Essentially, this is a question every driver in this world asks almost every day. But, to every question, there is an answer. In this case, solving the problem is implementing smart parking solutions.

But what is that, how does it work – and the most significant question to ask – in what way it can fix corporate efficiency? There are a lot of options to explore and discover how to be more sustainable with the resources you have.

Let’s start by cracking the basics.

What is a smart parking solution?

We are all aware of society’s situation, and in almost every community, everything is building up and upgrading, and so is the population of people.

Local councils are actively seeking solutions to lack of parking space in areas that are becoming increasingly urbanized. The search for a parking spot can be frustrating, time-consuming, and even dangerous.

In response to this problem, many businesses and cities are investing in smart parking systems. 

The purpose of intelligent parking systems is to manage and optimize the use of parking facilities. This is most useful if you’re used to spending at least 30 minutes looking for a parking spot, and driving around hoping you are going to find any free spot.

This is the main goal – optimize and improve the efficiency, for the driver’s convenience.

Smart parking solutions can reduce congestion and increase parking utilization by taking advantage of data and technology.

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But, how does it work?

Well, have you ever heard of AI? You probably did, and thanks to AI, it’s revolutionizing the way we park.

Optimizing parking is the sole purpose of AI smart parking systems. And it is done by collecting data, analyzing the data, and then identifying patterns. It is a major step in the development of intelligent transportation systems.

Let’s see how it’s done:

• Collection of data
• Procession of data
• Data analysis and prediction

These are the essential components for helping out parking managers and operators for making better-informed decisions.

Data collection uses cameras and sensors to gather data on traffic flow and parking occupancy.

After that, collected data is processed by the platform which generates insights about parking availability and traffic conditions.

In order to get useful insights, analysis tools can help out. They are used to analyze the data in real-time.

Visualizing the data helps out predicting the possible outcomes, and can respond quickly if the conditions are about to change.

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What are the benefits of smart parking solutions?

As we already said, looking for a parking spot can be a quite stressful sport, especially if you are running late. But happily, smart parking solutions are the key benefits why this system is necessary.

Smart parking technology offers many benefits, including optimized parking, reduced pollution and traffic, increased safety, decreased management costs and real-time data and trend insight.

Making parking operations more efficient and convenient is one of the results of the capabilities of real-time parking availability. This means that drivers can quickly locate a parking area  without endless circling and looking for one.

The next one is a system that can sustain dynamic pricing. This indicates that the price of parking can be adjusted in real-time, based on the market and other aspects. Optimizing utilization helps out with enhancing the customer’s background

Easier payment is one of the most important factors as well. This allows drivers to spend money on parking by using different payment methods, including mobile payments or credit cards.

Paying for parking is much more convenient and economical.

Savvy parking systems can make your life easier by providing information about the traffic flow.

This can also help out the operators and cities, to better control traffic conditions and to find new ways of reducing carbon emissions from vehicles.

Where can it be used?

There is no doubt that a smart parking system can be beneficial in several different ways. This is especially important in areas where there is a high volume of traffic, such as airports, train stations, and hospitals.

It can also be used in retail establishments like supermarkets and shopping malls. Also, local and national governments can use savvy parking systems to manage public parking facilities, enforce parking regulations and reduce the traffic in city centers.

Improving corporate efficiency, but how?

If you’re looking for a way to encourage your business to embrace new technological advancements, then considering adopting smart parking solutions is a great fit for your parking garage.

By updating with the latest technology, you can help improve efficiency in different areas where other businesses may struggle.

For example, it can help with a bar code time clock for employee attendance and time tracking, because if it’s easier to find a parking spot – your employee can clock in on time!

Smart parking systems can help increase safety by creating a more secure environment for your customers and employees. Parking systems can limit access, which can lead to fewer cases of theft or even assault. This can help in preventing parking in your lot unsafely or illegally.

The decreased traffic in your parking structure can mean fewer accidents and injuries attributed to collisions. When you have all of these in mind, as an employee you feel much safer, and when you acknowledge all of it – you feel less stressed and relaxed.

This time-saving, stress-free approach to parking boosts employee happiness and makes the organization more desirable. The entry process is several times faster than validation employee ID cars, resulting in continuous movement without traffic or delays.

And we all know the truth, when you’re relaxed – workflow is much more improved, and productivity arises.

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Manage your parking needs

With smart parking, businesses and landlords can use software to book and reserve parking spots in advance. It’s pretty much helpful for your employees because they’ll never have to worry about finding a spot at the office and tenants can offer their visitors a place to park.

