Taking a vacation is a fabulous way to recharge and escape the daily grind we have all found ourselves in as working adults. It is essential for mental health to take a break. However, preparing for a trip also takes work. Returning home to an over-stuffed mailbox, unexpected bills, and rotten groceries in the fridge can quickly dampen all the hard work you put in to relax during your vacation. To ensure that your homecoming is something to look forward to at the end of your trip, follow these modern tips for vacation-proofing your home. These tips not only help you save on utility bills but also keep your home secure and comfortable, granting you absolute peace of mind while you are away.

Smart Home Automation

In the era of smart homes, take advantage of technology to make your pre-vacation preparations easier. Install a smart home system or use your smartphone to control lights, thermostats, and appliances remotely. Eco mode is your friend when you are away from home, so ensure it is correctly set up within your smart home systems or app. Although many smart plugs and switches now allow you to control your electronics from anywhere, it is still smart to turn off unnecessary lights and unplug appliances and devices that will not be used.

Water Management

Water is not your friend when you are away and is one of the first things you should turn off before leaving your home for an extended period. Prevent water wastage and water damage while you’re away by shutting off the main water supply to your house. This step can help you avoid potential leaks, minimize your home’s waste of water, and save on your water bill. Additionally, check for any existing leaks or drips under your sinks, coming from your furnace, or just any pipe, and have them fixed before leaving. Technology is advanced in almost all realms, so consider installing smart leak detectors that alert you to water issues while away.

Minimize Food Waste

When you walk back into your home for the first time in weeks (or months for the snowbirds reading this), you want to smell the remaining scents of perfume, candles, or detergent that linger in the air, not rotten food. So, it is smart to focus on consuming perishables and avoiding food that might go bad during your absence. Right before leaving, take one last look at your fridge, and remember the fridge doors. Empty the trash, run your disposal one last time, and call it good.

Thermostat and Water Heater Control

Keep your home’s temperature within a reasonable range during your time away and save on energy costs. Some may be tempted just to shut off the heat and get on their way, but do not do that. Your home must stay warm enough to ensure the pipes do not freeze. Smart home systems and smart thermostats like Nest know the perfect balance and run their eco mode when the smart thermostats no longer detect motion within the home, eliminating one worry for you. Additionally, modern thermostats allow you to create schedules for each zone within your home, which can be adjusted remotely using an app. If you do not have smart thermostats, set your thermostat to an energy-efficient setting that prevents extreme temperature fluctuations. In the same breath, if your water heater has a vacation mode, activate it to reduce energy consumption.

Home Monitoring Systems

This is a no-brainer. Consider installing a home security system with monitoring features. These systems can alert you to any activity or incidents at your home. Modern systems often include video cameras, motion sensors, unrecognized face detection alerts, and door/window sensors that can be accessed anytime through an app. Additionally, video doorbells like Ring allow you to see who’s at your door whenever a person is detected. There are many types of home security systems available, ranging in cost. Whatever you choose, it will help you relax as you prepare to leave your home for your extended vacation.

Peer-to-Peer Services

In the sharing economy, some opportunities can help you offset your vacation expenses. If you’re comfortable with the idea and will be away for an extended period (snowbirds, we are looking at you), consider renting out your home on platforms like Airbnb or VRBO. For those going on shorter trips or those not entirely comfortable with the idea of renters living in their homes while they are away, consider renting out your parking space to drivers in need using apps like ParqEx. By listing your parking space on ParqEx’s platform, you can decide how much to charge for your spot and make extra extra cash while you’re away.

Home Security Check

Before leaving, thoroughly inspect and secure your home. Ensure all doors and windows are tightly sealed and latched, and test their locks to ensure they function correctly. If any of your locks are damaged, replace them before leaving. Additionally, for those with sliding windows and doors, place a sturdy rod or bar in the track and lock the door for additional security.

As we enter a season of frequent travel, providing modern tips for vacation-proofing your home is essential so you can enjoy your trip with peace of mind, knowing that your home is secure and energy-efficient. These practices will not only save you money on utility bills, minimize your personal energy use, and eliminate any potential energy or water waste but also help you have a worry-free return home. Have a fantastic vacation and safe travels!

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Benefits of Smart Tech Solutions to Your Property

The post How Smart Tech Solutions Can Increase Your Property Value appeared first on ParqEx.

The Basic Home Security Checklist Every Home Needs

 

Different neighborhoods have different issues when it comes to home security. For example, in some neighborhoods, if you checked into a hotel and accidentally left the back door of the car open, nothing would happen. In others, that’s a way to lose not only everything inside the vehicle but the vehicle itself.

 

So there are neighborhoods in places like Wyoming and North Dakota and Idaho and Texas and Nebraska where security isn’t really a big issue. The only theft or home invasion will come from someone with a grudge or other similar agenda. Contrarily, sometimes even putting bars on the windows isn’t enough to safeguard your property. L.A. is like that.

