Internet of Things Effect and Its Impact on Future Commercial AV

The interesting thing about the Internet of Things and the audiovisual industry is that this is what AV has been doing for years.

Recently it seems that IoT is being talked about everywhere. Apple, Samsung, Google, Amazon and other technology companies are releasing devices that appear to be always effective for consumers, and they are occasionally involved in commercial space. As part of the AV community, it's hard to ignore the device. They are interesting technologies that bring convenience to people's lives, but when discussing the next wave of equipment and business opportunities in the audiovisual industry, many people still do not understand why this will become a key topic. Are AVs positive towards the development of the Internet of Things or is it just a fashion?

What is the Internet of Things?

The term “Internet of Things” simply puts many things in the world on the Internet and allows them to connect and communicate with each other, provide analytical information, and improve the lives of users. This may be as complex as the automation systems in the building, reacting to the sun's position throughout the day, causing HVAC and shadowing systems to automatically react to keep buildings cool, and employees working efficiently without disruption , Or it is like a glass on the table in the restaurant, tell the waiter your glass is empty.

How are all these devices connected to the network? Pass the sensor. There is widespread prediction of how many devices will be connected to the Internet in the next 36 months. At the low end, some people expect to have about 21 billion connected devices, while others claim that by 2020 there will be as many as 50 billion devices on the network. In order to give you a relative benchmark, it is currently estimated that the equipment connected at the end of 2016 will be 6.4 billion.

Not all of these devices are the same. Most of these are designed specifically for consumer space, such as iWatches or smart light bulbs, but the consumer devices and technologies we see in the audiovisual industry have made it more common than ever before for them to enter the business world.

potential

Think of the potential of a device like Amazon Echo. For those who are not familiar with it, this is the community closest to home digital assistants. Operate according to the voice command "Alexa" and can connect to your music playlist, record the task list of the application on the phone, and be told to order any content in the Amazon world.

It is set up as a central controller in your home, using lights to become the center of your entertainment system, just like one of Amazon's advertising shows, and even control your home sprinkler system. Some managers don’t want to just walk into the office and then say “Alexa, start my meeting” and open the indoor display while the matrix triggers the correct input display to make the user experience as seamless as possible?

The key function of IoT technology is to collect information. Each of these connected devices polls information about you or any other user. One of the best examples is Google's acquisition of Nest. Nest is a home smart thermostat and fire alarm device. Shortly after the acquisition, these jokes began: what your job is and knowing that your house was burned because a well-known company like Google can provide targeted advertisements when you browse the web and companies provide you with appropriate Fire extinguisher selection.

Your registered application is using smart watches, Fitbit and mobile phones to monitor your health data, and access your location via GPS, so carpool services such as Uber or Lyft know where to pick you up. This data is crucial to the company tracking it, providing you with their services and providing better convenience for your life. To do this, it needs to access data about you. Get this data and analyze it to find trends to provide improved services that allow you to use their services more frequently.

For example, Uber has publicly tested driverless cars in the United States in the past few months. If you use Uber around the grocery store at about the same time every Sunday, they can track this information. Now, every Sunday, they will arrange an unoccupied driverless car to arrive near you when you are ready to go out shopping so that your car will appear faster. This creates an illusion that they are more convenient when They really only determine how to provide better services through your actions.

AV application example

The interesting thing about the Internet of Things and the audiovisual industry is that this is what AV has been doing for years. How many connected control systems in the world monitor the status of conference rooms, lamp life, conference room scheduling systems, or just general equipment usage in building conference rooms?

As an industry, we have been using this data for many years to understand how to provide better solutions and provide our customers with better services. In some cases, the integrator was notified to contact the customer to let them know that the meeting room needed maintenance before the customer knew something was wrong. This is certainly not a daily situation, but it has already happened.

When considering the Internet of Things, AV is in the same situation as all application developers and other companies. We are looking for data and information from our customer systems to provide better services and solutions. The more we understand how they use their systems and how these systems operate to meet these needs, the faster we can respond to any problem. But more than that. If we know that the customer's staff uses certain room types or room features more frequently, then when they next expand or modify, we have these hard data to tell them what to deploy next.

The control systems and services we have provided can do this. New resource players like AMX, Crestron, Extron, Kramer, and Evertz and Barco are providing solutions that allow centralized room control, monitoring, and reporting. Audiovisual companies know how to use these systems as the first step to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of our customers.

While data is absolutely necessary for the development and improvement of the services we provide, it ultimately proves the value of the solutions we provide and how it affects the profits of our employers.

There are several areas to consider:

Corporate/startup companies: The corporate environment is a prominent example of incorporating the concept of the Internet of Things into the audiovisual environment because it is a localized system (building or small campus) on a local area network (LAN) with all devices nearby. The audiovisual industry is the core of these enterprise applications. We provide the interface between users and buildings. Our room dispatcher is a visual indicator that the room is occupied or not occupied.

Our touch screen is ready for the next meeting. Our control system interfaces with the building's HVAC, lighting and other building systems. The network is the nervous system of a building, but in an intelligent building, the audiovisual system is usually located at its core, providing an intuitive user interface and experience for customers interacting with their environment.

Personnel management: Although the audiovisual integrator's corporate environment is mainly the deployment of a large number of meeting rooms, these projects also have one aspect: people.

Each smart phone and watch is an IoT device that provides information and can be used to connect. This means they can provide and share data. With the development of open office and remote working environment, finding the people you are looking for is not always easy, even though they just happen to be in the office that day.

