ControlTalk NOW thanks this week’s Industry Leaders and 2013 ControlTrends Awards Sponsors: Honeywell, J2 Innovations, and Contemporary Controls. The voting ballots will be emailed to all registered voters this week. Register to vote.

Breaking Down 2013 ControlTrends Awards Thermostat of The Year — The Magnificent Stats Seven:
EnTouch: More than just a thermostat, EnTouch’s James Walton, shows you all the great things the Entouch Thermostat and EMS control system can do.
Ecobee: Stuart Lomard and his team at Ecobee continue to impress with the Ecobee line of thermostats. The style and functionally of the Ecobee thermostat is not lost on the world wide ControlTrends community.
Nest: What goes a round comes a round. The innovative folks at Nest are nominated for the 2013 ControlTrends Thermostat of The Year for the second year in a row.
Honeywell Prestige: The Honeywell Prestige redefines how a thermostat can look and function and is the easiest-to-use programmable thermostat available. This RedLINK enabled line includes a: 7 Day Programming wizard, Multi-Language Options & USB setup, Customizable Service Reminders.
Viconics VT8000: The VT8000 Series is nominated for the 2013 ControlTrends Awards Thermostat of the Year and here’s why: There has never been a better hospitality solution with as much flexibility and energy savings features built into one elegant device as the Viconics VT8000.
KMC FlexStat: Small Building Automation with the KMC Controls FlexStat! From a single space to multiple zones in a building, KMC has many possible building automation solutions. Control temperature, humidity, even CO2 levels, and link that control to schedules and motion-based room occupancy for maximum energy efficiency.
Mamac MaverickStat IP-MT-201: The IP MaverickStat® Appliance has an embedded lean TCP-IP stack including HTTP, SMTP, DHCP, DNS, FTP, and ARP. The Maverick also has XML embedded with formatted input and output data. In this way, the Maverick can communicate directly with any IT system which has an XML parser. Similarly, any simple JavaScript can be used to communicate and acquire HTML data. These unique features enable the Maverick to function as an extremely low cost XML and HTML node for large enterprise IT systems.

ControlTalk NOW welcomes it first guest, DG Logik’s Arthur Lebendisky, a nominee for the 2013 ControlTrends Awards category Most Valuable Support Person of the Year. Arthur shares with the ControlTrends community just how important DG Logik, nominated for 6 ControlTrends Awards, considers technical support and Arthur gives his personal commitment to each and every DG Logik customer.

NOVO FIN Online Training: A detailed training session of the basic features of Fin Builder. We’ll start with the setup process of Fin Builder and work our way through the best practices to help you manage your project in Fin. NOVO INTEGRATIONS

ControlTalk NOW welcomes its second guest, Jason Briggs of J2 Innovations. J2 is nominated for several 2013 ControlTrends Awards: Best HVAC Controls Executive of the Year, Best Building Application of the Year, and Building Graphic Tool of the Year. Jason explains the success and growing demand for J2’s FIN Builder.

Realcomm Webinar: Best Practices – Best of the Best for 2013 Intelligent Building Technologies. Marc Petock, Vice President, Marketing, Lynxspring, Inc. Top Contributor. This best practice technology showcase will focus on the newest products, services and concepts involving the highest profile smart building applications. This webinar will provide a great deal of information about Intelligent Building Technologies in a short period of time.

Siemens Becomes Sponsor Member of OpenADR Alliance and Joins Board of Directors. Global powerhouse views OpenADR as key piece for demand response strategy. MORGAN HILL, Calif., Dec. 10, 2013: The OpenADR Alliance today announced that Siemens, a global leader in electrical engineering and electronics, has become a Sponsor Member of the OpenADR Alliance.

IT Business Edge’s: The 10 Worst Data Breaches of 2013: IT Business Edge is the leading source of IT news and information. Here’s some very interesting and scary stuff about data breaches. One of the more surprising breaches named by experts in our roundup was former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s leaks.

Honeywell announced the expansion of its Spyder™ controller portfolio with the launch of Spyder with Relays, Sylk™ I/O and Zio® Lite sylk-enabled wall modules, all of which provide added flexibility and significantly reduce installation time for contractors. “Enhancements to our Spyder controller line were designed with our contractors in mind,” said Tom Rosback, general manager-Commercial Control Systems at Honeywell.”

ControlTalk NOW welcomes its third guest, Ed Merwin, Director, VYKON Automation Energy Security, and nominee for the 2013 ControlTrends Person of the Year. Ed is a consummate professional and one of the most recognized names in the Building Automation and Integration industry. Vykon is nominated for 6 ControlTrends Awards.

Niagara Summit 2014 Powered By Possibilities! Did We Mention it’s in Vegas?What can you expect from the Niagara Summit? Amazing keynotes from industry leaders and experts. Relevant and helpful brainstorming sessions. Valuable networking opportunities. Thoughtful discussions about next-generation solutions for automation infrastructure technology. Did we mention it’s in Vegas? REGISTER NOW!

5 More HVAC Giants: Ken’s TOP 5 Information Pivot Points of Week 50: 1. The History of the Solenoid Valve: ASCO, in 1888 started out manufacturing elevator, compressor and generator controls. In 1910 ASCO became the first company to develop and manufacture a new electrically operated control device known as the solenoid valve. ASCO continued its development activity in these product areas and today manufactures products that are designed to control the flow of air, gas, water, oil and steam – practically every kind of liquid or gaseous substance.

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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