Frequently Asked Questions
FAQ about ProptechOS and Real Estate Core
Categories
Getting started with ProptechOS
After signing up and signing in, starting to use ProptechOS follows a simple process:
- Onboard Building. If your use case requires just a few rooms, you can probably create them manually by yourself, and if you need an entire building you can use a blueprint to do it at scale. Idun Onboarding will help you with the end-to-end process.
- Data source. Identify suitable existing devices for your use case.
(If needed, procurement and installation of complementary IoT devices are done by an external vendor in coordination with Idun.) - Onboard Devices. A simple use case with just a few IoT devices can be set up manually and an entire legacy system can be onboarded using a taglist. Idun Onboarding engineers can do both quickly. To finally get going, access for ProptechOS to connect to your devices is set up.
- Data from IoT devices, BIM, Building Management Systems and business functionalities are collected in ProptechOS. You are now ready to use ProptechOS.
ProptechOS Trial or Professional can be set up in minutes. A Dedicated instance can take 2-3 working days. After you get access to ProptechOS, onboarding a set of certified partner devices can take a couple of hours for a modern IoT system, 72 hours including modelling for a complete Building management system from a certified partner or 2-4 weeks for a system that has not yet been modelled in RealEstateCore or integrated with ProptechOS. The device onboarding takes even longer than that if the use case requires access to an on-site local network and/or installation of on-site hardware. Start setting up your account by choosing a pricing plan.
A building is onboarded to ProptechOS and modelled in RealEstateCore. A building is made up of storeys, rooms and assets in rooms (e.g. a phonebooth, a desk, other furnishing, etc.). Buildings can also have zones which span one or multiple rooms or a specific area within a room. Additionally devices, sensors, actuators and alarms can be placed in a room or at a specific coordinate in a room. Other building components like terrasses, roofs etc. have RealEstateCore representations and can be onboarded to ProptechOS. A building belongs to a real estate which is a legal object consisting of one or several buildings or pieces of land. All building components can have a geometric representation so that they can be found by coordinates and visualized in 2D or 3D. Based on these components the customer can build up their applications. For more details visit https://www.realestatecore.io/
ProptechOS is a SaaS cloud solution. ProptechOS itself does not require any hardware.
However, some legacy systems in buildings cannot connect to the internet. In such cases Idun will install a physical Connector server on site that will serve as an uplink to ProptechOS. Many times, it is possible to use a cloud-based Connector, or a Connector on a virtual server on the customer local network.
There is no limit to how many users you can invite to your ProptechOS. Users may be assigned roles with pre-selected access and permission rights.
ProptechOS has a range of support options:
- Email: Just send Idun Onboarding [email protected] a note and our onboarding engineers will get right back to you.
- Slack: Professional and Dedicated customers get a dedicated slack channel where new ideas are discussed or issues resolved.
- Webinars: Many of the core use cases are described in a webinar here in the Resources section
- RealEstateCore community – If you wonder about how to best use RealEstateCore, you can also also find your answer at realestatecore.io or the RealEstateCore community.
Yes, definitely!
- Just click the plus-sign in the bottom right corner to create any object in your ProptechOS – Building, Room Sensor etc.
- Choose “Onboard” > “Blueprint” in the top bar to onboard a whole storey or building using a DWG file.
- Choose “Onboard” > “Tag list” in the top bar to onboard a whole system of devices using a CSV file.
Onboarding using Blueprints or Tag lists does require processing the DWG or CSV files so that they have the necessary information and the proper format. Idun Onboarding team will help you get started.
Suitability/ Usage
ProptechOS is built for new and old buildings – enabling greenfield and brownfield Internet of Things. The majority of typical property portfolios are existing or old buildings. Idun Onboarding engineers are experts at onboarding buildings that do not have a full featured BIM model and integrating legacy Building Management Systems. If the building is new, it will probably have a BIM model that will make onboarding easy, and enough sensors installed on site to support most use cases. An older building can be improved, optimized and automated with ProptechOS but might need complementary sensors to support some advanced use cases. If this is the case, Idun will make sure that suitable IoT devices are installed in the buildings.
ProptechOS is suitable for any number of properties. It can even be run on a single building. Scalability of IoT has been a major motivation for developing ProptechOS, but apps and partner apps can deliver value on anything from one to 500 buildings in a portfolio.
ProptechOS is suitable for both commercial, residential and industrial portfolios. The only prerequisite for a successful implementation of ProptechOS is to have enough sensors and data points in your buildings to bear the use cases you are interested in.
Functionality
Yes. All data from buildings is saved continuously on ProptechOS during the time that the building is connected to the platform and will be saved long term. Data can be exported from ProptechOS. Historical data from before the building was onboarded may be added to ProptechOS upon request.
Yes. Telemetry data is instantly available in ProptechOS – either in the UI, the API or via the streaming API. Typically, telemetry that arrives to ProptechOS is available in the stream or API within 80 milliseconds (median latency is less than 10 ms).
Yes. ProptechOS has a state model embedded in the knowledge graph. Via the UI or the API, the state of each connected device is easily and instantly available.
Yes. ProptechOS turns all onboarded buildings with devices into smart buildings that can be controlled by users or certified applications in a safe and scalable way. This can be used to have rooms automatically adjusted before and after meetings, for letting your buildings help the energy grid by participating in demand-response programs or for a Machine Learning application to optimize the energy consumption of the building.
ProptechOS adopts the RealEstateCore API, which is open source. You or your IT partners can write any application on top of the API. To help you, Idun has a suite of documentation, and code open for anyone to use. You are dependent on Idun for your implementation. Idun created and founded RealEstateCore but the community has grown beyond ProptechOS, with additional docs and tooling.
Yes, there are two ways to export data from ProptechOS. Extracting single time series by downloading them directly in the UI sensor view. Contact Idun Onboarding if you are looking to export data for a very long time or for a large set of sensors.