Optergy Air Touch enhances smart building management with real-time monitoring and seamless BMS integration. Featuring wireless technology, long battery life, and cost-saving benefits, it offers facility managers intuitive control and environmental insights. Future-proof and efficient, Optergy Air Touch is the key to smarter, more sustainable buildings.
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Optergy continues to drive innovation and excellence with ongoing enhancements to its 6.X.X software suite, delivering improved usability, security, and performance. Recent updates include major operating system upgrades, a modernized user interface, advanced networking tools, and enhanced API capabilities, ensuring a seamless and future-proof user experience.
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This insightful article demystifies the often misunderstood world of Building Management Systems (BMS), shedding light on the evolution and modern capabilities of open systems. It traces the journey from proprietary, vendor-locked systems to today’s modular, vendor-neutral frameworks, emphasizing the pivotal role of interoperability through protocols like BACnet and Modbus. With a focus on flexibility, scalability, and cost-efficiency, the article illustrates how open BMS systems empower building owners and consultants to craft best-in-class, future-ready solutions tailored to their needs. Discover how these systems transform smart buildings with the adaptability and innovation of modular Lego blocks.
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At Optergy, we believe smarter building management starts with integrating Building Management Systems (BMS) and Energy Management Systems (EMS) into a single, powerful platform. Our solution empowers building operators with real-time insights and automation to optimize energy efficiency, enhance performance, and ensure robust cybersecurity—all while simplifying operational decision-making.
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Small non-residential buildings, typically under 50,000 square feet (4,645 square meters), make up about 94% of all commercial buildings in the U.S., according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Despite their large number, these buildings only account for about 44% of the total floor space, as larger buildings dominate in terms of square footage.
Optergy’s smart building solutions—combining Building Management Systems (BMS), Energy Management Systems (EMS), and tenant billing—offer exceptional value for smaller buildings. Many competitors struggle to compete in this segment due to the high cost of their solutions, and often, they do not provide a seamless integration of BMS, EMS, and tenant billing.
For a deeper dive into the benefits of combining EMS and BMS, check out the article Combining Energy and Building Management Systems.
In today’s market, most tenant billing software is subscription-based, expensive, and often only available from energy meter manufacturers. Additionally, many tenant billing systems aren’t integrated with EMS or BMS, requiring multiple vendors to implement simple workflows. Optergy simplifies this process by offering an all-in-one solution that streamlines energy management and tenant billing, allowing for easy, automated workflows like:
By incorporating Optergy Edge controllers and Optergy Air wireless sensors, building operators can further reduce costs by eliminating the need for extensive wiring, resulting in lower labour costs.
Our sales team will be in touch soon to discuss how you can enhance your offerings to end users with Optergy’s solutions.
ARBS 2024 is just around the corner! Register now and join Optergy to discover the transformative capabilities of our scalable building solutions that improve energy efficiency, optimise building performance and automate tenant billing. Along with our new booth, we’re excited to showcase the latest additions to our Optergy Air range.
Visit us at Booth #236-238 on the 28th-20th of May at ICC Sydney. We look forward to seeing you there! You can register here: https://arbs.eventsair.com/arbs-2024/visitor/Site/Register
Recent Events
Optergy’s Presence at ASEAN Conference, Melbourne: A Beacon of Collaboration
Optergy recently participated in the ASEAN Conference in Melbourne, Australia, joining a diverse array of industry stakeholders, thought leaders, and innovators.
At the conference, Optergy engaged with attendees from various backgrounds, including representatives from leading tech companies, government agencies, academic institutions, and sustainability organizations. This diverse mix provided a fertile ground for meaningful discussions, knowledge sharing, and networking opportunities.
Representatives from the ten member countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) – Brunei Darussalam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam – were among the participants. Their presence underscored the regional importance of the conference as a platform for fostering cooperation and driving progress in technology and sustainability.
As a participant, Optergy actively listened to insights from other attendees, gaining valuable perspectives on industry trends, challenges, and opportunities. By engaging in this collaborative exchange, Optergy reaffirmed its commitment to staying at the forefront of technological innovation and sustainable practices within the ASEAN region.
In summary, Optergy’s presence at the ASEAN Conference exemplified their dedication to collaboration and knowledge sharing in driving progress towards smarter, more sustainable buildings.
While most grasp the concept of avoiding vendor lock-ins, the broader scope of open systems remains enigmatic. This article strives to bring clarity to these intricate topics, offering an unbiased exploration of BMS systems.
To comprehend the current state of open systems in BMS, it is imperative to delve into their historical roots. In the past, BMS systems were typically closed and proprietary, with dominant players exercising exclusive control. However, substantial transformations occurred in the late 1990s and early 2000s when protocols began to open up, facilitating improved system communication. The true revolution unfolded in the 2000s with the emergence of open frameworks and the development of open protocols.
Today, the BMS terrain has undergone a profound transformation. Contemporary BMS systems are characterized by modularity, where various components, including management systems, plant controls, terminal unit controls, and wireless sensing devices, can be interchanged like building blocks. These systems are built on vendor-neutral principles, relying on open standards and protocols for seamless interoperability.
Interoperability is the cornerstone of these systems, facilitated by widely accepted communication protocols such as BACnet, Modbus, and REST APIs. This ensures that components from diverse vendors can communicate effectively, liberating users from the constraints of a single vendor’s ecosystem.
