Although the issue of building integration and smart buildings itself presents many opportunities for manufacturers and integrators in the audio and video sector, access to these could be in doubt if the necessary adjustments are not made.
By: Julián Arcila
Factors such as the lack of standardization within the same audio and video industry, the low awareness of the reduction of energy expenditure by A/V equipment and the low capacity to integrate with other industries could slow down access to the opportunities offered by the smart building segment for integrators of audiovisual solutions.
Although the niche of automation, green buildings and control of systems for buildings is not at all new, recently, even from InfoComm, the fact that this sector offers "new opportunities" for companies in our field has been mentioned. Now, how true are those business possibilities? How feasible is it that our dedicated professionals—those who are only in this field and don't have business in other areas, such as security—can enter to compete with HVAC and security engineers, who for years have handled the integration discourse?
Although it may seem easy, accessing these businesses requires more than connecting cables or knowing about technology. Everything indicates that the A/V industry will have to implement radical modifications if it wants to be part of the technological maelstrom of smart buildings, which for more or less a decade has been monopolizing thousands of hours in conferences, sheets in newspapers and magazines, and being in some way the paradigm of technological advancement.
To make this note AVI consulted an expert engineer in audiovisual issues, Juan Montoya; an expert engineer in interoperability protocols, Ron Bernstein; and an expert engineer in smart buildings, Jim Sinopoli.
Opportunities for all
Juan Montoya, commercial executive for Latin America, Bosch, agrees with the statement that the smart building sector offers many opportunities for A/V integrators, but warns that not only for them, but also for security, HVAC and IT (information technology). In this sense, it seems that the matter will be resolved in favor of those who are more determined when it comes to taking advantage of these possibilities, those who provide a better service and those who offer complete packages.
So it is of great importance to learn how the different subsystems that are involved within a building are communicated and how energy consumption control policies are established, but also how to move from simple communication to interoperability, which is the simultaneous and related operation of multiple devices from the information emitted by each of the systems and controlled by a TFCS (Total Facility Control System) or System of Total Control of a Property, for its acronym in English.
And, judging by what was stated by the experts consulted, the opportunities that will open up for the A/V world lie in the gradual importance that their systems have been gaining within the most advanced buildings thanks to a singular advantage: their ability to transmit a message. It is no secret to anyone that from the point of view of the users of a building, flat screens become the portals of access to information, as proposed by Ron Bernstein, executive director of Lonmark International, the association that works for the development of LonWorks as a communication platform within intelligent buildings.
Now, Jim Sinopoli, director of Smart Buildings.com and consultant in the field of smart buildings, states that in addition to how important these equipment are for the end user of the building they are also for the managers and owners of the same, because "they also consume energy, participate in the 'plug & load' of the building, require additional cooling and participate in the 'vampire' power (energy consumed by the electrical equipment when they are turned off or in stand mode). by). The industry has recognized that effect on energy use and has begun to schedule on-off processes onto this equipment based on a predetermined schedule or room occupancy." He added that "educational buildings with a large number of classrooms or corporate buildings with many meeting rooms have begun to take care of the energy consumption of their A/V equipment."
Barriers to integration
But as mentioned at the beginning, there are some drawbacks that could stop access to the benefits of integration for A/V contractors. Therefore, if the industry wants to insert itself in the logic of smart buildings, it must generate changes at both ends of the chain: from manufacturers, generating more efficient solutions in terms of energy consumption, but also more open in terms of their communication protocols, to be able to integrate with other technologies; integrators also have their task, and that is to train and understand in a more complete way what integration means to a higher degree, that is, in the scope of an entire building.
Juan Montoya, for example, argues that unfortunately in Latin America there is still not much environmental awareness, which is ultimately the central objective of a control process in a building. "Something more critical, I consider, is that even in audiovisuals it is common to find such absurd manifestations as the watts of consumption of a speaker are still the element of comparison in the specifications, which goes in total contravention of the conservation of energy," he said and added later that "I personally think that even the audiovisual industry in its general conception requires paying more attention to these ecological and efficiency aspects in the time to design and develop your products."
Faced with the issue of integration and communication, Montoya mentioned that "the audiovisual industry has always presented (for different reasons) a tendency towards the lack of standardization, even within the same industry. As an example, there are countless ways to measure watts: it cannot be said that the sensitivity and efficiency of a speaker is measured in the same way by all manufacturers, there is no single standard in the transmission of audio signals, the frequency response of a speaker and its coverage is measured in different ways and with different tolerances. And now with integration/automation this trend is still manifest as there is no single communication protocol."
On the other hand, experts on the building side suggest other challenges for the audiovisual integrator. Ron Berstein explains that the key factor is understanding the needs of building managers and anticipating the future with new functionalities and better performances. "Innovation is required and it will have some degree of open interoperability associated with it (...) Manufacturers and AV integrators can learn a lesson from the HVAC, lighting and energy monitoring sectors and learn how to become part of a great infrastructure."
Meanwhile, Jim Sinopoli points out even more in Bernstein's assessments, saying that "some of the challenges of audiovisual integrators relate to an understanding of what sustainability means. The building automation industry addresses the most energy-intensive systems within a property, so the challenge for A/V integrators could be to demonstrate an understanding of systems and how av-visual devices can support energy management and conservation."
Final recommendations
This note ends in the same way it started: the automation industry DOES offer many opportunities for manufacturers and integrators in the audiovisual world, but to take advantage of them certain recommendations must be taken into account. Bernstein and Sinopoli, experts on the subject of buildings with integrated systems offered some guidelines to get the most benefit from this trend.
Bernstein, for example, places the opportunities in learning and adapting to the concept of Total Building Control and thus understand that A/V teams will end up being part of a large ecosystem. "You need to look for ways to use the functionality of existing components in unique and different ways, look at what other industries are doing so that you can get a fresh look at what can and will be done in the future," he says. It states that the threats will be faced with the inability to compete as a result of the lack of innovation.
Sinopoli, for its part, believes that opportunities can be better exploited by establishing strategic alliances with companies that have complementary skills or markets. "There are more opportunities here than threats and the integrators that are best conducted will be really successful," he says.
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Some ideas
As mentioned in the note, there are many applications that audiovisual systems are having within the world of intelligent buildings. Experts referred to some of them.
Juan Montoya, from Bosch, explains that the applications are no longer only for megaprojects, but are also finding possibilities in the residential field. "We could not state that a discotheque, a theater or an auditorium does not require that in case of emergency the fire detection system immediately communicate the fact to the video surveillance system, which will focus its attention on the initial site and then communicate with the evacuation audio system that will give the predetermined (and pre-recorded) instructions so that people clearly hear what to do; all of the above will be coordinated with the existing professional audiovisual reinforcement system in the room and this in turn will place the HVAC system in the conditions to better control the situation and will make the access system of the building behave according to the specific situation seeking to save the greatest number of lives with an agile evacuation, fast and effective," he says.
Ron Bernstein comments that "I recently saw a demonstration in which a flat panel video monitor was set as the information point of the vital and fire protection system. These were installed where there would normally be an emergency exit signal and provided much more information about the current situation than a regular audio alarm. Imagine these types of systems attached to a typical A/V system in a meeting room or conference room!"
Finally, Jim Sinopoli states that the fundamental services of A/V systems (entertainment, information provision, communication and education) are required by the owners, occupants and managers of any building. He adds that "the supply of energy information via digital signage (Digital Signage) inside a building or a university complex seems to be a fairly active market today."
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