This week’s Smart City roundup features a string of trade fairs to showcase intelligent building technologies, commercial humidifiers for smart offices, and a smart meter maker expanding its reach.

Smart building future showcased at 3 Chinese fairs

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If you want to see what the future of smart buildings has in store, head to China on September 3-5, where three trade fairs will be showcasing the latest technologies for this market.

Shanghai Intelligent Building Technology, organized by Guangzhou Guangya Messe Frankfurt Co Ltd, China Council for the Promotion of International Trade – Shanghai Pudong Sub-Council and Shanghai Hongshan Exhibition Service Co Ltd, will be concurrently held alongside the ISH Shanghai & CIHE – the Shanghai International Trade Fair for Heating, Ventilation & Air-Conditioning, and the Shanghai International Lighting Fair.

The trade fairs are expected to showcase the latest technologies in smart buildings, as well as energy saving solutions.  The three shows are expected to cover 40,000 sqm of land and attract attendees from various disciplines such as system integrators, architects, engineering designers, contractors and many more.

The three shows will focus on on three core themes that are most popular in China: building efficiency, intelligent cities and smart homes.  There will also be dedicated zones for Building Energy Savings, Energy Management & Building Automation as well as new thematic zones on Generic Cabling and Data Centres and Home Technology.  The zones will allow both exhibitors and visitors to maximize their time to target appropriate buyers or find the right solutions.

Smart Fog adds Eco Mode feature to humidifiers

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Smart Fog, a company that specializes in commercial humidifiers, has added a new commercial humidifier feature: Eco Mode.  The Eco Mode feature delivers an industry first when it comes to energy savings, as it actively adapts to the humidifier’s environment to operate efficiently regardless of the work atmosphere.

“Eco Mode field tests have shown a 25 percent reduction in energy usage on an annual basis,” says Ido Goldstein, Director at Smart Fog. “This is an added energy savings over the already low energy consumption of the Smart Fog commercial humidifiers.

But how does the Eco Mode feature fit in the workplace?

Smart Fog humidifiers uses non-fluctuating humidification technology that ensures low energy consumption. With Eco Mode, energy consumption will be reduced further, which means more savings for the company.  And for the employees or workers, the work environment will always be conducive for productivity, as the Eco Mode prevents environmental factors from affecting the system.

Landis+Gyr plans to dominate smart meter market

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As more homes, office buildings and facilities switch to using smart meters to reduce energy consumption, the trend has given players in the smart meter market a fresh opportunity to expand their reach.

Leveraging the increasing interest in smart meters, Landis+Gyr, among the world’s biggest makers of power meters for utilities, has revealed plans to double its revenue to $4 billion via a series of acquisitions on companies that specialize in power metering and networks.

Demonstrating the lucrative nature of this growing market, take France as an example. Its government recently approved a plan that involves the installation of 35 million smart meters between 2016 to 2020.  Putting the price of smart meters at €30 with an installation fee of €120, total spending to replace old meters with smart meters will amount to about $5.2 billion.  And that’s only France.  Europe is spending €16 billion (about $22 billion), or about €140 to €240 per meter, to replace old meters with smart meters between 2011 to 2017.

photo credit: Thomas Hawk via photopin cc