 

Accordingly, wherever you are, you want to understand the security landscape and make some specific choices. Here we’ll cover five considerations that will apply to almost any property.

Local Premises – Are You Going To Stick Around, Or Move?

 

Sometimes the security move is to, well, move. There are times when a community or metropolis is in a situation where it’s just not possible to stay secure and stay around. Detroit comes to mind, and so does Los Angeles and New York City, when you consider the events of the last several years in either metropolis.

 

Certainly, it may be wise to stick it out. But also, you might be upgrading to more security in terms of better premises in a good neighborhood. Regardless, if you’ve gotta move, you might as well do so affordably—consider some of the options available at sites like UMoveFree.

Door And Window Locks; Perhaps Window Bars

 

Windows and doors need to be strong and lockable. The stronger the glass, the better; sometimes, you want bars behind the windows to offset forced entry. In some neighborhoods, interlopers will try to break through windows provided they don’t see anyone at home. They might do it just as they walk by.

 

If you can’t lock the windows and doors, you’re wide open. There are IoT devices that can lock windows and doors remotely. Smarthomes have their place, certainly, but if you want total security, you’ve got to take care to encrypt such solutions. Smarthomes work, but they can also be hacked.

For Dog People, A Big Loyal Dog

 

Even a small dog can startle a criminal. It’s not always the size of the beast; it’s the commotion they cause. A loud dog barking is jarring. Someone who doesn’t want to be seen will quickly high-tail it. However, a small dog can be silenced through brute force, whereas a large dog can be fatal to some people. So if you’re a dog person, get a big one for security.

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1. Parking

Parking is a problem for many buildings, especially older ones that may have been built before everyone had at least one car if not two. While most complexes list parking as an amenity, the truth is that residents and tenants often have to deal with insufficient parking and a lack of guest parking, especially overnight. Residents who rent a car as needed often cannot park on the property. One solution is to offer multi-family smart parking, which allows you to better manage the parking you have, letting residents book guest spots in advance, open the gate with their phone, etc. Being able to avoid saying “Well, you can park on the street” can be a perk not many think about until it is brought up. Add a few electric car charging stations (with a smart system to reserve them when needed) and you can turn parking from a side note to something central to your business.

2. Hotel-style common areas.

Residents expect to be able to make use of common areas in new ways, especially if the apartments tend to be small. Offering comfortable seating is a plus. Offering computers for resident use has become standard, but you can get “bonus points” for enclosed workstations. Large screen televisions can attract residents and promote a sense of community. Offering events for residents and their guests can help ensure that these areas are used. The best location: The lobby. Top floor party rooms are great, but residents tend to forget they are there. If your climate allows it, outdoor “rooms” are important, such as roof decks or courtyards. Such multi-family amenities should be targeted to the demographic you aim to support.

3. Wi-fi.

These days tenants, especially younger residents, expect to be able to access fast, reliable wi-fi in common areas. This even includes outdoor areas. Wi-fi is at the point of not being an “amenity” so much as an “expectation” that landlords need to meet. If your building is a cave, then good wi-fi becomes even more important and you might also want to consider installing cell relays in problem areas.

4. Pet amenities.

Although some buildings are still anti-pet, in many areas being pet-friendly is something of a selling point. However, it has to go past “we allow pets.” If you have space, a dog park is useful. So is partnering with a dog walking service. Even small things like a jar of dog treats in the lobby will make your four-footed residents, and their owners, feel more welcome. A less common, but growing amenity, is the pet spa, a place designed for grooming and bathing pets. Furthermore, pet amenities often allow you to increase your rent more with a lower outlay.

5. Fitness centers.

Even if there is a gym down the street, some of your residents will use the on-site fitness center. More importantly, most of your new residents will think they are going to use it. Apartment fitness centers now have to go past putting a couple of treadmills and a multi-gym in the basement. Attract a fitness-minded demographic with a multi-purpose room that offers yoga and pilates classes, video classes for yoga, dance fitness and spinning, and modern equipment. Also, a lot of renters are interested in things like racquetball or tennis courts, walking trails (if your property borders a good trail, make sure to provide access) and other non-standard fitness amenities.

6. Excellent package managing.

More and more people shop online and receive packages. Having proper package storage and smart software will help reduce the number of annoyed residents. Although package handling may not be on the list of multi-family amenities you put front and center, with 47 percent of renters receiving at least three packages per month, including perishables, not having good package handling is likely to result in poor reviews and a higher turnover. Negotiating for an Amazon locker is one good move.

