Smart Building Technology: Beringar HX Series Sensor

Developing a new smart building sensor — and a new measure of commercial real estate efficiency.

Real estate is the most valuable asset class on earth. Commercial real estate was valued at $33 trillion by Savills in 2021. Responsible for 18% of all greenhouse gas emissions, commercial real estate is also one of the world’s largest polluters. As the world strives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, commercial spaces that don’t actively address their carbon reduction responsibilities will see the value of their assets erode.

Seeing the opportunity to enable commercial real estate occupiers to reduce their environmental impact, Beringar developed a new smart building technology that measures the green efficiency of commercial office spaces. The cutting-edge HX Series machine vision sensor calculates the duration that seats have actually been occupied within a building; to help building owners avoid wasting energy on unoccupied spaces. A seat could be in any number of settings within a commercial building, including a workstation seat, a meeting seat or an informal meeting area seat. Tracking space, energy and carbon per seat hour allows direct comparisons between buildings.

Beringar developed an automated process and came to Plexus looking for a partner that could provide a sustainable manufacturing solution to drive their smart building sensor product to market at speed.

Getting the HX Series sensor to market on time.

When Plexus first partnered with Beringar, most of the design and engineering was complete. However, as part of our test solution development, Plexus leveraged our engineering experience to provide feedback and design validation to Beringar, increasing the efficiency of their next-generation smart building sensor through manufacturing and test processes.

Keeping a sharp eye on the deadline for initial pilot builds, our team of engineering, manufacturing and supply chain experts worked closely with Beringar to create efficiencies and a customized electronic sensor manufacturing solution. Delivering initial rapid prototypes provided direct feedback and helped further refine the manufacturing and test processes.

Our team designed a sustainable, scalable supply chain to de-risk their growth and deliver security of supply. The Plexus supply chain team continues to provide regular business intelligence updates, helping Beringar navigate challenging global market conditions, putting them in a strong position to take advantage of new opportunities for smart building technology and capture market share.

Consistent communication with the Beringar team was key to keeping the project on track. We listened carefully to Beringar’s needs at every stage with regular face-to-face meetings. And our consistent problem-solving approach helped us identify risks, discuss them with the Beringar team and find solutions long before they became real issues.

"We are impressed daily by the high level of professionalism and expertise from Plexus. It's a particularly challenging time in the electronics market with ever increasing lead times. Plexus, however, have continually kept us up to date with the market dynamics and offer flexible and innovative solutions to these challenges." Paul Byrne, Co-Founder and Co-CEO, Beringar