Honeywell has implemented new capabilities into its smart building app including navigation and the ability to rate spaces based on their comfort and cleanliness.
The Honeywell Vector Occupant app, created by the US multinational with a keen interest in smart buildings, is designed to give building occupants and managers better ways to improve safety, productivity and facility management.
Honeywell has just updated the app with a range of new capabilities and the most significant of these, by the company’s own reckoning, is indoor navigation. This uses GPS-like technology to help users find their way around, in complex buildings where they might soon find themselves lost without clear directions.
This capability uses an indoor location solution from Honeywell partner Insiteo. Users can quickly see their accurate indoor location, consult maps and routes and receive proximity notifications. They can get turn-by-turn voice assistance and a ‘share my location’ feature enables users a way to more easily locate each other in a building.
For building owners and managers, meanwhile, the app provides insight into foot traffic patterns, as well as promoting occupant satisfaction, Honeywell claims.
Read more: Survey: Facilities managers look to IoT for building performance boost
Navigating Minneapolis, MN
An early user of the technology is the Minneapolis Skyway System, a network of enclosed walkways covering 80 city blocks, which pedestrians use to journey between some 30 buildings in the city’s downtown area. These walkways protect them from the worst of Minnesota’s harsh winters and humid summers.
Steve Cramer, president and CEO of Minneapolis Downtown Council, said the app has been a big success so far. “For anyone who’s not a local, and for even some who are, finding your way around the Skyway system can be a big challenge,” he said.
“With our initial use of the Honeywell Vector Occupant App, we’ve seen an immediate impact. The interactive map makes it really easy and intuitive to know exactly where you’re going, and how to get there.”
Read more: Honeywell launches analytics hub to ‘listen’ to smart buildings
Clean and comfortable
In addition to the indoor navigation feature, the app also now gives users the ability to rate spaces, allowing those within a building to highlight comfort issues to building staff for quick resolution. A dirty restroom could be flagged up, for example, or a badly-lit corridor in which lightbulbs need replacing.
“Much of a building’s success hinges on how happy and satisfied its occupants are. They’re the lifeblood of an organization, and their experience within a building is what keeps them coming back,” said John Rajchert, president of building solutions at Honeywell Home and Building Technologies.
“The Honeywell Vector Occupant App has given users more power to shape their building experiences from their smartphones. Now, we’re adding even more features to deepen the connections between occupants and the spaces around them so they can be as comfortable as possible, and can more easily and efficiently move about a building.”
Read more: ISS uses Watson IoT to revolutionise building management