Author: Peggy Smedley
Homes are getting smarter and connected devices are proliferating the home at a rapid pace. So, what’s next? One new report identifies the evolution of the smart home and what tech is currently coming out on top. Plume provides a glimpse into today’s smart home—literally. With more than 41 million homes and more than 1.8 billion connected devices managed on its global network, it has realtime data about what devices are actually humming in homes today. The information in its recent Smart Home Market Report, released in August, samples data from a cross-section of 200,000 homes out of the 41…
If we want smart manufacturing and Industry 4.0 to be successful, we need to involve everyone in the ecosystem: large and small manufacturers, technology providers, academia, and more. As the saying goes, we are only as strong as our weakest player, and we need to raise the tide, so all boats float higher together. Perhaps one of the biggest implications of the Third Industrial Revolution—which spanned from 1970 to 2010—for small and medium-sized manufacturers was the cost and complexity of automation and digitization. Perhaps this is the reason many digital transformation initiatives are not successful—some suggest this statistic is between…
Are we headed for a recession? Are contractors still experiencing labor shortages and material delays? What is the overall outlook for the market? I have recently done a deep dive into the state of the residential construction market. Today let’s take a closer look at the heavy civil construction market and unpack where we are headed amid a changing economic market and following the IIJA (Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act). Pointing to some specific data, the FMI 2022 Heavy Civil Construction Index, Third Quarter Report, gives us a peek into the current state of the market and what is to…
You have likely heard the expression: reduce, reuse, recycle. But now, the zero-waste approach takes this a step further, adding two more Rs to the framework: refuse—which is all about eliminating waste from the start and saying “no” to free stuff—and rot, which in its simplest form is composting. If we want to reach zero waste by 2030, we need to take everything into consideration. Every year, more than 11 billion tons of waste are produced worldwide, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. This is simply a byproduct of the way we live our lives. Enter zero waste initiatives.…
Education is evolving. The way organizations and individuals learn about digital transformation amid the Fourth Industrial Revolution looks very different from years past. One very specific example is how we are teaching and learning about datacenters. As we all know, the cloud enables many activities that we do in both life and business, and it hosts large amounts of information that feed all these applications. The way I see it, to build a secure cloud environment, we need datacenters—and we need workers to help. Enter the Microsoft Datacenter Academy, which helps individuals acquire skills and certifications for employment in the…
Nearly all consumers believe climate change will lead to rising energy bills—and as such expect homes and apartments to be equipped with smart-home devices. Still, experts suggest mindset is still the biggest barrier to change when it comes to our household energy diets. All of this is according to a new survey from Schneider Electric, which has revealed nearly nine out of 10 consumers believe climate change will lead to rising energy bills and individuals should play a larger role with climate change. The driving factors for consumers to act and invest in sustainability are the rising cost of living…
I have spent several decades writing about women breaking through the glass ceiling in male-dominated industries like construction and manufacturing. The stories are always beautiful triumphs of women doing incredible things with business, process, and technology in an industry that isn’t traditionally built for them. But has it been enough? Are we still stalled in many areas? A new survey piqued my interest when it crossed my desk earlier this month because it focuses on the biggest barrier preventing more women from entering the project profession in industries like construction, transport and logistics, and more. The survey by the APM…
The future is here—and the future will be driven by technologies such as cloud, 5G, the IoT (Internet of Things), sensors, edge, digital twin, AI (artificial intelligence), and so much more. While there is a lot of discussion about these technologies already, now it is time to start talking about the direction we are headed. Nick McQuire, director of product management, growth innovation, and strategy, Microsoft, is tasked with working with the company’s Strategic Missions and Technology division, which was set up in November of last year. The objective is to be the connection point between Microsoft’s long-term research and…
Here at the Living Lab blog, we have been talking about the benefits of technology, the pricing, and value of choosing sustainable products and technologies for our homes. Now, I want to talk a bit about the realities of building and living in a smart home—and what happens when technology doesn’t work the way it is intended to work. As many of you know, I am on a journey with my husband Dave to build a Living Lab—one where we have partnered with several industry players to encourage ecofriendly, energy-efficient, and green living for all. The intention is to demonstrate…
In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the homebuilding industry remained strong, but in the past few months, we have been talking about an impending downturn. Has it happened yet or is it still on the horizon? To identify the state of the homebuilding market, let’s start by looking at one metric and then I will give you my thoughts on what needs to happen next. The monthly BTIG/HomeSphere Homebuilder Survey seeks the perspective of approximately 50-100 small and mid-sized tract homebuilders nationally about sales, customer traffic, and pricing trends. It received 113 responses for the month of July.…