IoT in practice: a case study of smart home devices in Greenwich

In February, we introduced our IoT programme and looked at some of the benefits of connected smart technologies for local authorities. For our latest blog, Project Manager, Nitika Raja explores in more detail different scenarios for use, including a ‘smarter homes’ initiative that aims to improve residents’ welfare and the management of housing in the borough.

When you hear the phrase ‘smart home device’, what comes to mind? A sophisticated gadget like an Amazon Alexa or Google Nest? Perhaps video doorbells, security cameras or smart fridges? Although the smart home market is dominated by luxury gadgets for individual households, smart home devices are increasingly popular in the public sector. 80% of social housing organisations say they are considering smart home solutions. The most popular are those that focus on tackling strategic priorities within a council, such as identifying high humidity and mould growth, reducing fuel poverty and identifying malfunctioning smoke and fire alarms. These are some of the topics we intend to address through our smart homes trial with the Royal Borough of Greenwich (RBG).

Our proposed smart homes trial

Smart devices were first trialled in Greenwich in the EU Horizon 2020 Sharing Cities project. In this small-scale trial, we focused on devices that could reduce costs and environmental impact, including environmental sensors, which provide insights into health hazards and air quality in homes. We showed that these sensors can be a worthwhile investment, delivering benefits to both RBG and its residents. We were then tasked by the RBG Housing team to research whether there is value in rolling out devices on a larger scale and to outline how this should be done. We summarised our findings in the Smart Home Strategy and prepared a separate decision report for a larger-scale trial. Our proposed trial involves installing environmental sensors in approximately 160 council-owned properties across Greenwich.

What do we aim to achieve by installing environmental sensors?

In the Greenwich trial, environmental sensors will alert the council to damp and mould risks early on, before they turn into expensive issues. The council spends a significant amount each year on repairs for damp and mould and we want to test whether the installation of environmental sensors can reduce this amount through a more proactive repair service. These sensors provide detailed insights that help the council assess the cause of damp and mould. The council can then implement the most suitable solution – repair works, if the issue is with the building, and potentially, behavioural nudges (e.g. prompts to open windows or use an extractor fan) if the issue is linked with resident behaviour.

We expect that environmental sensors will have a positive impact on people’s health and wellbeing by giving actionable insights into indoor air quality, damp and mould. As more households are in fuel poverty, sensors can alert the council to these properties through specific insights, like unusually low temperatures over a prolonged period. The council can then provide the necessary support, such as enrolment on RBG’s Stay Warm Stay Safe scheme, and also investigate, where appropriate, different methods of reducing energy consumption and heating bills.

Accessibility considerations

We considered how our trial can be inclusive towards tenants with different accessibility needs. The environmental sensors will transmit data to the council via LoRaWAN (low-power, wide-area network). Residents will need a mobile device with network connection to use the ‘resident app’, which displays insights from the sensors. The app includes a dashboard, recommendations on how to reduce energy usage and bills, and access to support services. We want residents to have access to this useful information, while ensuring that lack of mobile device is not a barrier to participating in our trial. For residents who are vulnerable or are not confident with technology, for example, control of the app can be given to a carer, friend or family member, with the tenant’s consent. We are looking at setting up an ‘information hub’ that displays dashboards and recommendations for households – the council can then share this information with households using alternative communication methods, such as letters and phone calls.

Addressing data privacy concerns

We will be transparent with tenants about how their data will be managed, so that they can make an informed decision on whether they want to participate in the trial. We will comply with a strict GDPR policy, which ensures that no personally identifiable information is linked to the environmental data collected, and that all analysis is performed on anonymised data.  

Understanding the wider picture

We intend to gather data from a selection of properties within an estate to get a general understanding of issues that might affect the whole estate. Building up a broader estate view from a small number of devices can also be cost effective for the trial by limiting the number of devices installed. When deciding which groups of properties to include in our trial, we focused on properties where residents could get maximum benefit, and ones which could provide the most valuable insights for the council.

Which groups of properties have we decided to include in our trial?

• Properties with existing or historic damp and mould issues
  Installing sensors in properties with existing or historic issues will deliver high value for both tenants and the council. For properties with existing issues, environmental sensors will help us determine the cause (whether it is due to tenant behaviour or problems with the building) and then swiftly take action. For properties with historic issues, sensors can provide insights on what led to damp and mould in the first instance, and how to prevent issues from re-emerging.

• Sheltered accommodation properties with heating improvements
  Two Greenwich sheltered housing schemes –are due to have heat pumps installed and refurbishment measures carried out to improve energy efficiency. We proposed installing sensors to analyse the impact of these heating improvements and to collect evidence to inform future energy efficiency projects.

• Void properties
  There are several benefits to installing devices in empty properties before they are re-let. It is the most cost-effective option, because installation of sensors can be combined with other general electrical works. It can often be the quickest option, and there is an opportunity for behaviour change and education when new residents move in to the property.

• A proportion of properties in a high-rise building
  We want to test whether we can monitor an entire building with only a small number of sensors. We hope to answer the following questions: Can installing sensors in a range of properties within a building provide an understanding of the general environmental characteristics for all residents? What is the ideal proportion of homes to be monitored to have a good understanding of the building as a whole? With RBG colleagues, we have identified a 24-storey building on an estate as a potential trial location. We propose installing sensors in properties across different storeys, with both north and south orientation, to create a picture of how temperature and damp characteristics vary within the building.

