If you didn’t get to 2015 RealComm|IBcon in San Antonio — and you missed out on the incredible 2-day visionary voyage of Real Change – Right Now, this general session video captures, in small part, the enormous importance and depth of the event. Tridium’s Nino DiCosmo and John Sublett, and a host of industry experts spoke, and the dazzling Bran Ferren, a virtual Edison incarnate, delivered an amazing keynote presentation. Bran Ferren intrigued the audience with how innovation and invention will change all of our business futures in Real Estate and Building Automation Controls. As big fans of Realcomm|IBcon, ControlTrends has said many times, this is the one event each year that you simply cannot afford to miss, because it is the annual intersection where Real Estate, innovation, and building automation collide with the excitement of a world’s fair. The good thing is, there is always next year! Fabulous effort and job well done — Jim Young, Howard Berger, and Lisa Woods!
Can’t Get Enough of this COMFY Stuff: Where Social Media meets Building Automation Controls
As a member of the System Intelligence Redefined panel, Lindsay Baker, VP, Research & Marketing, at Building Robotics, addresses the attendees of the 2014 IBcon Smart HVAC Track with High Tech, High Touch technology from Building Robotics that drives participatory comfort attainment and energy savings. The ultimate compliment to any existing BMS BACnet system, COMFY takes VAV Zone Control to the next level. Take a good look at COMFY!
ControlTalk NOW for Week Ending February 16, 2014
This week’s ControlTalk NOW lead post was HACKED: Not So Good News: Smart Building Industry Experiences Major Technology Challenge! Richard K. Warner, OM|E Facility Solutions, expounds on “the rest of the Target story.” ControlTalk also welcomes Ken Sinclair, editor of AutomatedBuilding.com, our industry’s Library of Alexandria, and one of the most useful websites available to anybody in the building automation business. Ken talks about the mission of AutomatedBuidings.com and how it has evolved over the years to accommodate the significant changes within our industry. And, make sure to watch the Therese Sullivan interview, now posted in its entirety.
Belimo Zip Economizer, The Good, The Great, and The Incredible: The Good: We are watching the introduction of new and innovative products being released at an incredible rate! The Belimo Zip Economizer promises to deliver economizer savings and application performance on a new level! The Great: The impact of disruptive technology continues to alter the of course of business as usual. There’s going to be more ORANGE than ever — inside the building envelope, and for good reason, because the need for energy savings has never been more important.
HACKED: Not So Good News: Smart Building Industry Experiences Major Technology Challenge! Richard K. Warner, OM|E Facility Solutions, expounds on “the rest of the Target story,” and brings the reality of our present state of affairs into a very sobering and focused perspective. The HVAC industry’s over-used security through obscurity has ended abruptly.
DOE Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium, Must-Watch LA Lights Video: The DOE Municipal Solid-State Street Lighting Consortium shares technical information and experiences related to LED street and area lighting demonstrations and serves as an objective resource for evaluating new products on the market intended for those applications. Cities, power providers, and others who invest in street and area lighting are invited to join the Consortium and share their experiences.
EasyIO FG-32 Beast From the East Update: New BACnet IP Client Feature Released: Mike Marston, EasyIO’s VP Worldwide Sales, enthusiastically announced the 2013 ControlTrends Building Automation Controller of the Year, FG-32 is now available with BACnet IP Client! Users will now be able to use a 4GB card for Graphics and Histories, and a 4GB card is plenty! One Graphic is about 200K bytes and a 1 GB will give 10 some million history records.
The Worlds of Big Data, Cloud Services, and Infographics According to Bitpool: A Cloud Data Collection Platform for All: ControlTrends serves as a valuable pivot site for our industry’s trends, whether they’re leading products, solutions, software and products updates and releases, web-meetings, seminars, as well as industry insights — many of them global in origin. This industry insight is from Rav Panchalingam, a self-declared software geek from Australia. Rav uses an interesting hamburger analogy to comment on some of the biggest trends unfolding in 2014: The worlds of big data, cloud services, and infographics, as viewed from the land down under. Rav and Bitpool seem to know where the beef is and how to get it… (and the disruption continues).
Therese Sullivan Talks Smart Buildings, Google, and System Integration: Why did Google really buy Nest? What skills does the controls system integrator of the future look like? Who will win the race to the large space? To answer some of these questions Ken and I tracked down Therese Sullivan, who explores these types of topics on her blog BuildingContext.me.
Mike Marston and the EasyIO Beast – HTTP Data Histories and CSV files. Some More Show and Tell! Mike Marston, EasyIO’s VP of Worldwide Sales is passionate about his products and offering great solutions for Energy Services and overall Building Management. All done simply, via EasyIO Sedona Objects, and Open Source Tools — it’s truly amazing!
