IoT Based Intelligent Building Applications in the Context of COVID-19 Pandemic

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) has affected our day to day life and the global economy and is far from being over. COVID-19 continues to spread rapidly around the world, more with the relaxation of restriction measures imposed by most countries. Limiting the further community spread of the epidemic has become a crucial issue, as employees return to office buildings. Technology, and especially intelligent building technology, can help to this purpose. Smart devices will have an important role to play in determining how the new normal workplace will function from now on. In this paper, we propose a solution for avoiding touching various objects and surfaces in offices, based on IoT. The system is called qToggle and provides a framework for efficiently and effectively interconnecting smart devices, equipping them with intelligence that helps automating many of the everyday activities in offices. Most qToggle devices are based on ESP8266/ESP8285 chips, Raspberry Pi boards and smart sensors. A mobile application allows users to control a series of appliances and sensors.