7. Sustainability.

Younger tenants want to know that their apartment building is sustainable. Green roofs and energy-efficient appliances are both particularly popular. For new construction, try to meet or exceed LEED standards. When renovating, consider how you can make the building more energy efficient (which also gives the selling point of lower heating and air conditioning bills).

When developing or running an apartment building, you need to provide the best multi-family amenities to your residents. If you are looking for smart parking solutions for your apartment building, Schedule a Demo/Call today.

The post 7 Multifamily Amenities Your Complex Needs appeared first on ParqEx.

As rapid innovation continues with IoT technologies, the results of their combined use are yet to be fully understood. The reverberations of the shift, though, will be felt as an after effect of the sweeping change, the transformation from outdated legacy systems, modes, methods, and tools – to innovative online software solutions in the cloud.

Smart cities are being developed by many individual companies using separate systems that communicate with each other. 

Market Analysis and Knowledgeable Research

One of the most challenging and logistically confusing daily tasks is parking. Traveling around in cities or unfamiliar neighborhoods, drivers are wasting valuable time and money trying to find the ideal parking spot. At the same time, the home parking garage is still a piece of equipment that has yet to fully be integrated into the digital home.

Whether you’re booking your spare bedroom or an entire investment property, where your guest’s park can make a big difference. Garage space provides a protected and homey welcome, but you don’t just want to leave your garage door hanging open until your guests arrive or make them call you to open it.  Multifamily residents currently rely on a non guaranteed reservations for a spot within their garage or guest parking is not even available at the community. Residents also find having to exchange a fob or provide a parking sticker as a means of validation. IoT technology is working together through the innovative cloud and mobile solutions, in order to solve complex logistical issues. The agility and flexibility being offered by the cloud are far preferable to, exclusively, on-premise logistical solutions. 

IoT technology is working together through the innovative cloud and mobile solutions, in order to create business opportunities and solve complex logistical issues. The agility and flexibility being offered by the cloud are far preferable to, exclusively, on-premises logistical solutions.

Sights On The Future of Real Estate Tech

The IoT is always involved when speaking about smart anything, and almost all technology is smart at this point. Smart parking garages are using monitoring devices to detect vacant spaces, then automatically sharing the data to their own systems and any specified partners.

For instance, the parking garage business may want to automate real-time updates of vacancies to the city’s tourist guide mobile app, or event centers’ apps might want their customers to have access to available spaces.

This isn’t to say that all hardware, paper, and analog systems will be completely eliminated, rather, they’ll be reduced and minimized. SaaS, PaaS, and emerging subscription software are allowing SMBs to streamline, expand, and improve the quality of their work and production – this is hard to ignore. Technology is promising to be the best solution for overcrowded city streets, in the U.S. and worldwide.

Competition in this space has generated an increased awareness from the real estate owners and the providers of these technology stressing their importance for growth. The Future of Real Estate Tech continues to push VC’s and startups in this space for a multitude of reasons. No one has found the key to Pandora’s box at this given junction, leaving the door open for challengers to propel the groundwork needed for the sector’s continued growth and development.

Property Management and Residents Look For Education

The real estate community is using technology in ways that make sense for residents. The advantages and opportunities that innovative cloud and mobile technologies offer are promising to solve parking woes and boost the local economy at the same time. Before, solving parking woes would have meant building more parking spaces, which means cities and/or businesses had to spend money, therefore making taxpayers and consumers pay for it.

The IoT, in relation to smart cities, is the technology and online systems being used to create innovative solutions and solve complex logistical issues, such as parking. For instance, parking spot sensors are being used by parking garages and city governments, in order to inform drivers of vacancies (and owners of non-compliance) and navigate them to the spot – all through their smartphones. Technology and the IoT have even shown to play a positive factor on individual health.

Essentially, what makes IoT technology so powerful is its ability to communicate and integrate with other systems and technological solutions within a city or community. Using cloud and mobile computing technology, combined with the nearly universal rate of smartphone usage, the IoT is creating innovative solutions not possible before. Closing a garage door from across the world through a mobile app is a good example.

Listen To The IoT Parking Expert

Katie Williams recognizes the lack of movement and innovation within the real estate realm. IoT within the private parking/ multifamily properties are newly discovered and emerging – there is a need to revolutionize and disrupt the current trends and inefficiencies with smart real estate technologies and smarter parking.

Katie realizes there is an underutilization of parking assets in the Chicago and surrounding markets. This is evident by poorly managed private garages offering ease of resident-guest experience or lack thereof. She looks to educate multifamily owners, residents, and property managers on the hidden value of their parking and how IoT technologies serve as a tool for the space. They provide an additional amenity in a space that is always searching for the next best thing, with a value-add to aid in boosting their ROI and bottom lines.

Please reach out to Katie if you would like additional information on how these IoT solutions can help your property today!

