BuildingIQ acquires human comfort technology from CSIRO

BuildingIQ has acquired the OptiCool and ComfortSENSE subsystems (and the interface in between) from CSIRO.

The company previously held an exclusive worldwide licence to use and commercially exploit the technology in commercial buildings as a component of its Predictive Energy Optimization (PEO) offering. Under the new agreement, BuildingIQ has obtained all intellectual property rights, associated patents and patent applications. The human comfort technology extends the company’s 5i energy intelligence platform.

ComfortSENSE technology was built to provide individual building occupants with a gateway to share information on their comfort level in real time. Within the 5i platform, this would essentially allow each person to act as the ultimate building sensor. Once incorporated in, this provides an invaluable data stream for further refinement of the company’s thermal, occupancy and behaviour modelling competences.

“The addition of real-time human comfort input will extend our ability to analyse and predict BMS performance and its impact on people,” said Adam Benson, BuildingIQ’s VP of engineering.

“Building occupants are the ultimate intelligent sensor in many ways. We’re excited to be able to incorporate the human factor into our platform and ensure that we remain at the forefront of innovation in building energy management solutions,” said Benson.

The 5i platform incorporates the intangible human element into its energy intelligence. The platform, and services built upon it, provide a better IoT solution for buildings based on the five pillars of data capture analysis, advanced modelling, measurement and verification, closed loop control and expert human analysis. The cloud-based platform aggregates data based on a building’s use, occupancy, weather and building management system (BMS) and creates a powerful thermal model, which underlies the company’s technology-enabled offerings.