EnOcean & Aruba partner to accelerate enabling of smart buildings – wirelessly
08 July 2020
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Aruba joins EnOcean Alliance, opening new opportunities to rapidly enable 'hyperaware' smart buildings & accurate digital twins – without cabling or batteries. EnOcean adds IoT starter kit to product portfolio, offering a simple solution for testing EnOcean wireless sensors with Aruba Wi-Fi access points.
Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise company and one of the world's two largest networking companies, has joined the EnOcean Alliance as a participant member. When used together, the Aruba Wi-Fi infrastructure and EnOcean energy harvesting wireless IoT solutions enable customers to create 'hyperaware' smart buildings that are aware of, and responsive to, their changing operating environment and occupant needs.
Aruba, based in Santa Clara, California, is a leading provider of AI-powered network infrastructure for campus, data centre, branch and remote worker applications. Aruba delivers a cloud experience at the edge that can be consumed either as a service in the cloud or on-premises, as a managed service delivered through Aruba partners, or via network as a service through HPE GreenLake.
The EnOcean Alliance is an international association of over 400 leading companies in the building and IT industries founded in 2008. The non-profit organisation is committed to enabling and promoting interoperable, maintenance-free and proven ecosystems based on the wireless EnOcean radio standard (ISO/IEC 14543-3-10/11). The EnOcean Alliance ecosystem offers more than 5,000 multi-vendor interoperable sensors enabling data collection for multiple applications, such as room or desk/chair occupancy, temperature and air quality, energy usage and restroom usage.
Hyperaware buildings made easy
EnOcean Alliance member IoT devices are the eyes and ears of smart buildings. By securely interfacing those IoT devices with new and existing Aruba Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 Access Points via a plug-in USB 800/900MHz radio, building control and business applications can become hyperaware of their operating environments. This information can be used to better model cloud-based digital twins, and to optimise human activity monitoring, organisational redesign, augmented reality, human productivity, and occupant health & safety.
The ideal solution
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"A building becomes smart by virtue of being instrumented with IoT devices, so applications are cognizant of the contextual status of the environment, occupants, energy requirements, service needs, security and safety,” said Michael R. Tennefoss, Vice President of Strategic Partnerships at Aruba. “The richer the set of available IoT data, the more cognizant and adaptive the building and associated digital twins can become. The goal is to make hyperawareness simple and inexpensive, and that is what the mash up between Aruba and the EnOcean Alliance achieves. An inexpensive 800/900MHz plug-in radio brings existing and new Aruba customers access to thousands of IoT devices, including BACNet and multiple other protocol gateways, and software applications (both local and cloud based). In turn, Alliance members gain access to Aruba’s installed base of education, enterprise, government, healthcare, hospitality, industrial, manufacturing, retail and transportation customers.”
Graham Martin, Chairman & CEO of the EnOcean Alliance continues: “Our collaboration opens up exciting new market opportunities for the Alliance members and the Aruba community by combining Aruba’s extensive network power and the flexibility of energy harvesting wireless sensors. The simplicity of the solution makes it now possible for facility, IT and other managers to easily add services, collecting data from 'peel and stick' sensors across an entire building, without pulling any new cables, nor ever having to change a battery.”
Detailed information, including white papers, is available on the EnOcean Alliance website here: www.enocean-alliance.org/aruba
The technology behind self-powered IoT sensors
Energy harvesting wireless devices utilise the tiniest amounts of energy from their environment. Kinetic motion, pressure, light and differences in temperature can be converted into energy which, in combination with ultra-low power wireless technology, creates maintenance-free sensor solutions for use in smart buildings and the IoT. Founded in 2001, EnOcean is a pioneer of energy harvesting combined with wireless IoT communications, and delivers valuable data for the IoT with its resource-saving technology. With a simple USB device supporting the EnOcean interoperable wireless standard, Aruba and EnOcean enable the economical, reliable and safe use of energy harvesting sensors over building networks to make buildings smart and sustainable. “We’re very happy to team up with Aruba to bring the entire ecosystem of EnOcean solutions to buildings in an easy and secure way,” said Andreas Schneider, CEO of EnOcean.
