The emergence of the ‘Android Building’ approach complements the Middle East’s Smart City revolution
The ‘Android Approach’ is highly scalable, and with large-scale adoption, the impact can be macroeconomic, writes Sanjeevv Bhatia, chairman of SB Group and CEO of Netix Global BV
According to research, the KSA smart cities market, fuelled by pandemic-induced digitisation, is expected to grow to $14.75 billion by 2027, at a CAGR of 19.6%. In the UAE, smart city initiatives already have a head start, with Dubai and Abu Dhabi featuring in the top 50 global smart cities. Leading Middle Eastern economies have earmarked competitive budgets for investments into state-of-the-art systems and technologies that can potentially start a region-wide smart city revolution.
With the increase in ultra-efficient, futuristic, greenfield projects, these nations also run the risk of making pre-existing, older buildings redundant. And in an era where today’s science is tomorrow’s technology, even the new buildings will, sooner or later, seem unsustainable in terms of operational expenditures, energy consumption, and GHG emissions. So, if old infrastructure and new smart cities have to be future-proofed, attention should be given to their agility, integration, and ensuring they are future-ready.
An open-protocol ecosystem is the answer
Relatively older buildings and infrastructure continue to be riddled with legacy, vendor-locked systems which are inflexible and therefore hard to optimise. Operators and decision makers cannot consider replacing the entire hardware due to financial implications. So, they are tied to specific vendors from the get-go and cannot replace them despite inefficient systems and mounting expenses. And to make matters more complicated, systems and devices are often at different stages of technological evolution, with distinctive vendors and vendor-specific licenses. Therefore, existing cities are characterised by vendor-intensive, decentralised operations and maintenance, which hamper the potential for holistic optimisation, sustainability, and savings.
Conversely, in an open protocol model, irrespective of systems being at different stages of digitalisation, there is a massive scope for optimisation and efficiency enhancements. This boils down to the IoT-led integration of multi-vendor systems and the breaking down of silos. Integration also enables city-wide capture of data generated by systems such as lighting, electricity grids, and water networks. The collated data is subjected to AI analytics to derive actionable insights — all in real-time, and operable by a single-window operator in a centralised command centre. Insight-led operations are the hallmarks of a smart city, where proactive actions can be taken to address load variations, traffic, water leakage, etc. But now, with the emergence of the ‘Android Approach’ to buildings, the complexity of a smart city initiative can be simplified to a mere plug-and-play undertaking.
The ‘Android Approach’ to smart cities
This approach to smart city operations can be linked to Android OS, which is open-source, highly programmable, easily operable, and has no vendor lock-ins. In the same vein, open protocol controllers are retrofitted to existing BMS/BAS and legacy systems in cities. Netix Global’s iIBMS epitomises this approach of inducing “smart” characteristics in old buildings and city infrastructure. So, without cost-intensive hardware replacement, existing systems in cities can be made more efficient in terms of energy usage, savings, and performance. Stakeholders also have the freedom to work with any service provider thereafter, and replace them if they fail to meet expectations. Also, the “Androidification” allows them to seamlessly add new systems/devices/services, as and when innovations emerge.
Such agility and future-readiness are consistent with market-driven developments in the Middle East. The regional building automation space is particularly dynamic at the moment, with high product innovation. In this scenario, the ‘Android Approach’ can help smart city stakeholders automate functions such as lighting, surveillance, utilities maintenance, etc. Increased automation means an increase in city-wide service data, surveillance data — from sensors, cameras, and actuators — sustainability data, and energy data; which leads to refined insights. Also, automation eliminates human errors and increases administrative efficiencies.
So, as opposed to a rigid smart city framework, the ‘Android Approach’-powered smart city is more agile and resilient to disruptions. This can be advantageous in light of changes like, say, the ever-evolving regulations surrounding carbon footprint and sustainability goals. Regional initiatives like the UAE Energy Roadmap and the Green Riyadh Program are precursors of greater initiatives to come. The agility also means that operators are well-positioned to offer more value-centric services to residents while achieving instant ROI due to savings and positive civic outcomes.
The ‘Android Approach’ is also highly scalable, and with large-scale adoption, the impact can be macroeconomic. According to EY, automation has the potential to double the economy of the KSA to $1.6 trillion, by adding an additional $293 billion by 2030. Smart cities offer the perfect avenue for greater adoption of automation and associated technologies. But the adoption must be uniform across both Greenfield and Brownfield developments, and it is here that the ‘Android Approach’ to smart cities makes its most clinching case. Alongside, there is a need for smart city solutions providers to form strategic partnerships and provide end-to-end support, from planning to delivery to execution, across all aspects like utilities, communications, security, mobility, governance, healthcare, smart living, logistics, and sustainability. Leading companies like Netix Global, with their state-of-the-art technology, data science, full-spectrum hardware and software products — from field sensors up to command-and-control centres — are supporting the regional developers and catalysing the Middle East’s smart city revolution.
