BMS - Smartthings

[Jimbouk]

As I am now approaching first fix, I have already succumbed to z-wave controlled roof windows, and installed lots of ds18b20 sensors in the ufh screed. Just started playing with a smartthings hub in my current home too...

 

So as I debate on which MVHR unit I go for, I have started noticing that some have a BMS output, Building Management System? What is one of these? What does it talk too? Can I link it to Smartthings / internet?

 

The Adroit MVHR has web access, but cost the best part of £1k more than the ventaxia kinetic, the latter I could control via a smartthings switch, (well at least put boost on), also it has a BMS port...

 

Can anyone enlighten me?

[Jeremy Harris]

Building Management Systems are very common in commercial builds, and have been around for a long time, certainly decades.  They haven't really become that common in domestic builds, but some of the automation systems, like Loxone, come close to having the same functionality.

 

The systems I'm familiar with in commercial buildings use a network infrastructure all around the building, for everything from light switches to a wide range of environment and occupancy sensors.  Something like a light switch will really just be a device on a bus that sends a specific command to the BMS, and the BMS then activates power to whatever light the switch is supposed to control.  It means that the switch can be over-ridden by occupancy sensors, alarms, timers etc in the BMS, to turn things on or off irrespective of the last switch command.

 

Similarly, the BMS monitors and controls the environment in the building, by using the sensors to control heating, cooling and air handling systems, often including humidification. 

 

The big snag is that there is a range of proprietary network systems and data formats, so getting a BMS from one manufacturer to talk to components from another manufacturer is often a bit fraught.  To make things more complex, the encoding and data formats each manufacturer uses are often kept pretty secret, making it even harder to "mix and match" system components.

 

Some devices do offer a "vanilla" interface, often a serial bus type arrangement, perhaps to a known and agreed standard (something like RS422), in which case interfacing them can be reasonably striaghtforward.  What you need to find out is the data format that's available and the controls or sensors that are connected to the bus.  For example, our MVHR has a two wire data bus, that seems to use RS422, with a proprietary (and secret) data format.  This allows the MVHR control unit to display lots of data from many sensors inside the MVHR, as well as send command to the MVHR to change the fan speed, target room temperature, hysteresis, cooling and heating options, control of external devices via a small bank of internal power relays, etc.  In theory all of this could connect to a BMS, if the data format was known.

[Jimbouk]

Thanks for the insight.

 

Does sound challenging to simply integrate together. Also having played with Smartthings for the last fortnight, I have found it somewhat flaky, so unlikely to want to rely on it.

 

Leaning towards the Adroit system....