The three pillars of modern housing
Housing Technology’s Data Matters 2025 event in September was a galvanising moment for attendees and speakers alike. With all eyes on Awaab’s Law, housing professionals were unified in their questions around regulation, automation and implementation.
Awaab’s Law marks a major collective step for our sector. Data will be the defining resource in a new age of social housing, and while many of us have long since acknowledged its importance, clean data and automated systems were once regarded as aspirational ‘nice to haves’.
These new regulations herald a fundamental shift in how properties are managed. The transition from reactive to proactive maintenance might sound intimidating but the benefits represent a modern age of housing and a universal raising of standards unlike anything we’ve seen before.
Awaab’s Law reframes aspirational ideas about what housing can be. Rather than half-entertaining automation as a vision of the future, it’s becoming realised, tangible and, most importantly, achievable.
The new standard
With so much discussion centred around damp and mould, you’d be forgiven for thinking these new regulations address a single issue. However, while damp and mould hazards are the most immediate aspect of Awaab’s Law, it’s important to take a wider view.
Throughout 2026 and 2027, Awaab’s Law will expand, encompassing 28 of the 29 hazards covered in the Housing Health & Safety Rating System (HHSRS). Excess heat and cold, fall risks, water leaks, domestic hygiene, electrical hazards, biocides, noise, food safety and entry by intruder – all of these concerns and more must be considered and addressed.
This will require a comprehensive approach, including better data standards, more efficient processes and insightful reporting on a sector-wide scale. The extent of these changes are far-reaching but this transformation will deliver massive organisational benefits in addition to providing a new standard of care for residents.
The benefits include enabling predictive maintenance, remote monitoring of devices, automated reporting, improved asset management and benchmarking, better energy efficiency and reduced maintenance costs.
Better living through IoT
When we launched Social Telecoms’ ‘Backbone to the Future’ campaign, we were motivated by the idea that wireless networks in residents’ properties could do more than provide internet access – that through the implementation of IoT devices, housing providers could improve residents’ lives in new ways.
By introducing smart sensors and IoT devices into residents’ homes, housing providers ensure a constant feed of fresh data. This could be from environmental sensors that detect conditions allowing mould to develop or a smart boiler giving pressure readings to indicate water leaks.
The scope of smart devices goes a long way towards addressing the 28-of-29 HHSRS hazards to be included in Awaab’s Law by 2027. This not only allows for proactive monitoring and faster responses but also builds a wealth of information. Analysing this data allows housing providers to recognise patterns and detect impending hazards before they happen.
This is where the three pillars – data, devices and automation – come together, working as one IoT ecosystem. With devices regularly providing new data, housing providers are always up-to-date and informed on the condition of their properties.
Happy to help
As the culmination of our ‘Backbone to the Future’ campaign, we began work on HappyIoT – a brand-neutral IoT solution supporting easy integrations and displaying devices and data on a single-screen dashboard.
This solution includes surveys, product recommendations and maintenance, giving housing associations the tools they need to implement a comprehensive IoT infrastructure.
Devices are controllable through the HappyIoT dashboard, allowing users to go beyond monitoring conditions and update the settings accordingly. If a property appears to be excessively cold, HappyIoT enables agents to check the boiler pressure and radiator status to identify any problems or adjust thermostat settings to increase the heat.
In some instances, housing providers have begun to integrate smart devices into their properties only to hit a snag down the line, with one leading cause being devices struggling to communicate with one another over different protocols.
With this in mind, HappyIoT is set up for retrospective integrations as well as being fully brand-neutral, allowing a housing provider’s existing IoT devices to mesh seamlessly with our platform. By making IoT more accessible and easier to integrate, we hope to ease the transition onto new digital infrastructure.
Guided by voices
While smart devices and IoT do much of the heavy lifting in capturing data and automating processes, modern contact centre solutions, such as from 8×8 and Zoom, provide tools to bolster your efforts and better understand property conditions and residents’ experience.
With AI transcriptions, summaries and sentiment analysis for received calls, these solutions integrate with your CRM, keeping valuable information accessible and preventing data silos. Not only this, but with image- and video-sharing capabilities, 8×8 and Zoom both enable residents to share visual records of problems in their homes.
These solutions paint a fuller picture of property conditions and ensure important information from customer contacts is retained. Additionally, they do so without the need for engineers to make multiple property visits, saving time, costs and carbon output for a more efficient service. In some cases, engineers can advise on simple fixes remotely, educating and empowering residents to solve future problems.
Finally, AI agents are available to answer routine questions and book engineers’ visits for residents, providing useful automations and enabling customer self-service. While many of these features are best-suited to reactive repairs rather than predictive maintenance, they enable greater efficiencies for housing providers and faster outcomes for residents.
Tools for tomorrow
Equipped with the right devices, good data and appropriate automations, housing providers can achieve new levels of resident care and property maintenance, not only to meet regulations but also to excel in their own right.
While this sector-wide transformation has presented challenges, it feels like a timely and necessary step, and a process which ultimately benefits housing providers in achieving previously-unthinkable efficiencies to improve residents’ lives.
For any enquiries about our HappyIoT solution or to see the platform demonstrated, please don’t hesitate to get in touch via r.hayward@socialtelecoms.org.uk or call 01743 730 100.
Ross Hayward is the IoT product manager at Social Telecoms.
