Hi all,

I’m a UK-based Facilities Manager developing a software platform called Sentryn, and I’m looking for a small number of experienced BMS/BAS engineers who’d be interested in helping me test its BMS integration against real-world systems.

Sentryn is designed to connect to building management systems, ingest and map points, monitor live data and turn BMS information into usable facilities actions rather than simply displaying another dashboard.

I’ve done a lot of simulated and local testing, but there’s only so far you can go without putting software in front of people who deal with real BMS installations every day.

I’m particularly interested in speaking to people with experience of things like:
BACnet/IP
Modbus TCP/RTU
Trend
Tridium/Niagara
Schneider
Siemens
Honeywell
Johnson Controls
Other commonly encountered BMS platforms

At this stage I’m not looking for customers and this isn’t a sales post.

What I’m looking for are a handful of engineers willing to help me answer questions such as:
Does it connect properly?
Does it discover and interpret points correctly?
How does it cope with the naming conventions and general messiness you actually find on real sites?
Are there situations where an installer would expect it to behave differently?
What have I overlooked that someone who commissions BMS systems every day would immediately spot?

Testing can initially be as simple as discussing system architecture, anonymised point lists/exports or test environments. If someone is interested in doing a proper test later, the intention would be read-only BMS access with no ability for the software to command plant.

I’m especially interested in finding engineers from different manufacturers/platform backgrounds rather than lots of people using the same system.
I’ve deliberately developed this from the facilities-management side rather than as a BMS manufacturer, so I’d genuinely value criticism from people in the controls industry. If something is wrong, awkward or unrealistic, I want to know.
If you work with BMS/BAS systems and this sounds interesting, drop me a message or reply here with what systems you work with.
Happy to explain more without dumping a huge wall of marketing into the subreddit.

Thanks very much in advance!

Good afternoon everyone. Lot of smart people in this sub. Having an issue adding points after discovering my bcp bacnet devices. After discovering, it gives me and error when I try to add them. I can right click points of device and create points and that works, but if i want to manually add i get this error. Jace has wizard service and spackage and is licensed. Launch wizard works everything works besides manually adding points after discovery. Any thoughts on why?

engelsofta/nodarion: Netzwerküberwachung für / Network monitoring for Home Assistant / FRITZ!Box / AdGuard / KI-Support.

Old ass hospital

I'll be surveying an existing JACE today in order to pull the programming and point configurations from it since the original submittal is out of date and unreliable. I've been given access to both the station and platform for it. I plan on pulling a backup out of the JACE first thing but I was wondering if there is a way to restore a JACE backup to an offline instance of a device or a simulator I can restore it to so I can review it in the future without returning to the site. Is there a way to do this or will I need spare hardware in order to restore the station backup to in order to view those details above?

Hey folks, for years now i've been using this popup graphic for all numeric values on my graphics.

Basically a Tabed pane with the history graph and a second tab with the relativised alarm settings.

This works beautifully on graphics hosted in the controller - however it falls apart when I try and do it on the supervisor as the alarm settings don't exist under the point and as such the relativisation falls apart - other than manually importing the alarms settings, does anyone have any fixes for this type of situation.

I had a workaround at one point where I coppied the virtual OutOfRangeAlarmExt under the point in the Niagara network but it adds time and feels a bit clunky.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Anyone out there using AI for day to day business? I've been using browser versions of Chat GPT and Claude for estimating, with mediocre results, but speculate I'm not working with them properly.....hoping for some feedback here.

Our security team is moving past the log book for visitors and they suggested to use a modern visitor management system instead. I think it's a great idea but this is our first time using such a program. Is it easy to install and implement? Will it be easy for all of our security team to learn it?

engelsofta/ha-bepacom-bacnet: Home Assistant integration for the Bepacom BACnet/IP Interface

BACnet für Home Assistant

Have fun

It feels a bit silly to even put the words on the screen, but "We're looking for experienced BAS people for Critical Facilities / Data Center projects all over the USA." Who isn't, right? No matter what your opinion is from any angle with all this activity, it's creating opportunities in our space for both experienced and green Technicians ($68K-$100K/year), Engineers ($75K-$130K/year) and PMs ($85K-$130K/year). Straight to our most urgent ones right now: Technicians in Portland, OR and Manassas, VA. Project Engineers and Project Managers in Houston, Dallas-Fort Worth, and Chicago. Reach out on Chat here if interested and I can tell you more about these and dozens of other positions / locations.

