With the building intelligence research center at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts (HSLU), the iHomeLab, Schurter AG has developed a component for office equipment and other devices that aims to prevent their unnecessary energy use in standby mode. According to a press release from the HSLU, it is so compact that manufacturers can easily integrate it into their devices or retrofit it.
Using artificial intelligence, this component learns the times when a device is not used and turns it off. However, unlike a timer switch, the device can be manually rebooted at any time as needed.
This component is particularly useful in large offices if no one is responsible for turning off office equipment such as printers and coffee machines. Electronic devices often use more energy in standby mode than they do through their daily use according to the information provided. This is why energy savings of up to 30 percent are possible with this.
The task for iHomeLabs was to develop algorithms that could be used to investigate and discover operation without use. Andrew Paice, Head of the iHomeLab, states: “We also had to ensure that the algorithms worked with the correct data.”