Integration with smart devices via Bluetooth or even WiFi enables employers to monitor the position of their employees. Through an enterprise communications platform such as an employee or employer can ask "Where is Zhang San?" If the person's device is set to be positioned through the system, the response may be "He last appeared in the kitchen."

Centralized monitoring system

This same IoT application can be integrated into a centralized monitoring system to determine how many smart devices are connected to the network, allowing employers to know how many people are on site at the same time. The significance of this is that employers can see whether their rented office space is best utilized. Should they create more office space, more open office space, or more collaborative/meeting room space? If people are working more at home, do they need to rent such a large space?

• Retail: In the retail environment, the Internet of Things has existed for several years. There are two types of systems that are often found in retail environments: Bluetooth and ultrasound.

Audiovisual integrators in the retail space are deploying background music and paging systems as well as digital signage solutions. When a customer walks through the store, Bluetooth beacons can be set up at each digital signage display. These beacons send the echo information of the nearby environment so that users who have enabled Bluetooth on the mobile phone and have downloaded the retailer's application can connect.

Once it is connected to the device, a beacon is used to pull each individual's purchase history and display related products or other products that may be of interest on the display, providing relevant and operational information. For example, a person walks through a sports shop and has just purchased a new baseball glove. When he passes through the digital signage system, the display detects his personal phone, tracks his user account data, connects to recent purchases, and displays a discount on the baseball bat.

Ultrasound method

The ultrasound method provides continuous touch sound beyond the human hearing range through the PA system. If the shopper has downloaded and activated the retailer's smartphone application, the tone triggering application provides relevant notification information. This means that when a shopper may be sitting in a cafe with a friend, his phone may suddenly let him know that he will get a 10% discount on the next purchase of his favorite jeans brand, but only if they buy something today. Get a discount next time.

In each case, the user's data is controlled by the store because the user actively shares it by registering an application, a credit card, or frequent purchase plans. AV integrators simply provide equipment: PAs, digital signage, and a platform that integrates with retailer systems.

• Security: The ability to use the Internet of Things in security is more like a big brother, but there is real value in integrating it into the audio and video integrator solution. Manufacturers have provided information on emerging broadcast/emergency communication system markets. The requirements of these systems often exceed the requirements of a standard fire alarm system, which means that the audiovisual integrator's skills are critical to its proper execution.

The purpose of these systems is to provide clear and actionable information in emergencies. Broadcast/emergency communication systems are more than just telling people about evacuation alerts, but also telling people what action to take. Should they evacuate or stay in the right place? If they should be evacuated, how should they stay safe?

The ability of the Internet of Things environment to monitor the location of people based on the location of their smart devices works here because broadcast/emergency communication systems can now use this data to determine population density in a given area of ​​a building. This information can then be used to provide them with the best actionable information. If there is an immediate need to allow a group of people to leave a certain area but the population size evacuates through a single door too long before the emergency escalates, the crowd can be redirected to a evacuation route with two doors, allowing the evacuation to be performed faster.

• All about APIs: Audiovisual integrators are accustomed to using different devices, not necessarily working together, and finding a way to integrate them. In the history of the entire industry, it was achieved through relays, diodes, and other physical devices and connections. Recently, this was done through software and coding. The most common method in the Internet of Things environment is through the application program interface.

Open Application Program Interface

The term "open application program interface" means that the manufacturer of the product and its associated software will provide source code to developers who are looking to integrate it with other systems. This is the key to the growth and growth of the Internet of Things and its ultimate goal of removing the user interface by allowing devices to communicate with each other and act on the data passed between them.

The major hurdle facing the audiovisual industry, including integrators and manufacturers, is that code written in a common computer language is not something that must happen every day. In order for our device to direct Amazon's Echo, or tell the smart lighting and shading system to do something with or without requiring the user to trigger directly through the touchpad, an application program interface must be developed. It takes time and resources. And, at this point, it has not yet proved to be profitable.

What makes this even more difficult is that manufacturers of IoT devices and sensors do so in their "bubbles." There is no universal software platform for developing these devices. So, if you spend time investing in developing an application interface to communicate with a smart home system, there is no guarantee that it will work with other smart home systems, or that the smart home system you choose to support will achieve long-term success.

• The Internet of Things: While conversations about the Internet of Things usually revolve around the things themselves, it must not be forgotten that these devices must connect back to the network somewhere to communicate with other things and perform functions, as well as reporting the data they are tracking. This brings the audiovisual industry back to a very common conversation that requires continued development of network configuration skills.

Devices in the Internet of Things may need different ways to connect to the network. Is it a connection that only requires a local network? This may be like an intelligent lighting system. Lighting is connected to the local network and only needs to be able to communicate with control devices also located on this network.

There are other solutions that need to connect to the Internet so that it can contact other services and applications and share this information. When you tell Amazon Echo to order a product, it must be able to communicate with the Amazon server in order to purchase and ship it to you. However, if you want Amazon to communicate with another service, it will require that it not only reach out to the Internet, but it may also need it to communicate with other services' networks through the cloud.

For example, if you want to update information in your favorite calendar or task management application, and it has an application interface for Amazon Echo, you can tell Echo to "change my appointment." Echo must access the Internet and use the application interface to communicate with the service to update the data already stored on his server and then synchronize to the smart device over the Internet.

The ability to understand which devices must be connected to and properly configure the network is critical to making the IoT a convenient place for people to work properly.