As many as 1.6 billion connected devices will be used by smart cities this year, an increase of 39 per cent from 2015, according to Gartner Inc.
Research suggests that smart commercial buildings will be the highest user of the Internet of Things (IoT) until 2017, when smart homes will take the lead with over one billion connected devices in 2018.
Gartner believes that commercial real estate will benefit greatly from IoT implementation, creating a unified view of facilities management as well as advanced service operations through the collection of data and insights from a multitude of sensors.
Growth of IoT in commercial buildings is being fuelled by business applications which are handled through building information management systems that drive operations management, specifically around energy efficiency and user-centric service environments.
This year, it has been predicted that commercial security cameras and webcams, as well as indoor LEDs, will drive total growth, representing 24 per cent of the IoT market for smart cities.
According to Gartner, IoT deployment in commercial buildings will continue to grow at a rapid pace over the next few years, and is set to reach just over 1 billion in 2018.
Bettina Tratz-Ryan, research vice president at Gartner , commented, "The U.K.'s building information modelling (BIM) mandate, for example, requires that all public sector construction commencing in 2016 complies with BIM (level 2)."BIM utilises data models coming from various information sources including IoT, which will be used by commercial real estate in the future.