by Brianna Crandall — April 22, 2016 — The Canadian Printable Electronics Industry Association (CPEIA) and the Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) released two research papers for intelligent buildings and connected homes at the 2016 Canadian Printable Electronics Symposium (CPES2016), held this week at Sheridan College near Toronto.
The CPEIA is the catalyst for Canada’s printable, flexible and wearable (PE) electronics ecosystem, while CABA is an international industry association that promotes advanced technologies in homes and buildings.
Under the terms of the strategic partnership established in January 2015, the CPEIA and CABA formed joint working groups drawn from their respective memberships to develop white papers that explore how PE technologies and applications can enable the intelligent building and the connected home.
Peter Kallai, president and CEO of the CPEIA, and CPES co-chair, explained:
This will be the first time that any industry white paper has been published that explores a variety of applications for PE in the context of intelligent buildings or connected homes. We are presenting these two in-depth studies to show over 25 applications that can be easily commercialized by the building automation sector, well beyond the PE-based user interfaces already in the market.
Ron Zimmer, CABA president and CEO, added:
Printable electronics encompasses key enabling technologies that can overcome many of the challenges faced with adding intelligence to commercial and residential properties. These include cost, power consumption, ease of installation and integration with existing home and building systems. Our expectation is that these papers will serve to spur greater collaboration and innovation between members of the CPEIA and CABA.
Printable and Flexible Electronics Enabled Intelligent Buildings: New Functions, Improved Performance and Optimized Control
The modern commercial building is morphing into an intelligent building at a rapid pace. Technologies large and small are bringing sensors, analytics and controls that will improve efficiency, services, and occupant comfort and safety. This paper examines the roles PE can play to evolve the function and operation of commercial buildings.
The paper focuses on the major components of building automation systems: lighting; heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC); fire; and safety and shows how low-cost and high-volume PE components and simple systems can change how a building operates.
Printable and Flexible Electronics Applications in the Connected Home
For years, the concept of the connected home has been forwarded on the premise of providing the typical homeowner with greater comfort and convenience. This is not an inaccuracy, according to the paper, but the greatest appeal of the connected home, and driver for the market adoption of related technologies, is the cost savings that can be realized.
The paper explores how PE can substantially reduce the cost and complexity of adding the functions and the intelligence necessary to create a truly connected home, as well as yield the operational cost savings that have a direct impact on a family’s bank account. The applications that provide such cost savings are likely to be adopted first versus “nice-to-have” applications, concludes the paper.