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Echo

The dominant player in the smart home tech sector is Amazon’s Echo, nicknamed “Alexa” because that is the voice command to activate the device. This unit allows users to search, buy products, listen to music, get weather and much more just through their voice.

Additionally, through its smart apps and integrations, the product integrates with the entire home. Consumers can turn on lights, adjust the temperature, run the dishwasher and much more. Amazon has recently unveiled an Echo with a screen that allows videos and visual search after the voice command.

Smart Kitchen and Drop Scale

The connected kitchen has long been a dream of homeowners. Imagine turning on the coffee maker or the toaster from your phone or by voice command while still in bed. That makes the morning much more pleasant. Many companies are now developing and launching these items including Samsung, GE and Kenmore.

For example, Drop has introduced a smart scale that integrates with Amazon Echo and Google Home devices. The scale can be controlled by voice to turn on and off. It automatically weighs the food and matches it to a recipe you are working on. The scale can determine if you are over or under the amount prescribed in the recipe. This removes the cook’s anxiety of getting the recipe wrong.

Parking Devices

One of the most challenging and logistically confusing daily tasks is parking. Traveling around in cities or unfamiliar neighborhoods, drivers are wasting valuable time and money trying to find the ideal parking spot. At the same time, the home parking garage is still a piece of equipment that has yet to fully be integrated into the digital home.

However, ParqEx has developed a unique and innovative system for parking garages with their solution to smart home tech new innovations. From a mobile device, users can open garages for themselves or others. The system for the user to enter the garage is called Access+. This makes life much easier because you do not have to get out of your car or worry about a ticket. You also know the pricing clearly and can pay through your phone.

Similarly, GuestParq allows the user to open a garage or gate for a guest. In this case, the user may be opening their home garage to a guest that would ordinarily not have access. This makes life much more easy and convenient for the user.

Nest

The Nest kicked off the era of smart home tech. This beautiful device automatically adjusts the temperature in the home based on personalized settings and can be controlled by a smartphone. Google’s multi-billion dollar purchase of this company put additional fuel in the company’s growth. It is a core part of the Google system and works perfectly with the new Google Home device.

Today, Nest is a symbol for all things smart home technology including advanced home video recorders, lighting, doorbells, locks and fire detectors. Additionally, there are thousands of devices that may integrate with the Nest platform to create a comprehensive home management system.

ParqEx is a leading smart parking software platform which helps drivers find ideal spots while saving time and money. The Access+ and GuestParq features allow drivers to open gates and garage doors from the convenience of their smartphone as well. For more information, please contact us.

The post Smart Home Tech New Innovations appeared first on ParqEx.

ParqEx was founded on a dedication to making life easier through technology and we are so excited about smart homes that we’ve opened an awesome Smart Home Giveaway! One lucky person can win our drawing for an entire smart home starter kit, everything you need to start your very own start home environment.

The Smart Home Giveaway

The founding principles of ParqEx are to make parking easier through wireless technology. Smart homes offer many benefits through technology, similar to how we solve parking problems with smart parking technology. We want to bring the joy of wireless life to someone new and have put together a fantastic smart home starter package. With this smart home starter kit, you can establish the interactive AI center of your smart home, get to know the essential features, and inspire yourself to invent a truly personalized smart home for your household. Sweepstakes submissions are open right now, so anyone who has been dreaming of a new smart home is invited to enter their name.

Amazon Alexa Smart Home Giveaway

What’s Included in the Smart Home Kit?

• Amazon Echo Plus
• Amazon Echo Dot
• 2 Philips 60W Smart LED Bulbs – Soft White
• 2 Jinvoo Smart Power Outlets
• Smart Power Strip – 4 Outlets and 4 USB Ports
• VIP ParqEx Treatment and Service Credit

We thought long and hard about what to include in our smart home giveaway and carefully selected these items because together they are the perfect way to get started on your very own smart home. To run every one of these devices, you only need one smart home app: Alexa. All you have to do is activate a skill, then name your devices so that Alexa can respond to them by name.

From your AI hub to the smarten-anything outlets, you can control the lighting and upgrade ‘dumb’ electronic devices into your smart home experience. Let’s explore what’s inside and how you can make amazing use of these smart home assets in your household!

Amazon Alexa – Echo Plus

The Echo Plus the ‘brains’ of the operation. It is a smart home hub and a superb smart speaker combined into one. You can control your entire smart home by talking to Alexa through the elegant black tower of the Echo Plus.

“A one-box smart home solution”

-Tech Radar

Alexa, your helpful AI voice assistant, lives in the Echo Plus like I Dream of Genie lived in her lamp. All you have to do is say “Alexa” and she will start to listen, then help you in any way she can. While most people think of smart home hubs as something like their wireless router, Alexa is much more than a hub got devices. Her inherent capabilities are amazing, even without a single smart home device connected. With nothing but a connection to the internet and a little coordination through a mobile device, Alexa can answer trivia questions, sing you songs, help your child study, keep your calendar, and set timers.

