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Smart Building IoT Retrofit Case for a Power Company Office Building

1. Project Background

The office building includes multiple subsystems:

HVAC and chilled/hot water systems
Electrical distribution rooms
Office environments across multiple floors
Plumbing and drainage systems

Existing issues:

Environmental data collected manually
Hidden risks such as leakage are not detectable in real time
Systems operate in isolation without unified integration

2. System Objectives

The goal is to build a low-maintenance, scalable monitoring system enabling:

Real-time environmental sensing
Infrastructure risk detection
Unified data integration
Event-based alerting

3. System Architecture

Built on ThinkLink, the system consists of four layers:

1. Sensor Layer

Temperature & humidity sensors
Pipe temperature sensors
Rope-type water leakage sensors

2. Edge Access Layer (DIN-rail DTU)

Multi-sensor data aggregation
Protocol conversion and normalization
Local anomaly detection (e.g., water leakage)
Offline buffering and retransmission

3. LoRaWAN Network Layer

Based on LoRaWAN:

Multi-floor building coverage
Low-power long-term operation
Reduced cabling complexity
Suitable for harsh indoor environments

4. ThinkLink Platform Layer

Device management
Real-time visualization
Alarm and event handling
Historical data analytics

4. Results

Early detection of water leakage events
Visibility into HVAC pipeline conditions
Continuous environmental monitoring
Shift from inspection-based to event-driven maintenance

5. Key Takeaway

The value of the system lies not in adding sensors, but in restructuring the monitoring logic:

From fragmented systems → unified platform
From manual inspection → automated sensing
From reactive maintenance → real-time alerting
From experience-based → data-driven operations

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