We will evaluate the success of the trial for each of these different property types, and based on our findings, will explore the possibility of scaling across the whole borough of Greenwich. This project is an exciting opportunity to bring the latest tech innovations to make a real difference to people’s everyday lives, as well as helping a council manage properties more efficiently and address issues before they become more expensive to rectify. We look forward to putting our roadmap into action and updating you on our trial as it develops!

If you are a council or social housing provider looking to harness the potential of IoT devices or other new technologies to improve the management of your housing stock and decarbonise get in touch with Head of Delivery, Balazs Csuvar to discuss how DG Cities can help.

Internet of Things (IoT): what are the benefits for local authorities?

The Internet of Things (IoT) is more than a buzzword. While it might not get as much attention as machine learning and big data, it’s a rapidly growing technology that we’re only going to be hearing more about. It has the potential to be transformative. It is predicted that IoT could help reduce UK CO2 emissions by 17.4 million tonnes per year. Another report estimates that IoT will have a global economic impact between $5.5 trillion and $12.6 trillion by 2030. But what exactly is IoT, how can it contribute to urban innovation and how does the technology work?

Robin Glauser/Unsplash

The Internet of Things is all about devices connecting and communicating with one another. It involves linking a physical object, a ‘thing’, to the internet via fixed broadband or a wireless network (e.g. WiFi, Bluetooth, 4G) so that it can send and/or receive data. IoT is all around us, from wearable tech like watches that monitor health, to smart street lights that only switch on when their sensors detect motion.

IoT in practice

The Royal Borough of Greenwich has set out a smart cities strategy, which DG Cities is helping to develop and deliver, to address some of the challenges facing residents. Together, we have identified four scenarios, or ‘use cases’, where IoT can be combined with behavioural nudges, end user engagement and education to address some of the council’s most significant issues.

• Fly-tipping: combining awareness-raising and behavioural change interventions with IoT monitoring technology to reduce fly tipping in Greenwich housing estates. In each use case, we are working closely with the RBG’s Housing Services team, ensuring that stakeholders support our proposed solutions. DG Cities will pilot the solutions in sample estates, evaluate the success of each and then scale across the borough.

• Smarter homes: a smart home strategy for installing environmental and fire safety devices in estates to detect health hazards such as carbon monoxide, damp and mould. As well as making homes safer and healthier, it’s also intended to create a more proactive repair service, as the council receives immediate alerts when there is an issue. They can collect performance data and insights and use these to make data-driven improvements.

• Solar sharing: the equitable distribution of power generated from solar PV to households via solar microgrids. At present, solar power generated on housing estates is only used towards communal demands, for example corridor lighting. Any excess power - often over 90% - is sold back to the National Grid. Installing microgrids directly benefits residents and helps the council decarbonise.

• Saving energy: finding ways to help residents reduce their home energy consumption using a combination of behavioural change interventions and IoT. This aligns with the Government target of reducing the carbon emissions from heating our homes by 95% over the next 30 years.

System in detail: smart meters

The energy saving use case will involve researching and rolling out smart meter systems. If we take a close look at a smart meter system, we can get a deeper understanding of how IoT technology works.

A smart meter system has three devices:

• an electricity meter, which records electricity consumption in almost real-time

• a gas meter, which records gas consumption every half hour

• an in-home display: a digital screen that displays a summary of electricity and gas consumption and the corresponding bills.

These three devices are connected via a home-area network (HAN). The electricity meter and gas meter also send data directly to the energy supplier via a wide-area network (WAN). This connection between the energy meters and the energy supplier is more convenient, as there is no need to manually take readings of energy usage, and households receive accurate figures for bills rather than estimates. Another major benefit of smart meter systems - and IoT in general - is that they help us make informed decisions. Smart meter systems give us valuable insight into our home energy use and are a useful tool to reduce our carbon emissions and energy bills. We can see which appliances use the most energy. The government’s cost benefit analysis predicts that if smart meter systems were rolled out across the UK, they could save a total of £5.6bn in energy bills and reduce carbon emissions by 45 million tonnes.

Risks and benefits

There are concerns about IoT, particularly around cyber security. When devices are connected to each other and to the internet, this allows multiple entry points for unauthorised users. One way to increase the security of a system is to encrypt data. For smart meter systems, the data transmitted across a WAN is encrypted to prevent hackers from interfering with energy suppliers. However, even if the systems are secure, getting consensus from residents is a challenge in itself. Studies show that 84% of social housing residents are sceptical about IoT due to data privacy concerns. For each use case, we intend to address residents’ concerns early on, providing openness and transparency on how data would be stored and used, and by whom. While clearly communicating the benefits of IoT, we will help residents make an informed decision on whether they want to participate in use case trials.

We will also take care to capture only necessary data; for the fly tipping use case, we have ensured the smart cameras fully comply with legal requirements, such as only sending alerts when unusual activity is detected, and not using facial recognition technology. Finally, installing IoT can be complicated, lengthy and expensive, with difficulties often arising when trying to integrate IoT with legacy systems. To overcome this, we are closely collaborating with Royal Borough of Greenwich stakeholders to understand the existing infrastructure and policies in place and to determine how IoT will fit in. We are also looking at longer term strategies and have identified where IoT would deliver value.

“The potential applications of IoT technology are hugely exciting. As well as the cost and environmental benefits of monitoring energy use, might sensors allow vulnerable elderly people live for longer in their own homes? DG Cities is analysing the opportunities, as well as seeing how new technology might address recurring problems. Further research and engagement will be necessary, but these early use cases aim to achieve tangible benefits for Greenwich residents.”

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