Save some time, and without stress – stop circling the block around searching for a space. Also, you can reduce the carbon footprint of vehicles using the smart solution remotely, with just a click away from a mobile app.

Increasing your productivity and less frustration is always needed, especially when you can easily locate available parking spaces.

Stay environmentally conscious

As the world becomes more and more aware of the need to be sustainable, businesses have a responsibility to adopt green practices.

One of the great reasons for implementing smart parking solutions is becoming more sustainable.

As parking spots fill up, people circle looking for an open parking spot. This emits harmful chemicals into the air and wastes gas. If sustainable parking is put into place, it would help reduce the number of emissions released into the air.

Cars would be able to park efficiently, leaving more room for other cars to park and preventing traffic jams.

Also, because there is less customer foot traffic, businesses don’t need to use as much energy lighting the updated parking structures.

To make this happen, businesses need to update their parking structures and incentivize customers to use these new eco-friendly systems.

Becoming more environmentally friendly is imperative for the future!

Remember, smart businesses use smart solutions

Smart parking is the future. It’s the best solution that provides real-time information to drivers about where they can find available parking spots. Not only it does save time and money, but it also offers numerous benefits for city planners.

Intelligent parking solutions are not only improving driver’s satisfaction, but they can also boost the emergence of smart cities. By reducing congestion, streets are more navigable and it can free up space in crowded areas, and allow for more green space or pedestrian-friendly areas.

This can help cities to better serve their inhabitants, and to promote a better way of living. With this in mind, it can also attract a lot of potential clients or customers.

The potential for expanding the smart parking industry is huge, thanks to urban parking challenges it can help to advance the standards in the transportation industry as well.

So, if you are looking for a better way to park your car without any trouble and endless circling, look no further than smart parking solutions!

The goal of smart home devices is to add automation to your everyday home life. The idea is getting more popular every year, which means better access and smaller prices of smart devices. Below we pointed out some of the best gadgets for your smart home. Let’s start with a definition.

A smart home refers to a convenient setup, where the most important devices and appliances are connected to the users’ mobile phones and can be easily controlled from any place in the world. All you need is an internet connection. A smart home lets you control many home functions, such as lightning, speakers, temperature, security, and more.

Here are some smart-home devices that we think are a great addition to your smart home – they’re a step up from controlled lighting, and a bit more creative!

Home weather station

You cannot control the weather, but you can prepare yourself for any situation, which is why you need a weather station. This smart device provides reliable weather forecasts by giving full information about temperature, humidity level, wind speed and direction, barometric pressure, and precipitation, lightning, and rainfall.

The home weather station is very user-friendly; the sensors display the information on the screen. Depending on the brand, you may connect the weather station with your phone and regularly check the application’s updated data. It’s a handy kit for everyone and a great learning device for all meteorology enthusiasts.

Smart lock security

How many times have you changed the lock because of a lost key? Or tried to wiggle through the doggie door, a window or have spent an hour looking for your key while turning your car or purse upside down?

With this smart device, you don’t have to struggle with the same problem ever again. The smart lock security system unlocks the door when you or your family get home and locks them back when you leave. The application on the smartphone is controlling the system installed on the door. One simple touch and the door is open.

The app can also remind you to lock the door in case you forget about it. You can easily check your security status on the phone to keep full control over the locks. What’s also pretty convenient is that you can share the access with your friends and relatives, so there is no need for you to open the door, they can come in themselves.

Emotional pots

Funny as it sounds, this smart gadget can surely help you take care of your plants better. It’s designed to turn your plant into a pet, which can express its emotional state via the monitor. By using sensors, a smart pot shows 15 different animated emotions and suggests to you what it needs. It senses temperature, moisture, exposure, as well as movement.

Every animation means something different; for example, if the exposure to light is not enough for a couple of days in a row, Lua Pot turns into a vampire. On the other hand, if it’s too much sun on it; the monitor shows the sweating face. Having a flora that can “speak its mind” is a great investment, especially if you have a demanding plant and want to learn a bit about its behaviour.

Voice assistant

I know you have such a thing on your smartphone, but placing one at home brings out a totally different value of the usage. You can ask for the weather forecast, the latest news and information, match result, or a recipe. Your personal assistance is connected to the internet and can answer your questions and solve many problems.

