Parks Associates defines “smart spaces” as physical locations, equipped with networked devices and sensors-based solutions, that give individuals data about the location’s parameters and how the space is being used. “Smart spaces” are most commonly buildings but may be any type of location, including outdoor structures or vehicles.

Smart spaces have a strong overlap with smart home, industrial IoT, and Industry 4.0, making use of the same concept of networked sensors feeding into larger data platforms.

Industry 4.0 refers to the fourth industrial revolution, which digitalizes industrial processes through the use of IoT technologies and cyber/physical systems. It provides businesses with new levels of visibility and control, allowing them to collect and analyze data, optimize operations and logistics, and automate processes and decision-making.

The hospitality industry is increasingly modernizing with smart access control systems broadly deployed. These deployments make use of NFC readers in hotel doors to unlock doors, commonly using NFC cards or smartphones as keys. New smart hotels leverage IoT sensors, AI, and automation to create better experiences for guests and building management systems for staff and administrators.

Hotel rooms are increasingly incorporating smart home technology such as smart lighting systems, smart thermostats, smart blinds, and/or enhanced TV controls in addition to more traditional access control. The smart speaker and smart display category is now a lifestyle product staple within the modern connected home, with 55% of US households owning at least one such product. A high percentage of consumers are using smart speakers and displays as the command-and-control centers for their smart home and entertainment devices.

• Most smart speaker and display owners own one or more smart home devices – 60% of smart speaker owners and/or smart display owners also own at least one smart home device.
• The number one self-reported use for smart speakers is streaming music and podcasts, with approximately three-fourths of smart speaker owners reporting doing so.
• Consumers ranked lights, home thermostats, door locks, smart TVs, and video cameras as the top 5 devices they would most like to control via voice assistant.

Managers can also leverage sensor-based solutions to streamline cleaning and maintenance services. Usage information on lighting, energy consumption, and plumbing systems can help with maintenance issues, including detection of dead lightbulbs and plumbing leaks. Previously mentioned solutions such as smart energy systems and asset tracking of equipment also apply to this vertical.

This is a research excerpt from the white paper, Simplifying the IoT Edge: Smart Spaces Best Practices. We welcome all comments and feedback. Thank you for your support of our research. 

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