21st November 2019 – Expanding its PanL building automation portfolio, Bridgetek has now formally launched solutions targeted at the office environment – enabling better use of assets situated there and resulting in significant reductions in day-to-day operational costs.
Through the new PanL Desk Manager (PDM), companies can automatically manage shared working facilities where ‘hot desking’ policies are in place. Desk bookings can be made with utmost effectiveness, so that full utilization of available space is assured and return on the investment is maximized.
Every desk included within the PDM system has a PanL35L display unit placed on it, and these are all connected to a web portal via the office Wi-Fi access points. Designed to comfortably integrate into modern corporate environments, the PanL35L units are stylish and compact (85mm x 70.5mm x 67.8mm). Fully CE and FCC certified, each has a 3.5-inch 320×240 resolution TFT, plus an RGB LED strip indicator (which visually signifies current desk status), built-in buzzer (to alert people of status changes) and 802.11b/g/n-compliant Wi-Fi connectivity.
Staff can set everything up remotely through Microsoft Outlook or by utilizing a downloadable mobile app. By referring to the Desk Viewer (which gives an accurate depiction of the office floorplan), they can see where desks are available at that office location without having to waste time searching throughout the building. In addition, they can determine who has been assigned desk space – thereby allowing them to book neighboring desks if they are working on a particular project with someone. Reserved desk space can be claimed via a QR code. The automatic release feature means that if the person who has booked the space fails to show up on time, it can be made accessible again to other prospective users.
The constituent electronics at the heart of each PanL35L in the PDM system comprises a dual-core 32-bit LX6 microcontroller and a sophisticated BT813Q graphic controller. The display has a 500cd/m2 output brightness and supports the rendering of 16.7 million colors. The PDM’s web portal gives facilities managers a detailed overview of all the desks in their inventory. This can be applied to a floor, entire buildings, or even multiple sites. Using it, they can analyze supply and demand – so that further desk resource may be brought in as required. They can also examine user booking profiles, set time slot duration (and the time before/after booked slots in which desks can still be claimed), allocate desks to certain employees, determine the maximum number of desks that can be booked on any given day and add new desks onto the system with minimal effort (with updates being made to the floorplan accordingly).
Similarly PanL Room Manager (PRM) enables the booking of office meeting rooms. This consists of a series of sleek PanL70Plus display units – all of which have an 800×480 resolution TFT, MEMS microphone, ambient light sensor, buzzer and 1W speaker. Each wall-mounted display unit is located at a room entrance and connected to a centralized hub, with the booking software capable of interfacing with Microsoft Outlook. Through these units, office workers can see which meeting rooms are free at a particular time (and if they are taken, then check who booked them and for how long), as well as making alterations to existing bookings. Access to the room requires entry of a passcode on the PanL70Plus’s touchscreen or swiping of an RFID tag in the office worker’s identity badge.
