Entrepreneur Ray Kamal and his partner Anwer Bashi have a background in energy management and building automation. Last fall, they launched a brand new company, Entronix, which built an Energy Management Platform that provides enterprise level, real-time energy usage data of commercial facilities. Their team is focused on created the next generation of hardware and software technologies in New Orleans.
They have now started another company, Linq, the first cloud-based platform to connect the Internet of Things (IoT) in the management of large commercial facilities. The startup has created an advanced platform to easily connect, control, and monitor these smart devices via the cloud.
Photo from linq.io.
“Connected buildings, big data, and the cloud will profoundly change building operation systems and practices,” explains Kamal. “The current and projected presence of these smart devices creates incredible complexity for managers of facilities of all sizes.”
The company believes the next evolutionary stage of the Internet has arrived. Kamal said that, since inception, facilities management has gone largely unchanged with clunky and hard to use software with complicated hardware setups. Linq provides elegant software and simple hardware to facilities to make them smarter.
Linq is currently working on a project with the 21-story New Orleans Exchange Center located at 935 Gravier Street downtown. Previously known as Chevron Place, the building was renovated from a single tenant into a class A, multi-tenant property.
“I have been putting a lot of the technology that I am making into the building,” says Kamal.
One of the first things Linq tackled was the existing carbon monoxide (CO) sensors. Typically when the levels of CO get high enough, the exhaust fans turn on, which requires many sensors that are connected with wires to a controller and a computer. Linq is modernizing this system by connecting the CO sensors directly to the cloud, saving money on materials and labor at the same time.
Kamal says they are also updating the floor lighting system. “With the same technology, we are putting the lighting controls in the cloud. Now they can turn lights on their floor via their desktop or phone.” If the lights do not go on when they are supposed to, the chief engineer will be sent a text message alert.
Because access to the sensors and lights will be possible over the Internet, Linq has given very special attention to the security aspect of authenticating valid users and devices. This attention to security is something that Kamal says is not as common as it should be in the industry.
To learn more about how Linq is connecting people to buildings in new ways, visit Linq.io.