The S4 Group, Inc. shared a booth with the EnOcean Alliance at the NFMT show in Baltimore last week. Traffic in the exhibit hall was steady during the times the Expo hall was open. Manning a booth is hectic and never affords enough time to talk with everyone in depth, but it does offer the chance to evaluate the overall needs and interests of the audience.
We enjoyed discussing the benefits of, and demonstrating, our S4 Open Appliances. Prior to the show we had finished the initial development phase of the S4 Open: BACnet-EnOcean® Gateway and were pleased to be able to present a working demonstration at NFMT. Many of the visitors to the booth wanted to learn about the EnOcean wireless and batteryless technology. Comments about the technology included “amazing”, “it’s green”, “it’s the answer.” Because The S4 Group, Inc. is a member of the EnOcean Alliance, we had the opportunity to develop the S4 Open: BACnet-EnOcean® Gateway. This product is a derivative of our original S4 Open Appliances and leverages all of the features and capabilities of these earlier products. We will be going to the initial field test site with the BACnet-EnOcean® gateway within the next few weeks. We look forward to the completion of the field test process and announcing product availability shortly thereafter.
Along with the new product, we were able to demonstrate the S4 Open: BACnet-N2 Router. Our flagship products enable legacy Johnson Controls Metasys® N2-based systems to open protocols for cost effective, best-in-breed building automation and energy management solutions. Conversations with a variety of NMFT attendees revealed a stronger than ever need to “open” the legacy systems and create best-of breed solutions for energy savings, visualization, and modern control algorithms.
The educational seminars and classes at NFMT were very well done. The quality of the presenters and their ability to draw from their individual industry experiences made the topics both interesting and relevant.
As a result of the show, we have a variety of leads and requests to follow up on. We had a successful show experience complete with seeing several old friends.