Samsung Electronics Co. and Microsoft Corp. have announced a global collaboration focused on digitally transforming the real estate development and property management industries.
The collaboration will team up smart appliances and digital cloud technologies to drive improved building operations and maintenance. Along with creating better experiences for both service technicians and residents. The alliance brings together the power of Microsoft’s Azure IoT platform and productivity cloud services with Samsung’s smart devices and SmartThings platform. That will help optimize building operations, equipment maintenance, energy management. Including asset performance, and new tenant experiences for commercial, hospitality and residential buildings as well as mixed-use developments.
The companies will leverage Samsung’s smart home appliances, HVAC systems and smart TVs integrated with SmartThings. Together with Microsoft’s Azure Digital Twins technology and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Field Service, to improve building maintenance and management by aggregating and analyzing IoT data from building systems and connected appliances.
Microsoft’s Azure IoT platform is able to process data messaging from millions of building sensors and devices and then use machine learning and AI to help to build managers and operators determine what issues should be addressed in what order, and then link to Dynamics 365 Field Service to determine who is the right person, with the right skills, in the right location to resolve the issue.
This helps to reduce service calls while also improving the productivity of service technicians who can now troubleshoot multiple issues on a single visit and, if needed, get remote assistance through the Microsoft Teams application.
“With Azure Digital Twins, we can create comprehensive digital models of entire environments and a living digital replica of real-world things, places, business processes and people to help customers gain insights that drive better products, optimization of operations, cost reduction and breakthrough customer experiences. This collaboration opens up new opportunities for further innovation in the real estate development and property management industries,” said Sam George, corporate vice president, Azure IoT, Microsoft.
This collaboration with Samsung extends this capability to include Samsung smart appliances, HVAC systems and TVs, with plans to expand into digital signage equipment. The alliance also covers Samsung mobile devices, including the XCover Pro mobile phone, to create improved experiences for frontline workers involved in handling building issues.
Samsung plans to offer SmartThings mobile development tools to enable builders to craft custom, tailored connected living experiences for their end-users including smart refrigerators, washing machines, vacuums, air purifiers, ovens and other devices connected through the intelligent SmartThings platform.
“We believe collaboration with a key partner like Microsoft is essential for innovation, as the company shares our vision of inspiring the world to shape the future by innovating in technology and products,” said Chanwoo Park, corporate vice president heading up the IoT Biz Group at Samsung.