Alexa is named after the legendary lost library in Alexandria

– Wirecutter

Alexa is friendly, upbeat, and interactively helpful. You can set up custom commands through her app or you can converse with her to find hilarious easter egg features. The Echo Plus itself has Dolby sound quality and amazing sound detection. It even ‘looks’ at you when you speak the command word.

Amazon Echo Dot

The Echo Dot is like a satellite extension to the Echo Plus. The Dot’s most important function is as an additional speaker and receiver for your smart home. As cool as the Echo Plus is, it’s listening and broadcasting abilities are not infinite. The Dot allows you to continue conversing with your smart home in rooms that the hub cannot reach.

Most people put their smart home hub in their living room, the center of family activity. A Dot in your bedroom or kitchen can allow you to extend the functionality and your access to smart home features even when you are ‘out of earshot’ of Alexa’s hub.

Independent Extension

Interestingly, having an Echo Dot can also extend your smart home capabilities outside of the home itself. It can be used anywhere with a wifi network and a power source. You can move it into the backyard for a smart-barbecue, hook up your car with a wireless hotspot for a smart car on the go, or even take it with you to a vacation home. With your connected phone or tablet, it can function as an independent smart home hub, complete with Alexa.

2 Philips 60W Smart LED Bulbs – Soft White

After the hub itself, there is nothing more essential to a smart home than smart bulbs. For all the crazy gadgets out there, there is something inherently useful and satisfying about being able to turn on and off your lights with a word. We chose the Philips 60W Equivalent LED bulbs because they are the best of the best. Philips is the leading brand in smart home lighting with undeniable quality, performance, and longevity. The LEDs are much cooler and more energy-efficiently than a traditional incandescent bulb.

“Alexa, turn the Living Room Light off.”

“Okay!”

Of course, these don’t just turn on and off with a word. Smart lights are also capable of percentage power, essentially giving you a smart-dimmer for any room you use them in, and you can pick any number between 0 and 100%. This can allow you to set the mood in the evenings, use the lights as overhead night-lights for midnight snacks and children, then bring the lights up to full brightness when it’s time to find the missing remote.

“Alexa, set the Kitchen Light to 20%”

“Okay!”

With two bulbs to start with, you can ‘smarten’ the lighting for any two rooms in your home. Pick the two locations you use most often, and least want to walk to the light switch time and time again. We’re sure you’ll fall in love with smart bulbs immediately and soon you’ll be putting together a unique collection for every fixture in your home.

2 Jinvoo Smart Outlets

And if you thought smart lights were cool, wait until you discover the possibilities of a smart outlet. There are literally hundreds of smart home and IoT devices we could have chosen from for this starter kit, but smart outlets put the power in your hands. These little gadgets, you can turn almost any ‘dumb’ electronic device into a smart device. All you have to do is plug the outlet into the wall, then plug the device into the smart outlet. Then turn off the device.

Smart outlets give you simple on/off control of any device plugged in through them by controlling the flow of electricity. Lamps with oddly sized bulbs can still become smart lamps through an outlet. Fans can be made smart-fans with this simple power passthrough. You can start your coffee maker in the morning while lying in bed or even use them for smart parenting by turning off game consoles or wifi routers on a schedule. The possibilities are endless, just imagine anything you want to turn off or on with a command, on a schedule, or even through an app while you’re away from home.

Jinvoo Smart Power Strip

Our last physical device in the sweepstakes goodie bag is a Jinvoo smart power strip. Smart power strips are one of the latest additions to smart home technology, combining the innovation of the smart outlet with the convenience of an all-in-one power strip. This model has four conventional three-prong outlets and four fast-charging USB ports, allowing you to provide power through both types of common power ports.

Power Strip Includes

• 4 Individual Smart Outlets
• 4 High-Speed Charging USB Smart Ports

But it doesn’t stop there. The magic of a smart power strip is that each individual port is smart-controlled with its own separate entry and name. This means you’re actually getting a total of six smart power sources to control individually and four separate smart USB ports. That’s ten normal powered devices that can become delightful additions to your uniquely personalized smart home.

ParqEx Smart Parking Product / Service Offering:

ParqEx is the Private Parking Technology Platform.  Property owners and managers use our proprietary technology to increase the value of their parking spaces that are often underutilized and/or difficult to manage.  The platform is a set of modular solutions that can be implemented on their own or packaged together depending on the needs of a given customer or property.  Four of the key solutions include:

Marketplace

provides property owners with the ability to increase income by facilitating rentals to drivers looking for a place to park.  The owners set the availability and price, and we handle the rest. Our supply comes from a wide variety of customers and property types – everything from developers with large open lots, to non-profits with a few spots, to individual homeowners with one garage spot.

