A new digital home

Rüsselsheim is combining digitalisation with living and is currently offering two innovations for the housing industry. One is the transformation of a former office building into an attractive residential building that will create a new digital home for many. Property developer DIWO, in collaboration with the noventic Group, is breaking new ground in the digitalisation of living. Both tenants and landlords benefit from this development - and prospective tenants are queuing up.

It's not a residential neighbourhood here, at least not a typical one. Car dealerships and smaller IT companies reside here, and one of the first buildings in this street is the Rüsselsheim police station - a plain building from the 1960s or 70s. In the November fog, the area here in the south of Rüsselsheim looks even more dismal than it already does. It's hard to imagine that modern, urban life is growing into a digitalisation of living here. But it is happening nonetheless. It starts with a residential building that isn't actually a building at all - or wasn't. Eisenstraße in Rüsselsheim was once home to the European headquarters of the American computer and printer manufacturer Hewlett-Packard. Since the beginning of 2018, this building has reinvented itself. 129 flats are being built here, ranging from one-bedroom flats to four-bedroom family flats.

The group of prospective tenants is broadly diversified: in addition to singles and students, they include young families as well as older people - they are all interested in the digitalisation of living. What unites them are three things: an openness to technical innovations and the resulting offers, the desire to minimise energy consumption and an awareness of the need to protect the climate in everyday living.

Digitalisation revolutionises living in Rüsselsheim

On the one hand, the project is characterised by the conversion and new use of an office building - ‘the first project of its kind’ for property developer DIWO, as Managing Director Bernd Dillmann says. In addition, DIWO Living, as this property has been christened, is setting new standards in the digitalisation of living. Both the tenants and the landlord will benefit from the new digital home. Current and future residents will be able to communicate with their landlord directly via app. In the noventic group, Dillmann, Managing Director of DIWO Living, has, as he says, ‘found a good partner company’. He needed that too, because his ideas for a digital home are far-reaching. He is particularly focussed on ‘the measuring equipment and the associated communication infrastructure that we have installed here’. That's why he had the noventic group completely digitalise the complex with its almost 130 flats and link it to the Internet of Things.

What are the benefits of the digitalisation of living?

Tenants can easily see how much energy they're using in their new digital home, including heating, hot water and electricity. This option has gone down really well with prospective tenants, according to Bernd Dillmann. 'The tenant gets a new outlook on life, basically. It's no longer just a simple utility bill at the end of the year,' he says. 'Instead, they can always see where my consumption is and where I can intervene.' Thanks to digitalisation, tenants can use this feature to set personal benchmarks that will help them cut their energy consumption. The app on your phone shows you how much energy you're using and how it compares to other flats in the neighbourhood. If the bar showing your own consumption is higher than the average, many tenants will probably think about how they can save more in their digital home without having to freeze.

IP network in buildings - with broadband powerline

The technical basis for this lies in the combination of modern sensor technology, a securely available data flow via the general power grid guaranteed by broadband powerline technology and the so-called smart meter gateway. Europe's largest independent device manufacturer QUNDIS and Power Plus Communications AG (PPC) supply the technology for this. The powerline technology ‘is distributed throughout the building on the general power line and thus forms a complete IP network,’ says technical project manager David Robertson. ‘We are currently using this infrastructure primarily for submetering.’

This infrastructure can also be used to enable other useful applications that drive forward the digitalisation of living. ‘For building management, for example, it is possible to measure temperature and humidity in order to prevent mould and ensure a healthy indoor climate - and protect the building fabric,’ says Robertson. A plus of the digital home for landlords and tenants. In general, the digitalised, direct exchange of information offers added value for everyone. Billing processes are faster and easier - especially when tenants change.

The digitalisation of living - an investment in the future

While many property owners will be in a frenzy over the next few years to comply with the legal requirement to provide information on consumption from 2020, DIWO Living users and landlords can sit back and relax in their new digital home. "We can offer this today," says Robertson, and not only that: "We are already well ahead of the legal requirements."

DIWO boss Dillmann is also interested in something else: the social mix and the mix of tenants from different generations - "that ensures a stable tenant base," says the property developer. Even the older generation, which tends to keep its distance from the digitalisation of everyday life and living, will be able to benefit from the system that the noventic group has installed in Rüsselsheim. David Robertson explains it like this: “If, for example, an elderly tenant living alone unexpectedly deviates from her normal rhythm of life - for example, by not using any water in the late morning, which can be measured by the system - then someone can be informed to check on her.” Ambient Assisted Living (AAL) is the name of the model that is integrated into the digitalization of living and it “stands for concepts, products and services that introduce new technologies into everyday life in order to increase the quality of life for people in all phases of life, especially in old age,” explains the Federal Ministry of Education and Research. However, the ministry laments that there are “hardly any successful examples of the use of new technologies to improve the quality of life of older people”. The new digital home in Rüsselsheim does.

An interim summary of the portfolio holder

It looks like the concept is working: as of mid-November, 115 of the 129 apartments had already been let. “We had two to three applicants to choose from for each residential unit,” says Dillmann. No wonder, as living space is scarce in the greater Frankfurt/Main area and Dillmann was able to score points with the advantages of this complex - many of which have to do with digitalization. And the average rent of ten euros per square meter does not seem too high for this region. Also important for many users: the Rüsselsheim triangle, an important highway junction in the Rhine-Main region, is in the immediate vicinity. It is therefore only a few minutes from this new residential building to Frankfurt Airport. The location advantages of the DIWO Living project are therefore obvious for some of the new residents - they are pilots.

And DIWO boss Dillmann, inspired “by the positive experiences”, will soon be moving on. Directly next to DIWO Living and currently only separated by a parking lot, the next office buildings with a total of 25,000 square metres are already waiting to be converted into a digitalization of living.