Three of the most popular automated voice assistants are Apple’s HomePod, Google’s Home, and Amazon’s Echo. All the software provides the user with natural language written or spoken. Depending on the brand, it can also display the information on the screen, making it more convenient to follow. You can as well run a conversation with a chatbot that simulates a real talk. It’s trendy in modern customer services to answer automatically the most frequently asked questions by using a chatbot.

OmniFob – the smartest key fob

OmniFob is a tiny, finger-sized key fob that transforms any standard keychain into a connected life remote providing quick and easy access to your favorite smart functions, such as:

• Lock the door
• Open your garage
• Turn on/off the lights
• Start the car
• Control the temperature
• Arm the security system
• Find your keys
• Call for help, and more.

You can set a routine mode, that lets you initiate and control multiple commends at ones. For example, you can activate the “Leave home” routine that includes a few activities at the same time, like closing the garage, locking the door, setting security alarm, and turning the lights off. It’s a real time-saver and a big help for those who tend to forget stuff in the morning.

The bottom line

Investing in smart gadgets is a brilliant idea that can bring convenience to your house and help reduce costs. Upgrading your living space lets you save a lot of time and does contribute a lot to the quality of your life. Try it yourself and see how accessible and useful such gadgets can be.

Also known as k8s, Kubernetes is one of the most popular systems for achieving automated, streamlined scaling, management tasks and deployment of apps. The highly efficient COS (container-organization system) first came onto the scene as a Google product. It has since become part of the open-source, public-domain CNCF, Cloud-Native Computing Foundation. The system’s stated goal is to offer an automated deployment platform as well as a platform for scaling and operations of application containers across clusters of hosts.

You may already know that Kubernetes works will with all sorts of container tools, particularly Docker. Already, there are dozens of different cloud services that have integrated Kubernetes-specific platforms. There are even for-profit vendors who have created their own specific versions.

The central question for site administrators is how to make sure the system works well once it’s in place. That means monitoring. In order to get a feel for effective monitoring, it’s important to examine the inherent value. Additionally, any discussion of monitoring must include the extreme importance of tags and labels, as well as the need to keep an eye on multiple components.

The Value of Kubernetes

Today’s technology environment is overwhelmed by container systems like Docker. In fact, the main feature of modern infrastructure is containerization. What does that mean for administrators? For one thing, life is much easier for those who work with micro-service architecture where constant releases and super-fast scaling is the name of the game. Because Docker has exploded in popularity, and complex container systems are everywhere, there’s a huge need for container management and orchestration.

Kubernetes is ideally suited to automate scaling, management and deployment of all types of containers, particularly those that run apps focused on services. A popular analogy for understanding Kubernetes monitoring, is a musical orchestra. The conductor does not play an instrument but is arguably the most important person on the stage. That’s because the conductor, in this case the system, tells all the musicians what to do and when to do it.

When properly monitored, a Kubernetes open-source system controls recovery, health-checking, container scheduling, uptime via replication, internal network management, load balancing, resource management and resource allocation.

Kubernetes Monitoring

Is there a downside to all the incredible things Kubernetes does? Monitoring of the system itself, obviously, is the central challenge. Along with the overall health of all your containers and systems that it is “conducting,” you’ll need to monitor Kubernetes itself. This means system administrators need to re-think the very concept of monitoring. Why? Because the inherent design of Kubernetes systems necessitates a new kind of monitoring that includes a key emphasis on the number of components in the system, labels, tags, keeping track of on-the-move applications, and apps that sit on not one, but many different clouds.

Layers Upon Layers

Instead of the traditional two-layer setup, where you only had to monitor your own apps and however many hosts you were dealing with, a Kubernetes system adds a new layer of activity between hosts and containers. In addition, because you never really know the location of an app in a Kubernetes system, it’s vitally important to use labels and tags for everything.

Back in the 1980s, Microsoft and IBM set the benchmark for local manufacturers with the phrase “IBM Compatible.” A manufacturer was expected to live up to the high standards of these leading innovators in computer manufacturing and configuration. Today, Smart Home Products and other IoT products have revived the “Wild West” phenomena, the only difference being lack of a leading innovator to look up to or set high standards.  Industry experts are now grappling with the so-called Remote Control Overload, a recent and very discernible outcome of Internet of Things. From thermostats to smart beds, Smart Home products offer a range of advantages that make it worth the money and effort. Here’s a look at the most practical devices to include in a Smart Home.

