The Role Of IoT Gateway In Changing The Future Of Building Automation

As a facility manager, if you analyze your building automation system (BAS), you may not find any visible issues. But, you are missing out on enormous cost-saving and optimization opportunities of a modernized and smart building. Currently, there is massive pressure to ensure energy efficiency in building systems. The BMS sector needs a makeover!

The implementation of the Internet of Things (IoT) in the building management system (BMS) gives unprecedented insights into numerous building aspects for holistic, intuitive, and proactive facility management. With this advanced technology, facilities can tap into boundless possibilities to optimize their everyday building operations without incurring high costs.

In the present scenario, a lot is happening in IoT – devices communicating with each other over various networks, sensors communicating with the cloud, and the cloud communicating with critical systems. Managing all these processes becomes overwhelming for the facility operators. IoT gateway can solve it!

What is an IoT Gateway?

An IoT gateway is networking hardware that integrates numerous sensors and smart devices of a building, receives data from them, and transmits it to the cloud or local servers. It was invented to meet the challenges of streamlining the interconnection between numerous components of the Internet of Things (IoT).

What’s more? Internet of Things gateways come with the capacity to pre-process data at the edge in real-time, reducing the load on processing centers and speeding up response times. Based on various IoT project requirements, gateway hardware can be configured accordingly.

In a simple definition, gateways are physical mediators that provide reliable and efficient communication of IoT devices with public and private cloud platforms or local data centers.

How do IoT Gateways work?

Sometimes, it’s not possible for devices to communicate directly with systems. There will be sensors and controllers that won’t support energy-intensive protocols like Wi-Fi or Bluetooth. These devices aggregate data that becomes overwhelming to evaluate in raw form.

An IoT gateway performs several critical functions such as translating protocols, encrypting, processing, managing and filtering data, and a lot more! In an IoT ecosystem, a gateway allows devices and sensors to communicate with the cloud. Thus, industrial IoT gateways streamline data flows and easily connect new touchpoints to Industry 4.0 environments without interfering with automation logic.

What Does an IoT Gateway Do?

In large IoT systems, there are dozens or even hundreds of sensors. In such a scenario, data management is a challenging task. Gateways devices come at the edge of sophisticated Internet of Things ecosystems. It undertakes vital functions to conduct data transmission and management, including:

• Receiving a huge data from connected things
• Aggregating and synchronizing received data
• Analyzing and processing data without sending it to the central processing systems
• Transferring aggregated and pre-processed data to the cloud or processing center for further complicated computing
• Receiving meaningful insights from cloud platforms and data centers
• Sending back actionable insights to IoT devices, allowing them to perform needed actions

Gateways allocate the workload within an IoT system by transferring functions from the central processing platform to the data sources, giving businesses a wide range of benefits. Creating connected buildings becomes easy with the application of these advanced technologies.

Advantages of Using IoT Gateways

While investing in IoT technology, start with gateways. It provides immediate and long-term advantages. Here are some of them:

1. Interconnecting the devices and with the cloud

Gateways are like universal remotes that allow you to control different IoT devices from a central location. It saves the time and effort of the facilities. When facility managers receive or provide information to an IoT device, they communicate with them through IoT gateways via cloud-enabled software.

2. Ensures effective communication between IoT devices

In IoT, there are several devices and sensors. The standard language between these devices does not exist yet. Gateways translate information between them. It simplifies the entire communication process.

3. Filters data

Since gateways allow IoT devices to speak to each other, it transforms how they communicate by filtering data into useful information. They work at the edge, send the necessary filtered data to the cloud, improve communication, and response times.

Since data can be processed and understood by the Gateway, there is no need for a third party to process the information.

4. Mitigates risk and security

As IoT devices expand, security risks also rise. Thankfully, an IoT gateway provides a layer between the internet and IoT devices that prevents security risks.

Are IoT Gateways Secure?

Gateway devices are based on reliable embedded operating systems and integrate security features that ensure authentication, encryption, and secure exchange of information with external systems. It provides data protection and physical resistance of devices to external unauthorized access and hostile environmental conditions.

If you trust the security of the banking system, you should also trust the security of the IoT system. Both use the same encryption system. Reach out to Zenatix, one of the leading IoT companies in India to bring an undisputed level of connectivity to your devices.