Access+

offers a better way to provide access to secure parking locations by controlling doors and gates through the ParqEx mobile app.  When compared with traditional opening methods such as fobs and “clickers”, this proprietary “Internet of Things” (IoT) technology solution is inexpensive to install, saves operating costs, and reduces management hassle.

GuestParq

designed primarily for apartment and condominium buildings, this plug-and-play offering is an amenity that improves the guest parking experience for residents, guests, and managers alike. It improves the entire process: from reserving a spot to arriving at the building to managing who should be parking in what spot – all while capturing important usage data over time.

Enforcer

provides easy to use tools to ensure that the correct vehicles are parked in the appropriate locations. This offering supports anyone who is self-managing their parking and wants to have better information at their fingertips to do so more efficiently.

ParqEx is accessible via a web-based app (app.parqex.com) and mobile apps for iOS and Android.

ParqEx VIP Treatment

Finally, our lucky sweepstakes winner will not only get all the convenience and fun of this complete smart home starter package, we will also be rewarding the winner with exclusive ParqEx VIP treatment. We will make you feel like a star of the new wireless world. First, you get access to premier options through the ParqEx app including better parking spaces, VIP planning features, and a full suite of special services we provide.

$50 in Parking Credit in Prime Locations

Just to start with, the winner will find themselves the proud owner of $50 in premium ParqEx credit. Leave behind your worries about parking on busy streets or paying overcharged public parking lots and garages. You will be able to book parking for free in prime locations around our hotspots of Chicago, Milwaukee, along with any premier locations available across the country.

VIP Access to Premier Options

Our team is constantly trying to bring a better experience to loyal ParqEx users and this has resulted in a number of premier options through our app and membership choices. The lucky winner of the giveaway will get premier access to our best options with their pick in how to use them. From booking spaces at the last minute to renting out spots in your own driveway or even a parking lot, we’re ready to provide with VIP exclusive customer service.

Try our Access+ Technology (Digital Garage Door Opener)

And in the wonderful spirit of smart home convenience, you get to try ParqEx Access+ (Digital Garage Door Opener). Through our app, you will be able to try our Access+ technology at our select parking locations to open a gate or garage door from the ParqEx app. But it doesn’t stop there. You can also provide garage door access to friends, family members, and approved visitors and only for as long as you want to provide access. This makes garage door ownership (and keeping track of garage door openers) so much easier!

Enter To Win the Smart Home Giveaway Today!

This offer won’t last forever, and there can only be one lucky winner. If you love smart homes but don’t have one of your own yet, put your name into the running. Now is your chance to start an elite smart home of your own, uniquely designed to suit your needs and make your house immensely cool. Great for homeowners and renters, real estate professionals and even to take along to vacation homes, this kit is the perfect way to start your amazing smart home experience. Join our sweepstakes today!

For more information about the Smart Home Giveaway click here!

The post ParqEx’s Amazing Alexa Smart Home Giveaway! appeared first on ParqEx.

Future of Mobility leaders in the Smart Cities Initiatives are convening in Chicago this Thursday, July 19th for the Smart Cities Conference hosted by BuiltWorlds. This event has been bringing together the best and brightest minds to BuiltWorlds most disruptable market which is cities and infrastructure. These discussions being held are going to cover an array of topics and the experts will help you make sense of the crucial changes coming to our cities, including transit, waste, water, energy, buildings, and social infrastructure.

The highlighted panel conversation on “The Future of Mobility” is moderated by Marketplace.city’s very own Chris Foreman. The supporting cast for this discussion features ParqEx’s very own Founder & CEO, Vivek Mehra, Alex Samoylovich from Cedar Street Ventures, Jerry Quandt, Executive Director, IL Autonomous Vehicles Association (ILAVA), and Sharon Feigon, Executive Director, Shared-Use Mobility Center. BuiltWorlds has shared the following on how this topic will be attacked:

“Autonomous and electric cars will place new demands on the electric grid, create new demands for charging stations and create new opportunities for developing the city in relation to a mobility strategy. This shift will have enormous consequences for how cities are planned in terms of where cars are parked and fueled. Hear from ParqEx Founder and CEO, Vivek Mehra, on how he plans to disrupt the process and what his partnership with Cedar Street Ventures means for the built industry. Gain insights on the impacts and benefits of shared mobility and hear about emerging opportunities related to the growth and utilization of AV technologies throughout the entire transportation network. During this session, panelists discuss the importance of investing in mobility solutions and technology advancements shaping smart cities of the future.”

