Smart technology
Aico is the European Market Leader in Home Life Safety, committed to innovative technology solutions with a suite of HomeLINK IoT (Internet of Things) devices protecting people and property. Following Stirling Council’s IoT working trial with Aico, a wider rollout which includes environmental sensors to collect information around tenants’ homes will be implemented. Collected data will include temperature, humidity and carbon dioxide (CO2) gas levels, along with smoke detection sensors and will dramatically improve the health, safety and wellbeing of residents. Tenants will be able to take actionable measures from insights via a mobile app.
Wednesday 6th July saw Aico, the European Market Leader in Home Life Safety, win two trophies for their HomeLINK Internet of Things (IoT) connected home platform at the EG Tech Awards and the Computing Digital Technology Leaders Awards.
At the EG Tech Awards, Aico won the ESG category, which recognises the best use of tech to improve the sustainability of a building and resident wellbeing. Aico’s entry successfully demonstrated how the HomeLINK IoT platform assists landlords in identifying properties for retrofit to increase thermal efficiency, while improving indoor environmental conditions by predicting the risk of damp and mould.
With the majority of social housing tenants having contracts directly with electricity suppliers, you could be forgiven for wondering how housing associations could benefit from upgrading conventional meters to smart meters. In fact, there are many advantages for both housing associations and tenants.
In 2019 the UK Government legislated to achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2050. One result of this has been to put pressure on housing associations to decarbonise the UK’s social housing stock, though housing associations in some areas need to move even faster because local authorities have committed to decarbonisation by 2030.
Energy theft is a serious problem for housing associations and there are a number of reasons for this. In this article we will focus on the theft of electricity, though tampering with gas supplies and meters can have devastating consequences if a leak causes an explosion.
Interfering with electricity supplies and meters can be extremely dangerous. Electric shock can cause burns, injury or death, not only for the culprit but also cohabitants, neighbours, future tenants, housing association staff and contractors. As they are landlords, housing associations have a statutory responsibility for electrical safety as well as a duty to prevent personal injury caused by defects in the property. They also have a duty of care towards staff and contractors.
Intelliheat is now launching the Wi-Fi integrated electric radiator range with built-in smart sensors to detect both the temperature of the room and more importantly, movement in the room.
Carl F Groupco is supplying hardware to Tai Tarian, one of the largest social landlords in Wales with responsibility for over 9,000 properties.