In the first of her Light + Building show reports, Yasmin Hashmi focusses on the KNX Association presence at the show, the ZVEH E-Haus and the formation of Women in KNX.
Light + Building, the leading international biennial trade fair for lighting and building services technology, took place from 3 – 8 March 2024 at the Frankfurt Messe, Germany. With a tag line of ‘Be electrified’, this year’s show played host to over 2100 exhibitors and received more than 151,000 visitors.
KNX always has a major presence at the show, with several stands in the massive building automation halls. This year, the main KNX Association stand featured display panels from 25 members, and these will be covered in the next issue, but if you can’t wait, a taster in the form of video summaries can be found here.
The focus of this article is on the KNX Association presence, along with the KNX-dominated E-Haus exhibit by the ZVEH (Central Association of the German Electrical and Information Technology Trades), and the formation of Women in KNX.
KNX Stand The main KNX Association stand in Hall 12.0 was a welcoming space that featured various areas of special interest. Visitors could get a grand overview of the KNX ecosystem landscape, find out more about ETS6.2, take part in the KNX Championship, listen to presentations, talk to the numerous KNX experts on the stand and have some fun playing the Kahoot! game.
The overall theme and Light + Building focussed on saving energy, and in line with this, KNX Association Marketing Manager, Casto Cañavate noted, “This year, visitors to the KNX booth were not only impressed by the change in style but also by our commitment to sustainability. As we believe in the impact of our technology to foster more sustainable homes and buildings, we redesigned our booth with a fresh style and recycled materials intended for reuse at multiple events. This ensures that our sustainable approach endures over the years.”
KNX ecosystem
A very long display panel in the centre of the KNX stand showed the KNX ecosystem. This was more than just an impressive distillation of the scope of KNX, it made no distinction between the latest extension to the KNX ecosystem, namely KNX IoT, and KNX Classic, and showed working examples of applications that can help the planet and improve our lives.
From left to right, it started with examples of services and applications using KNX IoT which allows IPv6 networks and products that communicate using such networks, to be included in the KNX ecosystem. Jesus Arias, responsible for KNX Association Membership and Business Development, demonstrated human-centric lighting by startup Kumux, which sells data as a service. The system sets the colour temperature according to a multitude of factors using data that goes via an API server through a secure Tapko KNX IP interface to a Weinzierl dimming module. According to Jesus, “The IoT opens up KNX to a huge number of companies who use Wi-Fi and can now join the KNX ecosystem. ETS6.2 supports this – it is a new era.”
Next was a demo of a Simlab digital twin of the KNX stand using Wiser for KNX from Schneider Electric and offline voice control from ProKNX to dim lights in various areas, followed by indoor air quality monitoring and control using KNX IoT over Thread and a mix of products from Cascoda, Siemens, Nordic Semiconductor and Weinzierl.
At the centre of the display, under the umbrella of ETS as ‘one tool to integrate all devices into one secure ecosystem’ was a wide range of products connected via wired and wireless media, and supporting the whole gamut of building control applications including security cameras, alarms, access, shutters, blinds/shading, heating, ventilation, air-conditioning, smart meters, fault detection, white goods, multimedia, audio, and car charging.
This was followed by extended energy management including energy generation which, unusually, exploited PV technology in the form of external blinds rather than panels. The electricity was being stored in a Sonnen battery and monitored/optimised using Symcon software.
ETS6.2
The ETS (Engineering Tool Software) section of the KNX stand had two experts on hand to answer visitors questions and show them what’s new in the recently-launched ETS6.2. This allows KNX IoT to behave as any other KNX device and treats it in the same way, with objects linked to groups. An existing feature, namely archive collaboration, was also being promoted. It is a very visual way of showing the status of shared projects, and will be joined in the autumn by a new Smart Linking feature which will allow drag and drop linking of functions with objects, and will perform various functions automatically.
The E-Haus
The ZVEH always has a fascinating stand at Light +Building. In 2021 the organisation created the profession of Expert Building Systems Integrator, and has been promoting the ‘E-Haus’ cutting-edge smart and sustainable home for some years now.
At this year’s show, the entire E-Haus was controlled as one system using KNX products from 80 different companies for functions such as energy management and optimisation using Busbaer software with live weather data, and control of lighting, security cameras, e-charging, white goods and kitchen devices, including offline voice control using the ProKNX Aragon system. The house featured PV energy generation and storage, e-charging and heatpumps, monitoring of electricity, water, gas and air quality, and human-centric lighting.
In the bathroom there was a heated mirror with integrated display to show all sorts of info such as weather, news, car charge status, fitbit data and a textual display of voice commands and replies; and voice could be used to get the shower ready. In the kitchen, shelves and wall cupboards on lifts could be controlled by switches and/or voice, whilst in the bedroom, for assisted living, there was a fall-sensing floor that can call for assistance if required. And finally, in the living room, an app from Basalte was being used to control the TV via a bridge from ise.
Women in KNX
What a joy it was to see an initiative started by KNX Professionals Katja Schuster and Marco Koyne, namely ‘Women in KNX’. Women are massively under-represented in the engineering trades as a whole, so anything that provides encouragement and support has to be welcome.
The inaugural meeting took place at Light + Building and was considered a great success, with around 60 women attending, plus male allies. As Katja Schuster put it, “It’s time to be proud of our diversity and increase the number of women in our community. Most of the women there were able to immediately identify with my professional values and experiences, and the presentation of Frau Brunck and the subsequent panel discussion also had an ‘aha’ effect on the male guests.”
As KNX Association CEO Heinz Lux put it “It was such a big pleasure being at the foundation of Women in KNX. The women present share the same passion for KNX and represent all women in KNX worldwide. They are the best proof for the fact that there is no border or limitation for KNX: if you like this technology, you are able to solve any project and any development, wherever and whoever you are.”
Just before leaving the show, we had the pleasure of being introduced by Heinz to Wolfram Friedl who co-invented KNX with the now President of KNX Association, Franz Kammerl. Wolfram was naturally very proud of what KNX has become, and told me that the idea for KNX originally came from the military. I may explore this further…
Conclusion
This was a great effort by KNX Association, KNX Professionals, KNX Germany and the ZVEH in reaching out to the international KNX community and newcomers and showing the best that KNX has to offer. As KNX Association CTO/CFO, Joost Demarest, puts it, “I believe that Light + Building 2024 will go down in history as the edition where KNX again showed that it is far from a rusty old technology, but continually re-invents itself, be it from a technical or marketing/sales perspective. Both the KNX manufacturers with their KNX product novelties as well as the KNX Association/KNX Germany/KNX Professionals (with KNX IoT supported in ETS6 and the examples of energy management applications) clearly underlined this.”
And finally, if you’re a KNX super-fan, can you better this?
Yasmin Hashmi is the Editor of KNXtoday magazine.
