As part of a broad plan for estates management by the University of Edinburgh, several hundreds of operations staff who had been scattered across multiple sites were recently rehoused in open-plan offices in a refurbished 60s office block (Argyle House). The ground floor of the premises was remodelled to contain an assortment of large and small meeting rooms. In order to give building managers more information about occupancy and environmental conditions, we carried out a pilot project with multiple networked devices.
In one of the small meeting rooms, sensors were attached to chairs and the door to measure temperature, light level and movement. Sensors for light level, temperature, atmospheric pressure and relative humidity were also placed near desks across one wing of an open-plan area.
We carried out a Privacy Impact Assessment in which we were careful to demonstrate that no personal data would be captured by the sensors.
The pilot allowed us to build and demonstrate our capability with IoT infrastructure, as well as giving us an understanding of how the environment in Argyle House performs.