Honeywell T775 Quality Alert Bulletin: T775 Quality Alert In this Bulletin: * A limited number of T775s were incorrectly calibrated. The result was incorrect temperature readings on the Sensor A input. * The affected T775 units start with date code 1314.
ControlTalk NOW will continue to provide a weekly episode featuring the people, products, and the News of the Week shaping our world of controls, building automation, and the HVAC industry.
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Tridium’s Ed Merwin Stops By For A Chat. “Here’s my Problem, How can Technology Fix it?”
This is one-of-a-kind industry insight with Ed Merwin, Director, VYKON Automation Energy Security, and nominee for the 2013 ControlTrends Person of the Year. Ed Merwin is one of the most respected voices in the Building Automation Industry and Ed explains the enormous success of the Niagara Framework. Tridium is a software company that provides building automation services. Often starting at “Here’s my problem, how can technology fix it?” Tridium has emerged as the industry’s great web-enabled integration solution that continues to create a growing ecosystem around the Niagara Framework.
This is the first of many of ControlTrends Love to Listen and Learn (Triple L Podcasts).
Honeywell WEB-300E Controller Now Available
Honeywell is pleased to announce the availability of the WEB-300E controller, which will replace existing WEB-201 controllers over the next six months. The WEB-300E network controller is an upgrade and replacement to the existing WEB-201controller. Some of the enhancements include a built-in Static Random Access Memory (SRAM) module that ensures that the station’s data is saved upon loss of power, ability to use without a battery due to the Data Recovery Service (DRS), and the ability to operate at a higher ambient temperature. This controller is supported with WEBs-AX™ 3.7.u1or later software. 
The DRS is a feature that was introduced in the WEBs-AX 3.6 software release. DRS works by monitoring station changes and frequently saving them to the capacitor charged SRAM module to update any changes since the last station save.
Great Interview with McKenney’s Inc.’s Leroy Walden at IBcon 2013
ControlTrend’s Eric Stromquist caught up with old friend Leroy Walden, vice president of McKenney’s, Inc. Automation & Control Solutions at IBcon 2013 to discuss trends in building management systems (BMS), big data, and cybersecurity.
Leroy and Eric discuss the challenges faced by building owners and managers in making sense of [Read more…]
Not all Integration in The HVAC Industry is GOOD, Some is BAD, and Some is Just Plain UGLY
GOOD: If you are on this web-site then it’s safe to assume that you are a professional that makes your living manufacturing, specifying, selling, installing, integrating, or servicing HVAC equipment. A few tidbits about the industry: At the end 2010, the HVAC Industry was estimated to be $49.3 billion. Part of the schema of our standard of living is based on the extraordinary and advanced equipment that we’ve come to expect, with greater and greener shades of performance and efficiencies still to come. To their credit, the big equipment companies have indeed, delivered.
Yet, the equipment manufacturers constantly face what I see as the royal flush temptation – the perfect hand, [Read more…]
How is your building like a toddler shopping in Target? The Sarah Connor Control Trends Chronicle
Sarah Connor here, and it’s a Chronicles entry that I like to call “WOW on Wednesday,” featuring a new product or a new perspective. During last week’s Event, Dave Molin, VP General Manager of Honeywell Building Controls Systems, revealed current trends and future outlooks in energy. Seeing that I am Sarah Connor, sent to save the world from the predicted invasion of Energy Inefficient Machines, I listened attentively.
U.S. Energy consumption can be divided into three categories; 32% industrial, 28% transportation, 40% buildings. Yes! The largest category of energy consumption is spent on buildings. And what part of that consumption can we control? HVAC and lighting! In the past, spikes in energy pricing due to natural disasters and supply limitations have caused ripples in our economy. Generally, these interruptions are considered “episodes” from which we recover without lasting impact. But in the future, this will be completely different. Real-time pricing and demand-response implementation is here to stay. There is new awareness in energy conservation. Legislative mandates and elevated social awareness are at an all-time high. At Honeywell, 60% of their products are related to energy efficiency and conservation, so the tools are available. Your goal, as you partner with Sarah Connor to save the planet, is to understand those tools, and to effectively communicate solutions to those energy-hungry facilities managers. [Read more…]
Countdown to The Event
If you saw my earlier post, Sneak Peak:The Event, you know something very special is coming to Atlanta February 7. This video will show you more of what you can expect to see and learn at The Event.
As you can see this is the must attend event for 2012. So here are a few more things you need to know now: [Read more…]
LIVE EVENT: Sedona Frame work Easy I/O Training
Check out this recording of Mike Marston from Easy IO as he explains the sedona framework and how it will change the building automation controls industry. Continue to recording…. [Read more…]