Think WFH is over? IoT seeing rise in remote management

This article originally appeared in the Dec'23 magazine issue of Electronic Specifier Design – see ES's Magazine Archives for more featured publications.

In August, ResumeBuilder surveyed 1,000 corporate decision-makers about their plans to return workers to the office, and 90% of companies believed there would be a return to the office by 2024. Yet one company is using IoT solutions to enable the opposite: remote management.

Obviously the world understood that connectivity was key to enabling this WFH world we entered from 2020, but this solution from Arbor Standard represents how IoT, with connectivity being a core element, got introduced to the concept of remote work.

Arbor Standard, IoT and the two together

“Arbor Standard is an immersive technology solution provider that specialises in realtime remote interaction and collaboration,” says Arbor Standard Director Kai Lam. “Our primary focus is on empowering industrial enterprises by providing them with remote site operational capabilities, harnessing the potential of XR, IoT, and AI technologies in the evolving landscape of spatial computing.”

What this means in practice, Lam explains, is that Arbor Standard has created software and hardware solutions that can see IoT devices interact with a live-feed video. An example is, let’s say you have a rotating camera in an industrial setting, like an indoor farm. When someone remotely looks at the video feed, they can hover over sensors scattered across the feed, and when they do, they can collect live data from them and have it displayed, seamlessly. Equally, if the viewer sees, for instance, a sensor in the soil is indicating it is dry, then should you have an IoT-enabled watering system, you can activate its functions to begin watering, all via the video feed.

What’s more is, a VR headset can also be incorporated into the viewing aspect, and a camera mounted backpack can be carried by someone on the premises to enable a dynamic feed of multiple areas.

This allows the vital analytics of a plant’s operations to be administered from outside its premises. The idea follows general remote automation trends of industrial settings beginning as early as the 80s, but this represents a departure in the sense that the monitoring and subsequent actions taken aren’t just seen via data on a screen, they are being visually represented to the user via video on a live feed.

“We believe that two-dimensional information provided by existing information media like computers cannot fully represent our three-dimensional world,” says Lam. “The surge in the use of Zoom and Teams due to COVID-19 has reduced entry barriers for our clients, enhancing understanding of our remote collaboration product, which enables remote work for professionals who often travel for site visits.”

But why you may ask? Why have someone miles away monitor the plant when you can have someone on site? The answer is derived from a combination of issues. One is pervading wider society as a whole: skills shortage. For instance, you may have a plant in a place where there isn’t someone able to fill the role. Another perennial issue for business is cost, you might have multiple plants but can’t afford multiple people to monitor. Recognising human resources as the company's most valuable asset, the vision of this solution is to empower experts to manage multiple facilities in daily operation from a centralised hub.

And it’s already seen use for such reason. In August 2022, Arbor Standard delivered a remote inspection service for a home appliance manufacturer in China, involving 12 international participants who were otherwise unable to attend due to COVID-19 travel restrictions. “The collaboration software not only facilitated a 360° live feed but also displayed real-time IoT sensor data, providing superior insights compared to on-site visits,” says Lam. But how can a live-feed offer enough information to consider it sufficient to make big decisions or judgements from? 

Tech behind the idea

Arbour Standard offers the software to enable this interaction with IoT devices; the hardware to enable the feed, and bespoke IoT sensors to interact with them. The hardware ranges from 8k 360° cameras to an upcoming IP67 360° streaming camera with infrared night vision and AI capabilities, which can collaborate with PTZ cameras, offering detailed zoom capabilities for specific areas. It also supports Edge AI algorithms for image recognition to enable proactive monitoring.

The integrated IoT sensors gather what they term ‘invisible data’ from the site environment – which can be things like humidity, motion, light spectrum etc. – which even an in-person visit to the site may not collect. “This data empowers remote operators with a holistic understanding of the site, facilitating informed decision-making, and enables remote experts to provide enhanced diagnostics and assistance,” says Lam.

IoT actuators for remote control are connected to the software and can be activated via the feed to allow decisions to be taken in real-time to data seen. Typically, the sensors are energy-efficient or solar-powered to streamline deployment and improve battery life, particularly for applications in rural areas. These battery considerations are enhanced by a software that offers flexibility to choose between constant updates and uploading data only when sensor data changes, giving users control dependent on their needs.

The software works in both private deployment in private networks, and public Cloud SaaS services. For SaaS, public Clouds are used to ensure low latency on a global scale, and the product seamlessly adapts to mainstream network types, including Ethernet, 5G, and satellite connections. Equally, Video AI can then be applied in the Cloud or at the Edge accordingly. For Edge applications, AI is used for image recognition with typical use cases in human behaviour recognition and environmental anomaly recognition (like fire detection).

Is the future of remote work IoT enabled?

Whether we return to the offices or not, the fact is, for people like Lam, there are clear benefits of being able to take action at a location where you are not physically present. Although this approach shares many of the same benefits remote work does, the battles it faces are its own. 

Yet, just how the pandemic proved mass remote work was possible, as IoT and the associated networks and tech becomes less of a fringe technology, the trust organisations and individuals will give a system like this as the sole, or one of the main ways, to monitor their operations, grows. There will still be a human element, but technology like this means where that human is located will be less relevant.