The Internet of Things (IoT) has been around for a few years now, and doesn’t show signs of slowing down. Wi-Fi enabled devices, from thermostats to crockpots, are more ubiquitous than ever. Smart homes, smart buildings, even smart cities, are an extension of the same concept – the use of smart devices to feed data to cloud-based dashboards and energy management/monitoring systems.
The IoT concept has been so widely embraced that it is touching almost every industry and every marketplace. Commercial buildings have unique requirements defined as the B-IoT, the Building Internet of Things. For background and history see this article on Facilities.net. Many commercial buildings are supporting mission critical operations or the businesses they host rely heavily on the quality of the indoor environment. The only way to meet these requirements is with the local control provided by a building automation system. The BAS may locally use the data provided by B-IoT sensors and then pass that data to the cloud for use by value-added applications.
S4 has been involved with innovators in wireless technology for a long time, and we know the importance of keeping up with the industry. As a result, we are happy to announce our first integration with one of these new products, the Ecobee Wi-Fi thermostat and accessories, The S4 Open: BACnet-Ecobee Gateway. There will be more products of this type to come after the first one is officially out the door. We have always been about bridging the gaps we see in building automation. In this case, we are bringing Wi-Fi enabled devices into the traditional, local building automation system via BACnet. We will be testing this product with other manufacturers at the 2018 BACnet PlugFest next week.