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Wireless switches and wireless sensors can dramatically simplify the cabling needed for a building, the full benefit of which is felt when room arrangements are altered at a later date.
Without cables, switches and sensors can be attached straight to the wall where you want them without the need for installation boxes.
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Over a hundred battery-free, wireless sensors worked together to enable a month-long lightbased exhibition in a Georgian listed building in London.
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It doesn't matter whether a door will open to the left or the right, inwards or outwards, whether the user wants to control shutters from the window or next to the door, or whether a thermostat has to be moved out of the way of office furniture.
The advantages of this technology are all about flexibility. Even a few weeks before a company moves in to a facility, there may be requests to alter predetermined room arrangements. This means routing new cables, breaking up freshly plastered brickwork, or opening ready dry walls – with all the dirt and inconvenience of filling, finishing and painting over. Plus, you need people for the job who work on an unscheduled and more expensive day-by-day basis.
This need for alterations will reoccur whenever newly composed project or sales teams are introduced, forcing departments to relocate or an open-plan office to suddenly require an extra conference room with glass walls. Wireless technology saves time-consuming
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cabling and rewiring in all these cases. Even mobile dividing walls are possible, but still with all the convenience for switching and controlling functions that is otherwise required.
Most of the wireless systems that are available are nevertheless not without drawbacks. Wireless switches and sensors normally need batteries, which have to be replaced in good time to prevent a service outage – a sizable task. And if wireless sensors have a battery compartment, that adds to their installed depth. Then there’s the risk of degraded operating reliability in wireless installations of a larger scale within somewhat tight confines.
Wireless without batteries
A Munich-based company, EnOcean, has been developing wireless sensor modules that obtain their current from the energy of their surroundings. Using-saving electronic circuitry and an extremely short wireless telegram, the company was able to offer the first light switch to generate its energy solely through finger pressure. The signal subsequently sent wirelessly in the 868 MHz frequency band lasts for less than a millisecond, making it about one hundred times shorter than the signal of a conventional wireless switch. For greater transmission security the data telegram is repeated twice, randomly controlled, within about 30 ms. Working by these basic principles, hundreds of wireless switches and sensors can easily be installed in very tight confines to operate in parallel, because statistics show that even 200 wireless sensors transmitting once a minute will only result in a
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data collision at every ten thousandth transmission.
Depending on the particular application, the wireless switch can also be screwed or adhered to a cabinet or door frame. Even when planning glass dividing walls an architect no longer has to dispense with the usual light switches and shutter switches next to a door or passage. For large office and administration blocks, clinics and senior citizens' homes as well as for industrial use, there are now wireless receivers that interface with very different, intelligent automation solutions. The spectrum ranges from EIB/LON gateways through to wireless adapters with an RS232, RS485, USB or Ethernet interface. For special purposes EnOcean has also developed bidirectional receiver modules to enhance wireless range in larger buildings or to report back switching operations in safety-relevant applications.
For a facilities manager self-powered wireless technology not only means simplified cabling of a building. It also enables them to respond faster to frequent requirements for rearrangements within a building. Plus, the sensors do away with any need for regular maintenance. At the same time this means more freedom and convenience for the users of an office, because if there are no batteries to be replaced, switches no longer have to be installed at a prescribed location. Instead it is quite conceivable that someone might place the switch for the blinds directly on the desk in front of them.
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