Cisco is seeing the need to streamline smart building management

Cisco is one of the most trusted network providers within and outside buildings and now it is ready to take another big step. The vendor now wants building managers and IT staff to work in co-ordination to bring back the employees as the pandemic recedes in many countries.

Many devices are coming up for workplaces post covid, which includes, LED lighting that can be modulated to an ultraviolet light frequency to help cleanse workspaces at night when workers are away. It works this way—A set of sensors will be able to detect if workers are away from the place, and then send a signal to automatically stimulate the cleaning process.

While few other sensors will detect the availability of people in the conference room to limit the participants and encourage social distancing, said Cisco. Other apps include facial recognition apps to monitor indoor mask wearing, and some apps are developed to allow contact tracing.

Zeus Kerravala, an analyst at ZK Research said, “There are now many more ways to connect network devices to things and that’s a real trend.”

A new IoT gateway on Catalyst 9000 switches “makes it simpler for the line of business and IT teams to on-board IoT endpoints to the network,” said Anoop Vetteth, vice president of enterprise switching and software at Cisco. “This makes sure there is security for unsophisticated IoT devices.  The network is the foundation to connect endpoints to apps.”