Home & building

Whether you’re developing a smart-home appliance or a system to control control a commercial building, you need a solid understanding of the associated standards, security aspects and data models. Explore our resources for home and building technology trends and technical expertise.

Turning indoor tracking technology into smart solutions

By Philip Ling - February 19, 2025

/IOTCONNECT is enabling indoor asset tracking technology company, IOSEA, to deliver total solutions for smart warehousing, industrial automation and the connected worker.

person holding smartphone with home in background

How will Matter help us meet the smart home promise?

By Walter Puhl - August 6, 2024

The fragmentation in smart home ecosystems is still the industry’s main challenge. By adopting Matter, a high-level API into the underlying protocols, the focus moves toward a harmonious smart home.

Optimized power switching revs up for next-generation automotive applications

By Philip Ling - July 22, 2024

The move to zonal architectures is redefining the power distribution architecture. Automotive OEMs developing advanced features require optimized and intelligent power switches.

AI takes on growing role in HVAC system efficiencies

By Avnet Staff - July 6, 2023

In most countries, buildings account for about 40% of the total energy consumed. HVAC and lighting consume around half that amount. Fortunately, AI is already delivering improved energy efficiency in these systems.

Avnet and supplier partners put HVAC control in the cloud to turn data into insights

By Philip Ling - March 3, 2023

Efficiency in the way we create, distribute and consume energy is becoming a priority in nearly every vertical market application. The IoT is here to help, as shown with this HVAC system control demonstration.

New technologies could make building management, HVAC systems even smarter

By Philip Ling - May 12, 2022

The IoT has connected buildings in new and enabling ways. The next stage, already started, is to use AI to make buildings even smarter. AI relies on data, and data comes from sensors essential to these systems.

Simulating the sun: Considerations for grow light design

By Cameron Coward - May 9, 2022

The ability of the LEDs in today’s horticultural systems to accurately simulate the sun, and in fact any desired portion of the light spectrum, is leading to higher crop yields and profits. Here is a look at some of the key design considerations.

Plants being grown indoors with LED lighting

LED innovation lights the way for next-generation farming

By Arvidas Jarasius - May 3, 2022

Innovation in horticulture LED lighting is turning the local farm-to-fork future of agriculture on its head.

How to use structured light and image sensors for range detection and identification

By Philip Ling - April 25, 2022

Today’s most popular 3D imaging technologies are Time of Flight (ToF), stereo vision and structured light. This article overviews the basic operating principles and the relative strengths, weaknesses and trade-offs associated with each option.

Are microLEDs the next big (small) thing?

By Philip Ling - March 31, 2022

MicroLED is an exciting display technology, one that has attracted billions of R&D dollars in recent years. The technology is not ready for mass adoption yet, as the industry has to solve many challenges.

Putting the smarts into building automation

March 21, 2022

Smart building automation can augment the capabilities of today’s building management systems and create new data flows that reveal insights about how a building is functioning and used. It can also enable new revenue streams for building managers.

Six cool new autonomous technologies

By Cameron Coward - January 31, 2022

From planes, trains, and automobiles to farm equipment and Martian rovers, engineers are extending the capabilities of autonomous technologies to achieve simple productivity improvements and a better understanding of big issues like global warming.

Top nine considerations when evaluating microcontrollers

December 22, 2020

It’s hard to imagine modern life without touchscreen displays, televisions, washing machines, coffee makers, remote controls and connected devices of all types. Microcontroller units (MCUs) make these modern necessities possible.