Twine Plus the Cloud, A Whole new Way to Monitor Your World :The Sarah Connor Control Chronicles

Cloud Control Language.  Is this the new buzz word for the Controls Industry?  I’m Sarah Connor, and during this edition of the Sarah Connor Controls Chronicles, I am all focused on Cloud Control Language.  It’s summer, and my son John and I are visiting Disney’s Epcot.  And what does one do while waiting in line (besides wishing that one could somehow exploit the Fast Pass thing)? I’m contemplating Building Management Systems and the whole fascination with Cloud Control Language.  Here I stand in front of that huge golf-ball-geodesic-dome that Disney calls Spaceship Earth thinking about controls.  Now, I have enjoyed this attraction nearly every year since its inception, so by now, I have the narration just about committed to memory.  Why does this attraction fascinate me?  Because it is all about communications, and how since the dawn of time, humans have made advances in technology whenever they realized that communications was the key.  As soon as communications failed, like during the fall of Rome (smell the smoke?), civilization had to retreat and rebuild.  As I climb aboard and recline for my trip through Spaceship Earth, I can still recall the voice of Walter Cronkite’s as he narrated this attraction in the 1980s.  “Ancient hunters banded together to meet the challenges of this hostile world.”  Walter knew what the Controls Industry was going to be facing in the future!  Aren’t we all “ancient hunters” looking to tame the mammoth of Building Energy Inefficiencies?

Walter explained that in order to make progress, and to pass knowledge to other tribes and future generations who would also face the mammoth beasts, hunters needed to develop a common language.  Progress didn’t hinge upon which tribe was better than the other, but upon communicating and sharing ideas in the quest to achieve a common goal.  Did you ride Epcot’s Spaceship Earth way back before the dawn of the Internet?  I did, and with amazement, I imagined a world where kids across the world could communicate between screens in their bedrooms.  And it all happened just as Walter Cronkite told us it would.  This week, my son John was searching for a unique pair of Roshe Run sneakers, so he was chatting it up via a “screen in his bedroom” with a guy in Australia!

Progress is the tail that wags in the wake of communications.  So, Controls Industry, the time is now, and the technology is in place.  The future of your quest to conquer energy efficiencies and lasso the power of better building management is sitting at your feet today.  Cloud Control Language means one important thing – commonality of communications.  The future is upon us.  And I would know, because remember that I have seen the future.  In September, a little device called Twine will launch.  I can set Twine on top of my drier so that when it stops shaking, a push message will be sent to my phone telling me that my clothes are dry.  Or I can put a Twine on the floor where my basement sometimes floods, so I’ll get an alert on my phone if I need to grab a mop.

You know what follows; if you can monitor it, you can control it. Let the progress begin!

So either sit back and enjoy the ride, or get involved and be a part of the solution.  In either case, Cloud Control Language is poised to take building management systems into the dawn of a new era.