We hear a lot about the Internet of Things(IoT) in our home, but can it scale to bigger venues or even cities? Down in San Diego at the ballpark, Petco Park is getting connected, and improving its sustainability and efficiency with the power of
Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ technology.
Many ballparks in the U.S. have completed basic “green” upgrades such as replacing existing lights for more efficient LEDs. San Diego Padres™ looked to Qualcomm for additional savings and possible revenue by bringing the Internet of Things to their large-scale venue.
The goal for the San Diego Padres is to reduce operational costs by more than 25% in the next 5 years. They plan to do this by utilizing edge intelligence gateways powered by Snapdragon to collect real-time data of their utility usage and stream it to OSIsoft® PI system™ in order to monitor water and energy consumption to save more money.
Baseball has gone down in history as America’s favorite pastime but maintaining ballparks can also be a challenging nightmare for the venue’s facility managers. Most work with outdated building management systems that give limited visibility to gather all the information to how the building is performing. Many of these ballparks were built 15+ years ago before the big explosion of mobile and wireless computing.
Randy McWilliams, Senior Director, Facility Services for the San Diego Padres explains, “By using the gateways together with the open data infrastructure, we can see exactly how much water, power and gas each operation uses ballpark-wide, and can work with our operators and tenants to manage usage and increase the reliability and overall performance of the venue.”
“Qualcomm Intelligent Solutions” is dedicated to developing smart cities by placing a variety of sensors and Snapdragon technology in specific areas in existing infrastructure to manage gas, water and electric systems in large venues such as Petco Park. This technology can make a big impact without the unrealistic costs of putting in a brand new system. With Qualcomm being at the forefront of connectivity, the installment is done with wireless connectivity which is very convenient for the San Diego Padres to not have to wire this 14-acre stadium.
The key to a successful smart city is data. For example, the San Diego Padres rarely used their retractable roof, maybe 1-2 times a year, because there was no way of knowing how much it actually costs every time they rolled it out. With this new technology, they found that it costs a fraction of what they had thought. They n
ow use the retractable roof anytime it rains without hesitation to make the crowd more comfortable. The San Diego Padres have lowered their cost, driven sustainability and have made their fans happier.
There are approximately 12,000 stadiums in the world. These large-scale venues and many cities are looking to map out their plan to be more sustainable and efficient. Inforce Computing is confident with Qualcomm that Snapdragon technology can be this solution as the San Diego Padres have seen firsthand.
Petco Park is just the beginning for what smart city technology can do. 70% of the world population is expected to live in urban environments by 2050. The Internet of Things will pave the way for the smart city revolution where our mobile phones, transportation, buildings, and things we interact with daily will all be in communication with each other providing data to help solve the challenges of sustainability for tomorrow.
Now take us out to the ball game.
Author: Erin Hartje, Marketing Manager for
Inforce Computing
Picture courtesy of Qualcomm Technologies, Inc and used with permission