The panelists in the discussion have quite the background and repertoire, becoming experts in their select fields. Their knowledge provides an in-depth look on what is to come for the smart cities initiatives across the United States. It is amazing to see the horizons they continue to expand on and the technologies used to push the bounds of innovation.

The Who’s Who

Sharon Feigon is a founder and the executive director of the Shared-Use Mobility Center, a non-profit public-interest organization working to foster collaboration in shared mobility and help connect the growing industry with transit agencies, cities and communities across the nation. As executive director, Sharon leads SUMC’s work, which includes conducting innovative research around the impacts of shared mobility, developing pilot projects to test shared mobility strategies, and providing advice and technical assistance to cities and regions in order to help extend the benefits of shared mobility for all. SUMC was also recently awarded a contract to develop the Innovation Knowledge Accelerator in partnership with the Federal Transit Administration to assist cities undertaking Mobility on Demand projects.

Jerry Quandt is the Executive Director of the Illinois Autonomous Vehicles Association. The Association is a privately funded, not-for-profit organization dedicated to the advancement of autonomous vehicle technologies within the State of Illinois. The organization’s focus is to establish Illinois as the leader in the development, design, and application of the system-of-systems that will transform mobility as we know it. He has worked most of his career in marketing and business transformation in a variety of verticals. His passion is to continue to create consumer-centric solutions leveraging bleeding-edge technologies to increase people’s quality of life.

Alex Samoylovich is the founding partner, Chief Executive Officer of CEDARst Companies.  Over the past ten years, Mr. Samoylovich has sourced, invested in and managed in excess of hundreds of transactions and has been instrumental in the acquisition and disposition of real estate with a value in over $1 billion. Utilizing a “fully integrated real estate development” (IRED) approach, Mr. Samoylovich and his partners have seamlessly interwoven acquisition, construction, finance, management, interior design and marketing under one company. In the past 15 years, CEDARst is considered one of the most active acquirers of distressed assets in the greater Chicago area. Under Mr. Samoylovich’s leadership, the company has carved out a niche strategy for the adaptive reuse of underperforming assets through bankruptcies, foreclosure, note purchases, and other distressed situations in the Chicago area; covering a span of product types from multifamily, office, mixed-use, and hospitality. Mr. Samoylovich has cemented a well-earned reputation as a tenacious deal maker capable of closing the most complex and demanding real estate transactions and returning superior risk-adjusted returns to his investors.

Chris Foreman as Chief Executive Officer of Marketplace.city Chris drives the company’s revenue and growth by building their powerful network of technology providers. Prior to Marketplace.city, Mr. Foreman served as CEO of the Americas for AvePoint, Inc. While at AvePoint, Mr. Foreman helped lead the company’s growth from a small team to over 1200 employees in 15 countries and drove the expansion into government by launching an independent subsidiary, AvePoint Public Sector, Inc. where he served as CEO and Chairman. AvePoint won 3 consecutive Microsoft Partner of the Year awards during Foreman’s tenure. Previously he worked at Nutech Integrated Systems where he oversaw enterprise sales initiatives focusing on healthcare, archiving, e-discovery, and records management. He has actively worked in the enterprise software industry for 15 years.

Vivek Mehra as Founder & CEO of ParqEx will be one of four panelists on the Main Stage discussing “Future of Mobility.” ParqEx is a private parking platform that gives the opportunity to connect renters with new avenues of parking with local individual owners that have underutilized spots. Our mission is to solve a huge problem by disrupting the entire market – and we’re doing so in a way that benefits the people of every community. We believe that people of every urban community can help solve the parking crunch by sharing what they already have.

What To Expect?

Chris will challenge the leaders to focus on topics which center around the outlook for autonomous vehicles and the need for parking spaces. What trends will come to the forefront and how cities will need to make necessary design structure implementations to adapt. What kind of burdens will residents, companies, and cities face in the short-term and long-term?

ParqEx collaborates with BuiltWorlds on a couple publications and was featured in 50 hottest technologies for smart buildings. We are excited to be on this panel discussion for this annual smart cities conference and looking to further our relationships with the real estate technology community.

The post Future of Mobility…It’s A Smart Movement appeared first on ParqEx.

Cities like Chicago are getting smarter, and not just in a metaphorical sense. Urban areas are becoming increasingly connected, with the express aim of making life easier for both residents and anyone working downtown.

With its Smart City Initiatives, Chicago has been at the forefront of a trend that has swept the nation and even got an official endorsement and federal funding from the White House last year. But what does that mean for you? Among many other things, these initiatives may have a significant impact on your neighborhood parking spots.

Chicago’s Smart City Initiative

Last year, the office Mayor Rahm Emanuel stated his goal to make Chicago “the most data-driven government in the world.” The goal is to use WiFi spots to report data back to the city and improve efficiency as a result. For example, sensors can keep park lawns from drying out, improve air quality, and more.

