Cutting Cost

ZigBee is a wireless standards-based technology.

“ZigBee is the only wireless standards-based technology that addresses the unique needs of remote monitoring, control and sensory network applications. It enables broad-based deployment of wireless networks with low-cost, low-power solutions,” explains Leith.

ZigBee-enabled products have been adapted worldwide, with the exception of the Middle East. It is defined as the ‘wireless mesh networking protocol of the future’.

“What this means essentially is that ZigBee is not as susceptible to the typical interference issues associated with WiFi, Bluetooth or most other competing type of wireless technology,” alleges Leith.

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“With ZigBee, every single device connected to the network can act as a transmitter/receiver and/or repeater. Be it a light switch, a thermostat, an occupancy sensor or a HVAC controller, the signal always has multiple paths of communication through the building to get where it is needed.

“In essence, it is three-dimensional. It is a self-creating, self-healing network that can frequency hop and physically reroute itself, which is a particular feature of its robustness.”

Typical wired control system
A typical wired control system comprises a line of devices often wired in parallel or in series. When a cable breaks, you tend to lose everything after the break.

With ZigBee acting as a communication arbiter between two devices, “it can go down a floor and then up again, or left and right, irrelevant of the type of device you have.”

Existing buildings that traditionally lack any sort of modern technology such as occupancy sensors cannot be retrofitted with smart controls without incurring major expense and disruption.

However, Rotary Humm can deploy ZigBee-enabled devices like a proverbial magic wand and retrofit such a building “in a matter of days” once a building analysis has been completed, claims Leith.

“For example, a ZigBee-enabled battery-operated occupancy sensor can be placed freely in a room. Should the room usage change in future, it is easy to reposition devices, which offers great flexibility, while also allowing for systems to be fine-tuned, ensuring optimum placement and efficiency.

“The same goes for HVAC controls or thermostats. For example, we can take window-box air-conditioners, add a ZigBee module to make them ‘smart’, and have them controlled as a building-wide control system.”

Leith foresees this system being particularly beneficial in Dubai, where commercial and residential property owners and tenants who failed to take energy-saving measures a year ago will have seen their monthly electricity bills soar by up to 66% since March 2008.

“Such a system can give you a very advanced view as to what is happening inside an existing building. For example, the building’s HVAC system will now be able to self-optimise, based on real-time occupancy, down to an individual room level.

This leads to increased comfort for the occupants, while providing humidity/heat protection to the building fabric, and maximising the efficiency of the previously limited capacity of the HVAC system.”

An example of the added benefits from an FM point of view is that a standard ZigBee-enabled thermostat can ‘learn’ the heat profile of every individually-controlled room. It learns how long it typically takes the air-conditioning to get the room to the required temperature.

If there is a temperature fluctuation greater than 10% either way during the cooling operation, it will generate a maintenance SMS or e-mail automatically to alert staff to a problem.

In a new build scenario, ZigBee resolves many of the common snagging, cabling, containment and interface issues, and also speeds up the entire MEP installation works, is Leith’s concluding remark.