Open and multivendor systems are characterized by modularity, where different components of the system, such as management systems, plant controls, terminal unit controls, and wireless sensing devices, are designed to be interchangeable like building blocks. This modularity allows for the selection of the best-of-breed solutions for each specific function, rather than being tied to a single vendor’s ecosystem.
These systems promote vendor neutrality, meaning that they do not favour any particular vendor’s proprietary technology. Instead, they rely on open standards and protocols to ensure interoperability among various components from different vendors. This prevents vendor lock-in and allows for greater flexibility in choosing and switching components.
Interoperability is a fundamental aspect of open and multivendor systems. Components from different vendors should seamlessly communicate and work together. This interoperability is achieved through standardized communication protocols like BACnet, Modbus, or REST APIs, ensuring that all parts of the system can exchange data and commands effectively.
Open systems offer flexibility in terms of component selection and replacement. As technology evolves or the objectives of building owners/users change, individual components can be swapped out and replaced with alternatives without disrupting the entire system. This adaptability is crucial for the long-term sustainability of the building’s infrastructure.
The Lego block approach allows for a best-in-class strategy, where each component can be chosen based on its merit and performance. This means that building owners and operators can select the most suitable solutions for their specific needs, resulting in a more efficient and effective overall system.
Open and multivendor systems are scalable, accommodating the needs of buildings of different sizes and complexities. Whether it’s a small office or a large industrial facility, the system can be tailored by combining the right components to meet the specific requirements.
By avoiding vendor lock-in and selecting the best components for each function, open and multivendor systems can often lead to cost savings. Competition among vendors can drive down prices and improve the quality of components, ultimately benefiting the building owner.
Open and multivendor systems are designed for the long term. They can adapt to changing technology trends and continue to meet the evolving needs of the building over its entire lifecycle, extending the value of the initial investment.
The BMS industry has embarked on a journey from the confines of proprietary systems to the liberating realm of open and modular systems. While proprietary systems had their merits in the past, modern BMS systems offer unparalleled flexibility, vendor neutrality, and adaptability. By understanding the nuances of these systems, consultants, building owners, and stakeholders can make informed decisions that align with current needs and future aspirations.
The essence lies in creating an ecosystem where the assembly of modular components mirrors the versatility and ease of building with bricks, and Lego blocks for smart buildings, ensuring that technology evolves harmoniously with the changing dynamics of the built environment.
Discover how Optergy can transform your BMS experience. Visit us now and take the first step towards a smarter, more efficient future.
Transitioning to open, faster and higher bandwidth protocols allows building owners to continuously adapt to the technologies of tomorrow.
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Optergy and Tosibox partner to offer a cost-effective IoT solution for remotely managing small to medium-sized buildings.
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These buildings range in size, and we see them everywhere we look. The definition for small building varies from place to place, generally small buildings can be classified as those buildings under 50,000 square feet.
Small buildings typically include:
In our day-to-day lives, we are constantly interacting with small buildings, with each of us spending a significant amount of our time within them. That is why it is such an interesting phenomenon that small buildings are often overlooked when it comes to the latest technology or system improvements. With so many of the world’s buildings in this category, what are we doing to improve the sustainability and interactivity of the occupants within these space?
As the world moves towards net zero buildings we should question if it is possible to get a smaller building to net zero? While not every building will be a candidate for net zero there exists more opportunities than most are perhaps aware of. Even if we could not get a building to net zero, could we improve its efficiency or more importantly, could we improve the benefit of the building to the human collective? One thing that we know for sure about achieving a great outcome in the building industry, is that we need to be able to measure, verify and react positively to live data.
The interactivity of technology within buildings is also increasing at an exponential rate, and our daily existence as humans has become intertwined with our devices. We also know that as humans, our comfort is something that is held at the pinnacle of our society. Even cavemen enjoyed the warmth of a good fire! Architects work tirelessly to build buildings that ignite the human soul, and mechanical engineers build systems to keep those very souls comfortable. If technology was able to help combine traditional building systems to make them operate more efficiently, and provide greater comfort to an occupant while improving the occupant’s interaction with the space, we would truly be moving in the right direction.
Since small buildings make up so much of the global building portfolio, it is indicative that a building owner’s portfolio will also contain a significant amount of these types of buildings, no matter where you are in the world. Most successful building owners are always considering CAPex and OPex costs, but many of them are more interested in the valuation of the building.
Does the modern-day valuation of the building take into consideration the technology within the building, the building’s sustainability and how the occupants interact with the building? Perhaps not always, but more often than not we know that buildings that focus on sustainability and human connectivity have a higher tenancy, better tenants and longer tenancy rates.
Small buildings are such an important part of our society and as individuals or corporations that work daily to positively affect the building industry, so the question remains… what more can we do in this market segment?
In the years ahead, sustainability and net zero goals will only continue to grow in importance. Small building owners that get ahead of the curve now will have a property portfolio asset that stands the test of time and contributes to the goal of reaching carbon neutrality. New innovations and technologies are available that help optimise performance and improve sustainability and ESG strategies for small buildings. Contact us at Optergy if you are looking for a smart building solution to start optimising performance for your small buildings today.
