IoT-Enabled Smart Buildings Technology Improves Worker Productivity

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Electric Imp, a global platform provider for IoT secure connectivity and application middleware, today announced that London-based Workplace Fabric, a solution provider for the agile workplace, is using Electric Imp’s IoT connectivity platform to improve worker productivity and health for customers in the United States, Europe, and Asia.

Workplace Fabric’s flagship Freespace solution is a cloud-based analytics solution that analyzes real-time data collected from 1000s of sensors deployed across high rise and distributed office spaces to improve tenant satisfaction. Freespace addresses the challenges of the modern office, which is increasingly impacted by a more connected and mobile workforce that requires flexible spaces designed for collaboration.

“At any point, corporations or property owners using Workplace Fabric’s insights can see how their spaces are performing and react accordingly,” said Oliver Hutaff, COO/CFO at Electric Imp. “Bridging the gap between human actions and intelligent automation on a distributed scale clearly illustrates the value of IoT. We’re very pleased to work with Workplace Fabric so they can focus on creating the best agile workplace experience for their customers while we deliver the computational heavy lifting and certified-secure connectivity.”

Electric Imp recently announced that it is the world’s only IoT platform UL® 2900-2-2 Certified for cybersecurity. Independent testing by trusted certification authorities like UL is an asset to Workplace Fabric’s clients, which include banks, financial firms, government agencies and real estate companies.

“Freespace helps users discover the best suited available space across the office in real time while providing facility managers with the usage data they need to cut costs and improve tenant satisfaction,” said Raj Krishnamurthy, Chief Executive Officer of Workplace Fabric, who is a ten-year veteran of advanced analytics and information systems technologies.

According to CEB Global, a typical employee spends 27 hours a year looking for a location to work, which can cost the average company $31 million in productivity annually. Using the cloud-based Freespace solution, employees can identify available workspace in real time. In addition, Workplace Fabric estimates that just a 10 percent improvement in office space usage could save a 500-person company nearly $700,000 per year in the U.S. and more than $1.35 million annually in prime office space locations such as London and New York.

“Our customers want immediate insights and great service. Freespace uses existing WiFi infrastructure and has an ultra-low network footprint. We have leveraged Electric Imp’s in-built security and device management to create a smart furniture platform to deliver contextual insights on availability, comfort and ambiance. Electric Imp has made it easier for us to hide the complexity from our customers while delivering capability to scale globally,” Krishnamurthy said.

About Workplace Fabric

London-based Workplace Fabric helps office users maximize their productivity while ensuring best use of built assets. Our solutions deliver insights to managers of real estate that helps them execute informed strategic decisions. Workplace Fabric solutions are built from experience in both agile working and technology systems development. For more information, visit https://workplacefabric.com.

About Electric Imp

Electric Imp helps more than 100 manufacturers and enterprises transform the world through the power of secure connectivity. Over a million IoT devices have been built on our highly secure platform as a service, with devices deployed in 105 countries. Our unique solution - featuring fully integrated device OS and hardware, UL-certified security, APIs and cloud services purpose-built for the IoT - dramatically decreases cost and time to market while increasing security, scalability and flexibility. The Electric Imp platform enables innovative commercial and industrial applications and empowers manufacturers to manage and quickly scale their connected products and services to millions of users. Electric Imp, founded in 2011, is located in Los Altos, California and Cambridge, England.