We’ve all imagined connected office spaces of the future, complete with see-through screens and impossibly-smart software that seems to anticipate our every move. But what could a smart office look like right now?

Here’s a little known secret we’ve discovered: It’s actually simple to begin making your office smarter, with software and hardware you already have in your office.

When your office is smarter, people work better, collaborate more, save money and have fun. So why isn’t everyone doing it? 

Because somewhere along the way, the internet of things—smart lights, blinds, thermostats, and more—became viewed as too expensive for our regular ol’ offices. Just like digital signage and a host of other age-old technological advances, new things are so often blocked by barriers. It’s too expensive! No one knows how to use it! We’ll need new hardware, software, feeds and circuits….

And that’s when you work in an office where you can customize your workspace. If your team works remotely or rents office space, connected technologies are down right unfeasible right?

The truth is, anyone can create a connected office space that works smarter and harder. It doesn’t matter if you’re only in it for the short term - just like desks and chairs, the stuff you need can be packed up and moved. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have a huge budget, as you can still find something that adds value and makes the lives of your people easier. You just have to know where to look and how to pull together software, hardware, and signage into a smarter office. 

Here’s how you can do it, with examples from some of the best connected offices around the world.

What does a connected office space look like?

Microsoft, for decades, has teased the “office of the future.” In their videos of the ideal connected workspace, computers disappear in lieu of Minority Report-style ubiquitous computing on see-through glass panes and smart desks. It’s an enticing view of the future, with the data you need always at your fingertips, but not a connected office you could actually build today (or, odds are, anytime in the near future).

What you could build, though, is something similar to the popular connected workplace from digital agency R/GA. It’s built around IoT and computing power that’s accessible to any office today. 

First, they utilize digital signage (screens on walls or suspended from the ceiling) in a big way. Throughout cafe and social areas, digital screens show revolving content of talent teams, client names and projects against a high-footfall backdrop. Secondly, the lighting changes throughout the day, adapting to nature’s circadian rhythm—a fancy way of saying the lights turn up and down depending on time of day and season. The structures throughout the floors absorb sound, more of a design consideration than a technical one, but still pretty awesome. Lastly, an office app brings everything together - from providing information on the office art using beacon technology, to connecting employees across continents. 

The result is something fairly impressive, yet all of the technologies that make up this space are actually really, really simple. Digital signage is something anyone can set up with a few screens and a software setup like ScreenCloud. Sound-proofed walls are slightly more difficult (particularly if you’re renting) but lighting systems are easy. Hook up a Raspberry Pi to your light switches or even replace your bulbs with something like the Philips Hue to control lighting from your smartphone. 

So could you add some of these elements into your own office, even on a low budget? Of course you could. 

Smart connected technologies to consider on a budget

Before you can build a connected office space, you need to consider what would make it most valuable to your team—and then what smarts you’d need to add to your office to achieve that. Often, smart offices are made up of smaller components and circuits that tie into things you already use, such as lighting and heating systems. Breaking the ‘smart office’ concept down into individual areas will undoubtedly help you to begin experimenting. 

Digital signage is one of the easiest ways to make your office smarter and is incredibly low budget to implement. If you have a spare smart TV, or can afford to buy an Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K and have a spare TV or computer monitor already knocking around, you’re good to go.

Then you’re ready to build the smart office that’s almost as connected as the conceptual offices of the future with signage that can adapt easily with your office. With our digital signage software, ScreenCloud, you can show the current weather, sports scores, news headlines, stock prices, and more with built-in integrations. You can design custom screens for your team, using ScreenCloud Canvas to throw together slides in minutes or ScreenCloud Playgrounds to hand-code automated signage. And, with ScreenCloud’s GraphQL API, you could update your office digital signage screens or change their messaging at the press of a button.

Sharing seasonal messaging, sales team figures, company dashboards and emergency notices—all are easy to set up in minutes to build a connected office with ScreenCloud.

Eventually we see a version of digital signage where screens are no longer passive but encourage interaction, responding to the workers around them. It’s not that far away when it comes to the connected space. You can already build digital signage with QR Codes with ScreenCloud to get live feedback, use ChatGPT’s AI to moderate content from your team, or build gamification into the workplace with smart signage.

Then take all of this a step further. Digital signage works on any smart TV right? Or a regular TV hooked up with a cheap media device such as the Amazon Fire TV Stick 4K, Chromecast with Google TV or Station P1 Pro. What if some of your remote workers have a smart TV on their wall at home? It wouldn’t be difficult for them to download the same app you use in-office and mirror the office signage displays in their own home while they work. They would feel much more connected, and you’d know for sure that your information is reaching the entire workforce—and yet no one has to be chained to their desks to see it. Smart eh?

