Electrical Industry Articles and Stories

Smart homes might be getting a lot of attention these days, but much less is being written about how equally smart technologies can be applied to small commercial businesses. Larger businesses have long had building automation systems to help monitor and control heating, cooling, lighting and other equipment, but that approach can be overkill for neighborhood restaurants, hair salons and other small-scale operations.

For small business owners, all the details matter. Whether it’s a neighborhood restaurant, a family-owned convenience store or a local art gallery, tight margins can leave little room for error when it comes to refrigeration temperatures, HVAC equipment operation – and even lights left on when they shouldn’t be.

Okay, maybe I went a little overboard saying that cable management is fun. But it can be enjoyable, using the right tools. And if you're an installer, coming up with innovative and attractive solutions for your customer can definitely be profitable.

The great American architect Louis Sullivan was famous for coining the phrase “form follows function,” a maxim that defined many of his own buildings. Essentially, he meant that the shape of an object (or building) should be based on the function it’s intended to serve.

In the previous article, we talked a bit about low-voltage cable management. And while I enjoy talking about and using those types of products, my heart remains in a more commercial and industrial setting.

For over 30 years, I've worked in that environment. And cabling and cable management has been a large part of my work background.

I'm not a spring chicken by any stretch of the imagination. But I'm not technology challenged, either. Fired up my first computer in the '80s, and I've had a love affair with tech ever since. Don't tell my wife, okay?

Seriously though, I do like my tech and use it to make life easier for me. I have high-speed internet in the 1 gigabyte range, flying over fiber optics supplied by my electric company.