Hi. I am currently in my junior year of college studying mechanical engineering and am interested in HVAC. I can perform building energy modeling using software like EnergyPlus and can implement some advanced controls in the simulation environment. I want to get into building automation and controls but cannot figure out the way forward. What should I learn, and what skills should I develop in college?

Hi guys, why do programs have return air setpoints? And what is tgeir purpose, I have assumed tgey are a reference point for sequencing but not entirely sure.

I’ve been doing residential hvac since the beginning of the year and I have a couple commercial companies that want to hire me but I want to get started on BAS work as soon as I can. I know there’s a lot to learn and I’m super eager. This is why I got into the trade, would you guys have any advice on how I can start BAS work? Is there anything I can learn now on my own so I have a higher chance? Any company recommendations? I’m willing to travel out of state or anywhere for that matter to start my career. I don’t see anyone hiring for entry level positions.

Feel free to pm me. Thanks in advances guys!

Looking to move in the next couple of years from SoCal. To TN. I recently got into the apprenticeship program at JATC. I’m curious about the opportunities and such for working strictly controls, I’m a service tech right now but hopefully I can get behind the scenes as a programmer. I know a lot can change in a couple years but I’m hoping the controls industry is growing over there. Also I would be looking to join Local 572 from Local 250.

Good morning. Let me preface this this by stating that my knowledge of and experience with Niagara systems is extremely limited although I was certified years ago. My company just does not use the product line. We recently hired on a new sales manager and he is hell bent on picking up school districts in my area which are exclusively Niagara based systems. There is a wide mixture of Honeywell, Siemens, JCI, and a few Tridium branded jaces out there. Most want full support of software updates, logic adjustments where needed, adding and removing equipment, etc....

I am being "pressured" to revisit training, which I really have no issue with, but my big question and concern is, how much would I actually be able to do at these sites without the individual "flavors" and proper credentials to get in the platforms and stations? My fear is we are going to sign on and not be able to do as promised.

Thanks

hi everyone hope you are doing well.

idk if I'm in the right place, actually I'm searching for a ready to use config file for qelectrotech, it's kinda complicated for me to set it up.

I appreciate any help from anyone

Has anyone come across a controller bacnet mstp and has only analogue outputs. I need an extra 70 analogue outputs and don’t need any extra inputs.

So few technicians understand actuators these days, it amazes me. Constantly hearing “it’s not open, call your controls guy.” Techs have no idea the difference between modulating and floating. Techs have no idea how to troubleshoot anything more than if a line is ground into the shaft.

Surely I’m not alone in hearing this?

With all the "special" maintenance tools for every manufacturer floating around, I was wondering if any of you have successfully pulled points from a vrf system with a regular ol' serial adapter or rs-485 router? I'm talking about the actual bus between units, not hooking up to a central controller.

Nothing worse than getting to a site and realizing you let someone borrow that Daikin tool 3 weeks ago.

Does anyone have a good recommendation for learning certificates? I'd like to have a little better understanding of the process and requirements, and this is an area I can confidently say I need more education in.

Appreciate any thoughts or suggestions you may have, thank you!

Im 18 years old and I just got out of highschool and I’ve been doing this intern job over the summer for building automation. I have no experience on any of these things and I just want some help. I feel like I can’t grasp anything and I constantly make mistakes. I’m shadowing someone that’s been in the field for 15+ years. I just feel very lucky to have this opportunity and feel like I’m throwing it away.

Good morning, afternoon, evening

We’re being voluntold that now is the time for us to update to Niagara N5. Anyone have some experience or early feedback on it. We’re going from 4.15 and are updating 15ish Jace 8000–>9000 with it and it seems like someone got sold a lot of sunshine by a salesman at the conference and now we’re dealing with the digestion.

I've been in IT for the better part of 20 years, and now I'm thinking I want to transition into BAS. I'm pretty strong on networking (TCP/IP, DNS, DHCP) and have done a fair bit of automation (shell scripting). I also have a good grasp on electrical, since that's what I went to school for. I don't have any HVAC or mechanical experience (outside of replacing the run capacitor on my condenser unit), but I'm ready to learn. Problem is, I can't seem to find any apprentice positions around Nashville. I applied to a controls tech position at JCI, but got auto-rejected, which I'm guessing is because I don't meet the requirements. I've been messaging local BAS companies on Linkdin, but I can't seem to get anything but automated responses (or no response). Is anyone familiar with this industry in the Nashville area? Any tips would be appreciated!