Smartphones and smartwatches let you create a connected office space without touching the walls or structural elements. They can be an important part of ‘corporate wellness’, where employee perks are given based on how many steps you take or how active your working day is. 

Companies like Notch make sensors that anyone can strap on to measure movements on a smartphone. This would allow the tracking of physical activities such as stock takes and how employees lift equipment to help prevent injuries—and could even track the performance in your weekly ping-pong championship.

At a Tesco distribution centre in Ireland, workers wear smartwatches  which count goods and track what they pick up as they move between the  shelves - freeing up a ton of time usually spent marking clipboards. 

Also think about how many times you check your smartphone in a day, or even how many times you checked it just while reading this article? Each use requires password or biometrics entry and navigation to the correct app. With a smartwatch, email and text messages can be seen in one click. Future smart devices are getting smaller and smaller and will be controllable by your eye line or a head movement—or might pull it all together in a VR office of the future with Apple, Microsoft, and Meta all working towards productive VR headsets.

Voice recognition will also help increase speed while freeing up hands—and that’s one benefit your team can start using today. You can use the built-in dictation on your office computers, phones, and smart watches to send messages without typing. And, with an Apple Shortcuts or Zapier automation, you could control digital signage with your voice from Siri or Google Assistant. 

Wearables aren’t just for tracking steps. With dictation, IoT devices like locks and lights, and automated workflows, they can become an important part of how your team interacts with your workspace and communicates with the team.

How do you control simple aspects of office life such as the music playlist or level of sound? The staff in The Next Web office started building a connected office around a shared Spotify playlist, but became frustrated by how easy it was for individuals to skip entire playlists or songs added by others while using the Sonos app. 

They got around it by connecting up their Sonos app, a Raspberry Pi and Slack (the company communication channel). Now employees could do two things: Suggest a song or downvote one. This makes music democracy far more simple. It also collates two systems, Sonos for music and Slack for communication, into one. They’ve expanded on that by implementing a host of other cool things using simple systems and smart devices to build a smarter office complete with automated office check-in via a tablet and Slack.

Lighting’s another great place to start connecting your office. If you don’t have the ability to implement a full lighting infrastructure you could implement a consumer-grade system like Philips Hue as mentioned, or do what Monterail did and hook up your lighting circuits to a device like the Raspberry Pi so that lighting colour can be controlled via the web.

There’s more you could do with a bit of creativity. Set up a sensor in the doorway of a room that tracks how many bodies enter in order to lower the thermostat to save on energy, perhaps. You could even create a bin that monitors how much garbage you have per day, or the percentage that’s recyclable. 

You know the frustration of going to grab a meeting room or shared workspace, only to find that others are already using it. If you could eliminate that one frustration, that’d go a long way towards making your office a smarter workspace.

Cisco has started employing RFID, WiFi, and ultra-wideband tracking in order to get an in-depth understanding of the movement of workers within a more connected work environment. Condeco Software has developed an infrared heat detection sensor system that can do just that. With this comes security and privacy issues, however there are ways around it such as letting workers pick up anonymous badges to carry each day that show when the space is occupied but not who occupies it. 

I’ve even seen a clever developer put a rudimentary sensor on the  sole toilet door that sent information to a website to let anyone in the  company know if it was engaged and how long the occupant had been in  there. Certainly not for everyone, but it does hint towards what can be  done when you put your mind to it!

If you’re looking to communicate rather than manage, you could implement a simple space booking system, viewable through tablets fixed to the walls or Bouncepad tablets. Controlling your office via smartphone is great but what if you leave it at your desk? Fixed tablets can be used by anyone.

And, your ScreenCloud digital signage can come in handy again. Build a smart wall calendar with events from your Outlook or Google Calendar so everyone knows what’s on the schedule, or build custom meeting room signage with ScreenCloud’s built-in room app to show when a meeting room is booked. Simple, yet surprisingly headache-saving. 

Look around you: IoT is running your everyday life. If you have a smartwatch, or a speaker or heating system controlled by an app on your phone, you’re already there. If you can add a Raspberry Pi, a smart TV screen, or a few sensors to your office, there’s a world of opportunity to build a smarter, connected office.

Whether you want to make office music management easier, simplify booking meeting spaces, or share employee location, all are completely possible and affordable today. Don’t look towards huge integrations and office-wide systems. Start by setting up a few screens, or a Slack-controlled light/sound/door system.  Then piece together other aspects until you have a much smarter space that makes working not just more efficient but also more fun.

Examples of smart, connected offices using technologies and IoT such as digital signage, wearables and mobile apps as well as light and sound management.

Making your office much smarter is simple - when you have these technologies and ideas on hand!

How to Create a Low-Budget Connected Office Space

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