KONE Remote-Monitoring Solutions

KONE recently launched a pair of remote-monitoring solutions, Residential Flow and KONE Care^TM 24/7 connected service. Residential Flow uses mobile and cloud technologies to connect building doors, elevators, information channels and intercom systems for homeowners and tenants via a smartphone application. It is commercially available in Finland, France, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands and U.K. Head of New Services and Solutions Teppo Voutilainen said:

“When developing KONE Residential Flow, we interviewed more than 200 developers, facility managers and building residents around the world to understand their challenges and needs related to people flow in residential environments. We learned that many people face challenges with simple tasks like opening the front door when carrying groceries or receiving deliveries. KONE Residential Flow takes the stress out of these everyday situations and makes arriving home more intuitive.”

This solution brings more flexibility and convenience for building owners and facility managers, too, KONE notes, because they can easily share building information and manage access rights remotely from anywhere. There are three Residential Flow packages: KONE Access, KONE Visit and KONE Information. KONE Access controls building doors and automatically calls an elevator to take the user to their home floor, eliminating the need to use physical keys.

KONE Visit includes a connected intercom system that allows residents to greet visitors and grant them access using their smartphones. The elevator then automatically takes them to their destination floors. Residents can also grant access remotely, which is useful for situations like parcel deliveries.

With the KONE Information package, facility managers can send building-related information directly to residents’ smartphones, or to information screens in the elevators or lobby. The solution is available for both new and existing buildings.

KONE describes KONE Care as a new approach to maintenance and 24/7 connected services. It is a customizable portfolio of services and tools designed to meet the needs of building owners and facility managers. Customers can request and customize services to match the specific requirements of their business, tenants or building type. This, observes KONE President and CEO Henrik Ehrnrooth, enhances speed, transparency and predictability. The 24/7 connected service uses the IBM Watson Internet of Things (IoT) platform to bring intelligent services to elevators and escalators. Users enjoy less waiting time and a more personalized experience. The system enables vast amounts of data from elevator sensors to be monitored, analyzed and displayed in real time, improving equipment performance, reliability and safety.

Ehrnrooth states:

“This is just the beginning. With this platform, we will be able to bring new services and innovations faster to the market for our customers and consumers. Not only are we able to customize services based on our customers’ individual needs — with better predictability, planning and peace of mind — but we will also bring artificial intelligence for our services, which will help predict and suggest resolutions to potential problems.”

KONE Care is available, and rollout will continue through 2018. The company aims to connect more than one million additional elevators and escalators to the cloud over the next few years.