Better, smarter buildings powered by data

Commercial real estate developer EDGE is the proud namesake of The Edge in Amsterdam’s Zuidas, which Bloomberg named “the smartest building in the world.” The office exemplifies the developer’s ambition to make every building in the world smarter, greener and healthier. A crucial part of this mission is the EDGE Next platform. This system can be installed in any existing or yet-to-be-developed building. It collects data from existing or newly installed sensors on energy performance, air quality and occupancy levels. Betabit experts worked closely with EDGE on the development of the platform.

Huge amounts of data

As in many areas today, data is the key to better buildings. “You would be surprised by the enormous amounts of data a typical building already generates,” says Fanie Reynders, Head of Technology at EDGE Next. “But individual data points mean very little by themselves. We know how to translate individual data points and their correlations into meaningful information; that is where our intellectual property lies.

With the instantly usable insights our platform generates, we give building owners the tools to achieve energy savings and sustainability goals, and to create a healthy, safe and productive working environment for users.

Azure Digital Twins as the ‘single source of truth’

The technical heart of the EDGE Next platform is Microsoft’s Azure Digital Twins. In this IoT platform, a digital model can be created of a physical object: in this case, a building. The digital model moves in sync with the real world; every change in the physical building is also reflected in its digital twin.

For EDGE Next, this digital clone serves as the “single source of truth”; it is the starting point for all platform modules. One of these modules is Digital Signage. It allows customers to create a custom dashboard that shows real time information about, for example, room occupancy on a floor or alerts when temperature or CO₂ levels exceed certain thresholds, or when rooms become too crowded for health measures.

From several weeks to under a minute

Microsoft’s decision to launch a new, more advanced version of Azure Digital Twins meant that EDGE had to migrate its workload to the new version. “With help from Betabit, we were able to do this in record time,” says Fanie Reynders.

This goes far beyond delivering extra expertise. After years of collaboration, Betabit knows exactly what we need, what we want and how we want it. At EDGE Next, we cherish our open culture where everyone feels comfortable participating, sharing opinions, asking questions and making suggestions. The consultants from Betabit fit perfectly into this; they are truly part of our core.

The migration to the new Azure Digital Twins version also allowed EDGE Next to drastically accelerate the onboarding process for new buildings. “Previously, developers needed two to three weeks to connect a new building. That generally meant writing new code on our platform. On the new version, we have been able to eliminate many of those steps. Now we can connect a building in under a minute. Every second saved gives us a fantastic competitive advantage in our market.”

Making real impact

The speed at which EDGE Next can scale is extremely valuable for the types of customers it targets. “We are not after the small players, we want to bring in the big ones so we can make real impact,” explains Fanie Reynders.

We have already run many small-scale pilots and we have signed a SaaS deal with Microsoft itself for two of their offices in Bucharest and Sydney. If a company like Microsoft is impressed by the results, it may decide to install our technology in all its locations worldwide. That must run within a few days; it should not take weeks.

With the scalability to install the platform quickly and securely in any building worldwide, EDGE is making a meaningful contribution to its vision: “The world needs better buildings.”