Co-op Board Embraces Tech, From Robo Parking to Leak Sensors

Our co-op board has been working overtime to keep up with the Jetsons. It isn't cheap, but it'll pay for itself over the long run. We’ve embraced the latest technology – from online application packages to robotic parking in our garage and “smart locks” that allow me to enter the building using my phone. A good thing, too, because I left my building keys in my car. All I have to do is use the tablet installed by the front door, and I’ll get the equivalent of a video intercom through the app on my phone. Then I buzz myself in.

As soon as I get into my apartment, there’s a knock at the door. It’s the super, explaining he has come up to see about the leak. My wife and I say “What leak?” in unison. “The one beneath the kitchen sink,” he says, “the one the sensors picked up.”

The sensors are part of our building-wide leak-detection technology, which requires building-wide connectivity. It’s a costly proposition that property managers are working on right now, Jerry Kestenbaum, founder and CEO of BuildingLink, told me. The company helps run property management hardware and software in more than 1,700 luxury high-rises in Manhattan. Sometimes “a board needs something systematic, across all units,” he said. With building-wide connectivity, sensors will enter the digital age.

According to Kestenbaum, water leaks are the most compelling issue for wireless sensors to address. To properly monitor leaks, sensors need to be installed throughout a building: under kitchen sinks, next to bathtubs, in the walls. That can mean up to 2,000 sensors in a high-rise, each of which needs to be connected and speaking to a centralized system. For affordability, buildings will need to switch from WiFi to Long Range Wide Area Networks (LoRaWAN), whose routers can cover 10 times the area at the same price (about $300 to $400 per router) and pass through metal fire doors in ways that WiFi often can’t. Comcast currently offers LoRaWAN technology in three cities, and it announced plans last summer to roll out the technology in a dozen more.

Once building-wide connectivity becomes more affordable, Kestenbaum told me, competition should drop the price for the leak sensors. Currently, they cost $30 to $40 each with companies like SmartHome and Wink. Kestenbaum estimated that boards should soon expect to pay $10,000 for a high-rise building-wide network, $20,000 for full coverage with leak sensors, and an additional $500 to $1,000 in annual monitoring fees.

It’s a hefty price, he admitted, but one that offers the potential for enormous savings by giving early notice of leaks. Better news still: once building-wide connectivity is achieved, property managers will be able to use the feature in myriad ways, such as detecting when trash bins are overloaded, or turning off lights in common areas when they’re not in use.

For now, my wife and I are glad the super knew about the leak beneath our kitchen sink before we did. Technology – expensive, but also priceless.