter workplaces.
As the nature of work becomes increasingly collaborative and dispersed, Comfy turns offices into a competitive advantage for companies. By connecting people, places and services in the workplace, the Comfy app boosts employee productivity and creativity by helping office workers find and book suitable desks and meeting rooms.
Comfy allows employees to give feedback on these conditions to further personalise the workspace and to locate colleagues and navigate around the office.
Data that underpins this solution are collected multiple times per second by cloud-connected smart sensors from Enlighted. Enlighted’s Building IoT platform creates ‘sensory systems’ throughout the building, giving real-time insight and analytics into how the building is used, and providing location services for people and assets.
The data is aggregated within Comfy, helping businesses gain transparency into peak usage hours, frequently occupied workspaces and other desk utilisation analytics. The Enlighted IoT Platform is installed in over 320 million square feet of buildings across the world.
“The way we work is changing, and workspaces need to reflect the evolving relationship between people and their digital and physical environments,” said Markus Strohmeier, Senior Executive Vice President of Regional Solutions and Services, Siemens Middle East.
“With Comfy we’re putting an intuitive app in the hands of employees, empowering them to personalise their office experience to suit the way they want to work. The ability to better understand how offices are used across a company’s real estate portfolio is essential for optimising space and energy use. As cities across the Middle East continue to embrace smarter, more people-focused infrastructure, Comfy and Enlighted have great potential to help shape the future of work in the region.”
Used by Fortune 500 companies in 13 countries, Comfy enables businesses to optimise their real estate investments by giving insights into how and when office spaces are used.
Comfy and Enlighted are part of the Siemens’ Smart Office solution offering of hardware and software technologies, designed to create smarter, safer, more flexible and human-centric working spaces.
The suite enables office buildings to respond intelligently to user input and environmental data, using real-time analytics to adapt to the needs of employees for increased productivity and reduced costs.