The Internet of Things to operate our shopping centres

Innovative solutions are needed to combine improved building performance with environmental and users’ benefits. Together with the start-ups winning the “Smart Buildings Challenge”, Deka Immobilien is testing innovative ideas in the Ettlinger Tor shopping centre. The objective is to make shopping and tenants’ daily tasks more pleasant as well as more climate-friendly.


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„We are continuously on the lookout for innovative digital solutions to optimise our shopping centres for the future. The Smart Buildings Challenge has produced exciting approaches.“

Ingo Wilz, Real Estate Manager at Deka Immobilien


Smart building concepts for more sustainability

The Smart Buildings Challenge, lead by the technology company Bosch and the non-profit network Industrial Internet Consortium, aims to identify innovative digital technologies to improve building performance in daily operations. It also aims to put them into practice with real estate partners. Together with shopping centre operator ECE and TÜV Süd, Deka Immobilien wants to help shopping centres become “smarter”. Four winning start-ups were selected from a total of 26 participants and presented in early 2020 as the winners of the (IoT) Challenge at the Bosch Connected World in Berlin, one of the leading conferences on digital transformation and the Internet of Things.

Especially in the area of shopping centres with large numbers of tenants and a complex system and meter technology, enhanced digitalisation can ensure more sustainability. The evaluation of digital information can support the centre’s targeted operation. Higher levels of user comfort can be achieved while simultaneously reducing the energy consumption to the necessary minimum.

That is why Deka Immobilien has begun piloting the Smart Buildings Challenge’s winning solutions at Ettlinger Tor in Karlsruhe.



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Smart-Metering-System

"Aedifion", a PropTech founded in 2017, will optimise the building automation system in Ettlinger Tor with "Thing Technologies" (Thing It). The solution developed for cloud-based operation considers the widespread use of smart meters in the centre to create the data basis.

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Smart Automated Building

The collected data is continuously evaluated by "aedifion" digitally. Optimisation variants for the operation of the heating, cooling and ventilation technology in the centre are derived using "Thing It's" Smart Automated Building approach.


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Smart Building Cockpit

The visualisation is provided by Holisticon. Their Smart Building Cockpit serves as a central data dashboard: the collected information is presented visually, per target and group.

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Smart Space Flow Analytics

The Spanish company "Cubelizer" deals with the collection and evaluation of movement data in shopping centres, taking into account data protection regulations (Smart Space Flow Analytics). The data does not only lead to a better understanding of customer needs, sector and tenant occupation, it can also be coupled with active building control to increase the quality of stay and reduce energy consumption.


Implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals:

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7 Affordable and Clean Energy

The aim is to identify and specifically promote technologies to improve
building performance in operation.


Further insights into practice