Technology is changing the most fundamental truth about commercial real estate (CRE)—that value is based solely on location, location, location. While it still matters, of course, that a space be close to customers, employees, and/or suppliers, information-based applications have the potential to add new ways for the CRE
The promise of the fully connected smart home is arriving fast driven by a growing number of ‘smart home’ startups – companies offering services for your home ranging from home security, temperature management and lighting controls. These smart home companies are a unique combination of big data, hardware design and internet and mobile software. Many are also considered Internet of Things companies.
One way to think about the rise of smart home startups attacking different verticals is the ‘unbundling’ of one of the largest players in home consumer products, Honeywell (NYSE: HON, Mkt Cap: $81.2B). Honeywell’s established product line for the home spans from thermostats to door chimes to fans & heaters.
It doesn’t take much effort to switch a light on or off, but we don’t do it nearly enough to save a lot of energy. And sometimes, even making the effort to get lighting just right can be a pain. That’s why companies are betting on smart lighting, which can set the lights in your home to suit your preferences and be controlled remotely.
A material that simultaneously reflects light and radiates heat at frequencies that vent it through the Earth’s atmosphere could one day help cool buildings on hot days. The material cools itself to a temperature below the ambient air, and has been tested on a rooftop at Stanford University by its inventors, who are now working on scaling up the design.
The new material uses optical engineering tricks to behave in ways that are counterintuitive and, at first glance, appear to violate the laws of thermodynamics, says Stanford electrical engineer Shanhui Fan, who developed it.
Spain’s IAAC institute has developed a new type of building material that responds to the temperature outside and automatically switches from cooling to insulating.
The new money comes from existing investors. One of ISI’s previous investors is SC Launch, an economic-development program from SCRA Technology Ventures.
As we enter 2014, four key trends are going to bring both opportunity and peril for entrepreneurs and investors. Here are the changes you’ll want to keep an eye on in the coming year.
1. The Social Web: Beyond Friends and Social Media
Social media has become an inherent part of how we consume information and interact with each other on the web today. Statistics show that 71% of consumers have reposted content on social media sites in the previous month, and 25% have made online product recommendations.
According to a study released today by Juniper Research, the smart home market will reach $71 billion by 2018 — up from $33 billion in 2013, and $25 billion in 2012.
If you knew how much electricity your plasma television used or how much water your dishwasher drank at different times of day, would you change your habits to conserve more and spend less on utilities? Researchers at the University of Washington, Duke University, and Georgia Tech believe that you might. Several years ago they invented sensors that could track the electricity consumption and water usage throughout an entire building via a single point on each system. In 2008, the researchers founded a company called Zensi to commercialize the technology, and last week, they sold that company to Belkin, an electronics hardware manufacturer.
