Nine key trends which will influence the PropTech sector

1.Visitor Flow – a smooth meet and greet

It goes without saying that entering, moving around inside and leaving a building are crucial parts of any visitor experience in both commercial and residential buildings. Delivering an intuitive and logical journey through the space builds strong goodwill towards the building and those people or businesses associated with it.

Any type of system that maintains tight security, whilst allowing efficient entry and the clear identification of key spaces and routes, will be a huge plus for any building.

2. Beyond The Bottom Line – experience-driven added value

Once building efficiency is achieved, building owners and managers can increase occupier satisfaction and loyalty by going beyond merely what is expected.

Studies reveal that tenants and building users look favourably on spaces that show initiative in awareness around sustainability, air and light quality, net zero targets and promoting a healthy planet.

Any owner or landlord of a space who takes action on these topical issues has more chance of increasing overall satisfaction and positive feelings towards the building.

3. Welcome with Wellness – promote positivity

Awareness of the triggers that promote wellness and create a positive environment has increased in recent times.

Buildings can do a lot to offer more human centric systems such as circadian focused lighting and protection from the glare of the sun, whilst allowing in natural light. Buildings can also create a natural environment with interior planting or imagery and AV experiences that bring the outside inside.

A greater understanding of how humans interact with each other and with technology allows us to build genuinely human centric spaces.

4. Data Driven – create proven efficiency

Today’s data friendly systems can collect and collate information on every part of a building’s life. Expected norms of behaviour are often not matched when a building’s data is analysed. Building managers and tenants can examine data and make decisions about any system to match what people actually do, and when.

Smart analysis of building usage may reveal new areas of optimisation and answer questions like:

• Do all tenants contribute equally to wear and tear?
• Can AI predict user occupancy and enable optimised staffing levels?

5. Collaboration – combine all available resources

Being able to look at a building and the processes that take place within it holistically is relatively new, but very powerful. Technology that can match its performance to complement every other system in the building creates a simple, efficient and pleasant environment.

For example, intelligent lighting and blind systems work together to deliver energy savings whilst creating optimal lighting conditions. Smart lock technology greatly increases security and entry efficiency as well as dealing with problematic key management issues.

6. People Centric – technology that understands people

Everyone has experienced technology that feels unhelpful, hostile and without merit, but it doesn’t have to. Make the starting point of introducing any tech the consideration that it will leave the user feeling happier and more positive about the space.

Ease of use and clear goal driven tasks that make people’s day better are vital metrics that any type of technology has to deliver.

7. Nature Tech – using nature to inspire technology

The rhythms, colours, sounds and feel of nature are now important considerations when creating any type of technology experience.

Designers have discovered how to unlock positive feelings towards technological processes and systems by making them feel more ‘natural’. Cold, hard, technology promotes feelings of isolation from and negative feelings towards systems that fail to address fully the fact they are going to be used by humans.

Keeping things simple, colourful and natural are all powerful drivers of human satisfaction.

8. Ease of use – ensuring an intuitive experience

Today’s best technology systems do not need to be ‘learnt’. Users, either regular or just visiting once, should be able to understand and use a system the second they encounter it.

Technologists have learnt to remove their own knowledge of how a system works from any interactions with it, so that any user can identify what the system is for and immediately make it do what they want. This is achieved by swapping tech speak for understandable phrases and symbols and simplifying systems so that the user only interacts with the part that is relevant for them.

9. Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) – keeping the experience smart

Today’s tenants and visitors have a tech life away from any building they interact with. The majority carry a smart device and expect to be able to use it wherever they go. This cannot only be used for leisure activities such as listening to music, but also to log on to a building’s systems and control them.

Any buildings that can offer this kind of service rank highly with users as people have a strong personal connection with their smart devices. For example, smart locks and access control that connect with RFID or NFC tech are already present in most smart phones, so are well placed to leverage this trend.

It’s important to note, tech must be inclusive and not exclusive, ease of use is paramount, no technology should make the experience with a building more complex.

At Lares Digital, we follow the latest trends in PropTech to ensure our digital receptionist technology sets your building apart from your competition. Book a demo to visit one of our client sites and see for yourself how our digital receptionists work in practice.