EnOcean IoT starter kit
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EnOcean has released a starter kit that simplifies the integration of EnOcean wireless sensors with Aruba Wi-Fi access points. Together, the two companies have partnered to facilitate the integration of IoT sensors into existing IT infrastructure, levering IT security mechanisms to protect IoT data and devices. Used in conjunction with a separately purchased Aruba access point, the new IoT starter kit (named EISKA for the European market and EISKU for the North American market) includes an EnOcean EMSIx multisensor, an Easyfit wireless switch, an EnOcean USB stick and demonstration software. All devices support the EnOcean radio standard (ISO/IEC 14543-3-10/11).
EnOcean USB sticks are available in both 868 MHz (Europe) and 902 MHz (USA/Canada) versions, and are compatible with any Aruba Wi-Fi 5 and Wi-Fi 6 access point with a USB port that is running ArubaOS 8.7 software. Aruba's Zero-Trust Network automatically establishes a secure data connection between EnOcean-compatible devices and the IoT application. The design eliminates the need for gateways, significantly reducing the cost of IoT projects.
“We have put together a kit that enables a quick and easy start to IoT applications with self-powered EnOcean devices. Customers only need to attach the included sensor and switch where they want to collect data and stick the USB device into their Aruba access point. On top of that, the included USB stick opens up the world to 5,000 products from members of the EnOcean Alliance, EnOcean’s energy harvesting technology being the core of every product,” Troy Davis, VP Sales North America West Region said. “We are very excited about this partnership as it opens up completely new opportunities for the IoT world.”
EnOcean’s energy harvesting sensors generate energy from light, movement or temperature, eliminating the need for batteries or power wiring. The EMSIx multisensor combines temperature, humidity, light level, acceleration and magnet contact sensors, making it well suited for a variety of IoT and smart building applications. An integrated near field communication (NFC) interface enables the multisensor to be configured and commissioned quickly and easily. The wireless Easyfit “Battery-free by EnOcean” energy harvesting switch can be placed anywhere lighting control is needed, including architecturally sensitive areas that are difficult to wire, such as glass, marble, reinforced concrete, and room dividers.
The IoT starter kit comes in two different versions for the European and North American markets. The European EISKA Starter Kit includes an EnOcean USB 300, a solar-powered EMSIA multisensor, and an Easyfit EWSDA double rocker switch. The North American EISKU Starter Kit includes an EnOcean USB 500U, the solar-powered EMSIU multisensor, an Easyfit EDRPU double rocker switch, an ETHSU temperature and humidity sensor, and an EMCSU magnet contact sensor. The demonstration software includes dashboards to show control activity in real-time. The IoT starter kits are available now in Europe from Arrow Electronics, and in North America from Ingram Micro. For more information on the EnOcean IoT starter kit and the partnership with Aruba, please visit www.enocean.com/en/aruba
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About EnOcean Alliance
The EnOcean Alliance is an international association of leading companies in the building and IT industries founded in 2008. The open, non-profit organisation is committed to enabling and promoting interoperable, maintenance-free and proven eco-systems based on the wireless EnOcean radio standard (ISO/IEC 14543-3-10/11). With their decades of experience EnOcean Alliance members strive to co-create a healthy, safe and sustainable environment in smart homes, smart buildings and smart spaces for the benefit of all. The EnOcean Alliance headquarters are located in San Ramon, California.
www.enocean-alliance.org
www.enocean-alliance.org/aruba
About EnOcean
EnOcean is a pioneer of energy harvesting and wireless IoT communications. Headquartered in Oberhaching, near Munich, the company delivers valuable data for the Internet of Things (IoT) with its resource-saving technology. For nearly 20 years, EnOcean has produced maintenance-free wireless switches and sensors, which gain their energy from their surroundings – from movement, light or temperature. The combination of miniaturised energy converters, ultra-low power electronics and robust radio technology based on open standards (EnOcean, Zigbee and Bluetooth®) forms the foundation for digitized buildings, services and production processes in the IoT. The self-powered solutions are used in building automation, smart homes, LED lighting control and industrial applications. As an innovation driver, EnOcean is a strong partner for more than 350 leading product manufacturers and has already succeeded more than a million buildings worldwide with energy harvesting solutions.
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