1:- Nest Learning Thermostat

Nest has been into smart thermostat innovation for quite some time now. In 2015, the Nest Third Generation device flaunted the most elegant look with a classic and advanced user interface and enhanced user experience. The device forms an ideal example of a learning thermostat with its advanced functionality and user interface listed below:

• The much-advertised learning aspect of the thermostat creates an automatic temperature adjust schedule based on your whereabouts – home or away.
• It also keeps your home safe by sending you alerts and notifications in case the temperatures lowers to an extent that your pipes could explode or if your gas furnace is not functioning right.
• The Farsight feature enables automatic lighting whenever you walk into the room. The far-field sensor feature also allows you to view time and temperature settings from a distance.
• Every time you are away, the learning thermostat goes into energy-saving mode and readjusts automatically when you are back.
• The app is designed to view timely reports on energy-saving patterns and also provides recommendations to improve energy efficiency.
• It is easy to set up the device and the do-it-yourself written instruction manual and video tutorial provide all the guidance you need to set up the unit with 30 minutes or less.
• This new version also integrates seamlessly with Amazon Echo and other voice control Amazon products.
• The Nest Third Generation also comes with a small green leaf that will pop up on the display each time you enter a temperature zone that will save you energy.

2:- Keen Home Smart Vents

The basic premise of Keen Home Smart Vents is that it allows you to alter the temperature settings of each room of your home. For someone who is keen to purchase a smart vent, this would be a good option although some of its automation and integration capabilities require an upgrade. Some of its notable features include:

• Smart Vents not only connect to the Internet but are also connected to each other. This makes it possible to direct the amount of air that reaches every single room of your house and optimize on comfort and save on energy usage.
• The app and device are streamlined in a way that when you run into connectivity issues with any vent, the app is alerted immediately and it instantly provides troubleshooting assistance.
• It works conveniently with the Nest Learning Thermostat in the sense that the latter acts as a command center for the thermostat on any phone device.

3:- Responsive Surface Technology (ReST)

How comfortable would life be if you had a smart bed that could auto-adjust during the night to meet your sleep patterns? Responsive Surface Technology (ReST) introduces smart beds that customize support for head, back, shoulders, hip, legs, etc. just the way you desire. It also changes the firmness, adjusts with your body shape and profile and tracks sleep data to provide you the optimal level of comfort.

4:- Motorized Window Shades

Motorized window shades are the new big thing due to its contemporary design, efficiency and ease of use mostly via remote control.  Need some convincing? Here are top five reasons why motorized windows are the best choice in automated window coverings.

• Style: No more hanging cords, enjoy an elegant look of your shades and blinds.
• Protects furniture: If set to appropriate times, motorized solar shades will protect all furniture and interiors from damaging UV rays.
• Decreases Cost of Energy: The sun sensors are automated which saves energy and cuts down your energy bills.
• Control / Lifestyle: Specific environments for window treatments can be set up manually using apps for tablet or smartphone.

The Smartest Homes in Hollywood

Oprah Winfrey – This talk show legend has purchased a high-tech ski home in Telluride, Colorado for $14 million. Remote control gadgets run most of the home’s technological devices including motorized window shades, a heat system to keep the driveway free of snow, driveway sensors, Finnish sauna, etc.

Tyson Chandler – The NBA basketball star put Hidden Hills home on the market for a whooping $9.9 million. Some outstanding additions include a detached theater room, a high-tech gym equipped with a steam shower, artistic domed ceiling, bi-folding glass doors, etc.

All-in-one Control

Apple Homekit

Apple HomeKit offers a series of protocols to enable smart-home products to communicate and work with each other within its iOS software for mobile. The Home app acts as the centre point for all home controls and also supports gadgets such as cameras, music systems, etc. Some other unique selling points include single Siri command control across different devices.  With this newest edition, Apple has made HomeKit more noteworthy and user-friendly.

SmartThings Hub

The Samsung SmartThings Hub is a central hub that connects all the smart home devices into one unified whole. It connects IoT devices such as smart plugs, door sensors, thermostats, window shades, etc. The SmartThings Hub is a small white case with a power cord and socket which can be kept anywhere in the house or garden. The corresponding app allows you to interact and monitor different devices  in your home. It is also equipped to deal with emergencies and security threats.

The SmartThings Hub is just the beginning of innovation to effectively deal with the problem of Remote Overload. Innovators are constantly upgrading their devices and designs to provide a one-stop solution to managing multiple remote controls.