Smart City Initiatives are on their way across the globe, with cities like London, Barcelona, and Singapore leading the race to ultimate connectivity. Chicago is a relatively late entrant to the race, but has already established itself alongside them as a leader thanks to the initiative that the city calls “Array of Things.” Here’s how our government describes the project:

The Array of Things (AoT) is an urban sensing project, a network of interactive, modular sensor boxes that will be installed around Chicago to collect real-time data on the city’s environment, infrastructure, and activity for research and public use. AoT will essentially serve as a “fitness tracker” for the city, measuring factors that impact livability in Chicago such as climate, air quality and noise.

Technology Maximizes Efficiency

The description of the AoT as the city’s ‘fitness tracker’ is particularly descriptive in how it communicates the project as maximizing efficiency through technology. Anyone who wears a Fitbit knows just how important simply tracking your daily activities can be. You may not have been aware of how many steps you take during the day, but if you do, you will forego the elevator for the steps at the end of the day just to reach your daily goal.

The Internet of Things has become more common and is expected to continue rising in importance drastically in the near future. More and more, common household items are being connected to the internet to maximize efficiency. It’s no longer a surprise or science fiction to see stories about refrigerators ordering new food automatically on your behalf through smart connectivity.

By 2020, researchers estimate that $1.7 trillion dollars in consumer spending will be directly connected to internet-enabled household devices. Perhaps even more relevant for the purposes of this article, 90% of cars will be connected to the internet in the same time frame.

The Internet of Things as a City Connector

Take the IoT concept and apply it to larger urban areas, and you have Chicago’s Smart City Initiative (or Array of Things, depending on what you prefer to call it). The core concept is identical: the more connected you are to the environment around you, the more your life will improve and the more efficient you can be.

The success of that endeavor, of course, requires civic participation. As the City of Chicago outlines,

As smart cities embrace and deploy innovative technology embedded in public spaces, residents voices need to be represented. To prevent disconnect between residents and their city’s technology, broad engagement is key — not only to inform residents of innovations, but to take inventory of public concerns and questions associated with them.

This Smart City Initiative, then, is more than just an abstract concept deployed by the local government without direct impact on its residents. Instead, it’s a comprehensive project that depends on and benefits from constituency input. With that information, the Array of Things transforms into a powerful tool to improve your life and work. And that benefit is perhaps nowhere more obvious than in the ways in which parking connects to the project.

How Smart Parking Plays into Smart Cities

Whether you live or work in Chicago, you know how problematic parking can be. It is either expensive or impossible to find. The parking spots are there, and some of their owners may even be desperate to give them up to anyone who asks. But without a way to connect the spots to the drivers who seek them out, major inefficiencies remain.

That’s where parking connected IoT enters the equation. More specifically, the recent initiative to turn Chicago into one of the world’s smartest city could be a godsend for your parking needs. As we’ve outlined in a previous post,

If we had a way to predict where people would need and want to be in the near future, we could add living spaces as well as parking spaces in the places they will be needed most… With the right data and predictive systems, (we) would have the ability to relieve parking issues by adding parking solutions in the neighborhoods and other parts of cities that need them most.

Much like food-ordering refrigerators, this scenario is not necessarily science fiction anymore. Already, the Internet of Things is reducing parking woes in the city of Chicago. Rather than having to rely on intuition and past knowledge in finding a parking spot, apps like ParqEx can provide you with real-time updates on vacancies to minimize the time it takes to search for a spot.

As far back as 2012, experts on the subject predicted that the Internet of Things might find its most beneficial application in solving the parking problems for many of America’s downtown areas. As no less than 30% of all drivers in downtown areas are simply looking for parking, imagine the benefits of a solution that gets drivers off the street, reducing both pollution and traffic congestion at the same time.

The most frustrating part of that statistic may be the fact that these parking spots are actually available. Drivers just don’t know how to find them, leaving their owners without revenue and the cars on the street.

The key to success in changing that problem consists of two variables: visibility and timeliness. Parking situations can change in a second, meaning that any potential solution has to communicate availability instantly and reliably. That, in addition to a platform that allows parking spot owners to share their vacancies and drivers to find them, is crucial to reducing the number of people simply looking for parking spots.

Turning Chicago into a Smart City, in this case, will also improve the automated efficiency with which anyone looking to go downtown can look for (and find) a parking spot where they need it, and without paying a fortune. In other words, this Smart City Initiative will have benefits for literally anyone entering or driving around the city with a car.

And that’s why we’re so excited about the Array of Things currently transforming the city of Chicago. Executed correctly, it will not just improve the efficiency with which our local government can manage the city, but also improve livability for each of its residents. To learn more about our contributions to that cause, and how ParqEx is using the Internet of Things to improve your ability to find a parking spot, contact us.

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