Hereward College provides day and residential places to disabled and non-disabled students, including those with cognitive, physical and sensory impairments. The focus of the college is to provide a 24 hour curriculum, in an ability inclusive environment, that promoting independence and individual independence. This can include the use of assistive technologies – including environmental control technologies – in the living and learning environments and KNX intelligent building technology has been implemented as the platform for the environmental controls that help students to access the facilities and services that the college provides.
The KNX systems that have been installed allow physically able students to interact with a room in a standard manner; the room therefore presents itself as a standard study bedroom. KNX gives the college the ability to control an individual room’s heating, lighting, access and socket outlets via infrared enabled devices including communication aids and a range of environmental controls.
Hereward has also made use of KNX for control of smoke detectors, presence detectors, such as bed occupancy pressure mats with a KNX interface, and IR based solutions.