Intuitive “HM InsightHub” dashboard for real-time sensor data

How can professors and lecturers at Hochschule München (HM) make their teaching more practical? As part of the Co-Innovation Lab, the project team has transformed the complexity of sensor data collected in the buildings of HM into an intuitive, user-friendly dashboard. By providing quick and effortless access, the team has changed the way lecturers and students interact with real-time data.

Addressing the challenge involves eliminating time-consuming obstacles and bottlenecks faced by HM lecturers and students when retrieving HM’s sensor data. The opportunity lies in enabling educators to autonomously establish an optimal learning environment and allowing students to apply theoretical knowledge in practical settings, facilitated by the newly introduced HM InsightHub.

As a university of applied sciences, HM offers practice-based programs for global careers. HM InsightHub enables lecturers to easily access and retrieve authentic real-time data for their students to practically learn data science through real projects working with sensor data. Based on the existing infrastructure of sensors, networks and gateways, the team streamlined the various sources into one central dashboard that allows the user to customize and download a dataset based on their needs. In collaboration with the client Prof. Dr. Johannes Ebke of the faculty for Computer Science and potential end users, the team identified the most pressing need. As said by Prof. Dr. Ebke: “By picking this use case, the team has enhanced the software product that I had in mind and made it more useful for everyone.”

During the development phase, the project team ensured that the solution is scalable. In future, the dashboard will be able to be equipped with additional data sources and expanded as required. Furthermore, the data will not only be made available to Munich University of Applied Sciences, but also to other universities to encourage research. Additionally, the team also provided Prof. Dr. Ebke with a mobile webpage that enables him to track sensor health and improves the day-to-day maintenance of the sensors installed at HM.