UTC Execs Share Insights on Interlogix and LenelS2 Brands, Center for Intelligent Buildings
Take an inside look at UTC’s Center for Intelligent Buildings. Also, executives weigh in on the Center’s impact, as well as busy happenings in the LenelS2 and Interlogix branches.
To aid with the building’s energy efficiency efforts, dynamic glass was installed that adjusts shading automatically during the day and lets in tons of natural light. One thing visitors will notice on display at the Center for Intelligent Buildings is transparency, such as the escalator’s inner workings.
The Center is used to host security dealers, end customers, community events … what has the feedback been like?
HOUSTEN: There’s a level of surprise with folks being impressed by how well we’ve integrated systems. There’s a simulated fire pull in the customer experience center that’s probably the single greatest example of all the systems in the building working together. A fire event is tied to video feeds, to elevator control, to HVAC and what’s done either to bring in oxygen or not bring in oxygen, to access control at doors ensuring the fire department can get in, and so on.
The story board is really laid out there and we can demonstrate it. The other thing that people are impressed by is we made the building kind of have its own décor and artwork. The first thing you usually see is the operations center, what we call the BIC, building intelligence center. Then you go over and see the escalators [sides are exposed] and it’s not often you get to see what’s underneath the workings of an escalator. I get a lot of people that comment, “That’s really what I expected to see, I’ve just never seen it before.”
Are there many questions surrounding what exactly makes a building “intelligent”?
HOUSTEN: The biggest thing is, how does it become intelligent on an individual level? Intelligence is easy to explain to a facility manager or a security operations officer. What makes our building unique is that we give every user a customized user interface. With BlueDiamond it incorporates lighting control, HVAC and temperature control, so you have individual comfort styles that are accommodated. It’s on your company iPhone device. There’s way-finding technology so you can find your meeting room. Sometimes we’re called to a different floor where we’re not familiar with all the names of the rooms up there and we can use the app to locate the one we want. You come into your workspace in the morning and I’d say within about 3 seconds, before you remember that the feature exists, your lights snap to the desired level and air flow and temperature [do the same], and that’s pretty cool.
So in addition to the current brands at the Center for Intelligent Buildings, what does S2 Security bring to the UTC Climate, Controls & Security mix?
STANEK: Really from a strategic standpoint S2 and Lenel had a lot of commonalities around innovation, services and unification. S2 came out with Cumulus last year and Lenel came out with Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) which were both our respective introductions into the Cloud space. We see room for two platforms in the future. Historically Lenel has played in the enterprise space and scaled down. S2 has been strong in the SMB space and scaled up. We have complementary platforms and we’ll continue to invest in both. That was part of the reason for changing the logo — we want to be very clear that we see the Lenel and S2 platforms continuing indefinitely.
We’re also going to be bringing together some overarching products and BlueDiamond is one of the first ones. We’re working toward having that be a product that can work across both the [S2] NetBox and [Lenel] OnGuard access control platforms. It exists today for OnGuard but we’re going to get it ramped up on the NetBox side. And then also S2 has some video capabilities with its Magic Monitor and some video recorders that we believe can bring a pretty tightly unified solution to that SMB market space.
Housten: With the creation of LenelS2 we now have a more complete portfolio of products including digital signage. We can tie BlueDiamond to the digital signage and have the décor or the themes of meeting spaces, work-spaces, individual spaces change based upon who’s occupying them. We haven’t done it yet, but [at the Center for Intelligent Buildings] we might have content customized to an Edwards fire customer or a Lenel security customer, Otis elevator customer, Carrier HVAC customer, all based upon the nature of the visitor. So a visitor can receive either a Bluetooth-enabled card to wear around the neck or through our app on the phone it will recognize that they’ve entered the space and maybe a promotional or welcome video can start playing.
We’ll be showing off the legacy S2 systems in the Center. The digital signage that S2 has is considerably different than others on the market because it not only incorporates all the media and meeting room features but it ties it into all the security and safety systems.
Security dealers and end users can tour the Center’s showcases for both commercial solutions (right) and residential offerings. The commercial side features interactive building models, applications and case studies; the residential explores lifestyle/smart home wares as well as fire/life-safety products.
Let’s get into the LenelS2 and Interlogix brands specifically. What can dealers expect heading into 2019?
STANEK: If you look at our development effort and where we’re heading as a business, and now as a combined business, what we’re seeing and what’s top of mind for our customers centers around four themes: mobility, cybersecurity, unification and Cloud.
What’s big for us is OnGuard 7.5, our flagship platform. It’s the engine that powers the business and from a unification standpoint you’re going to see OnGuard monitor with video. You’re going to see it allows security and other personnel to move between desktop and mobile devices while maintaining situational awareness. They might be out on campus, patrolling other buildings but they need to be able to react to alarms, they need to be able to do their jobs untethered from that GSOC so we’re trying to adapt OnGuard and our technology to meet those needs.
The other topic that comes up at every customer and end-user meeting is around cybersecurity. We’ve put together our OnGuard Hardening Guide, which helps optimize the installation and maintenance practices to guard against vulnerabilities. We’ve engaged a third-party provider that performs all sorts of penetration testing and we’ve brought on other specific resources that have cyber background to expand our expertise in that area across the business.
Chiavacci: We serve two main segments today; residential and commercial. In residential, it’s about continuing to broaden our ecosystem integrations. Our heritage is in the traditional, professional security space, but as we see the segment needs evolve, we have broadened our focus to include both lifestyle and home automation capabilities. In commercial, we have renewed our focus on integrated security offerings with respect to access control, video surveillance, intrusion and networking. We’re extremely excited about our 2019 commercial security platform launch that will provide an open and integrated security solution for our customers.
Can you talk more about the commercial solution Interlogix is planning, and what led to that development?
CHIAVACCI: This solution integrates both security and life safety functions under one open platform. It represents a simple holistic solution that drives interoperability among access control, video, intrusion and networking for a “management by exception” approach. The need for integrated solutions was born in the enterprise segment, but today, regardless of what segment we serve, customers and end users demand the same. From a manufacturer’s perspective, it’s our job to simplify installation, configuration and operation of our solutions. That’s a major driver for us and we believe it’s a core competitive advantage.
Read on the learn more about UTC’s Center for Intelligent Buildings…
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About the Author
Arlen Schweiger
Arlen Schweiger is editor-in-chief of SSI's sister publication, CE Pro. He was SSI's managing editor from August 2018 to June 2023.
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