Report: KNX International Training Centre Conference
By Julian Barkes, BEMCO. The annual Training Centre Conference took place on 18th October at the Grand Hotel Bristol, Stresa, Italy, overlooking the beautiful Lake Maggiore, a very pleasant 45-minute train journey from Milan. KNX Certification Manager, Ufuk Unal, went through the updates that have been made to the training documentation this year and floated […]
Sponsor’s Article: reconstructing a KNX home configuration out of the ETS project file to quickly retrofit voice control, visualisation apps and the IoT
By Urban Marovt, 1Home Solutions The global home automation market is going crazy at the moment, to the point where it seems that soon, every device we bring into our homes will be smart. Over the past three years, the IoT has gained a lot of traction due to its user-friendliness and the fact that […]
Looking Ahead: does the wireless light controller spell the end for the dimmer rack?
By Simon Buddle, Future Ready Homes. We still rely heavily on copper in our industry. It forms the backbone of any system we install. Power and communications travel back and forth from switches to dimmer panels to lighting fixtures. It’s all very ordered, and everyone knows what to expect from the respective parts. The dimmer […]
Interview: Siemens CEO of Smart Infrastructure, Cedrik Neike, on smart buildings
Cedrik Neike holds an MBA at the INSEAD Business School as well as a Bachelor (Honours) in Engineering and Business Finance. He started his career at Siemens as a Product Line Manager for Wireless Internet. In 2001 he joined Cisco Systems for several management positions in the US and Germany, returning to Siemens in 2017. […]
Sponsor’s Whitepaper: Energy Harvesting Switch radio protocols
By Simon Ziegler, ZF Friedrichshafen AG. Due to the rising connectivity of mobile devices, industrial applications, smart home applications and vehicles, the importance of wireless technology for data communication is increasing continuously. As a result, wireless technology grew by 32% in 2018 compared to the previous year, and now accounts for 6% of the total […]
Tutorial: controlling SMI and shading using KNX
By Mark Warburton, Ivory Egg. After a recent expansion at Ivory Egg headquarters, we have been making some improvements to the control system to make sure we are showing the full potential of KNX. It’s always great fun to get back on the tools and be reminded of just how functional a KNX system can […]
Overview: predictive building management relies on intelligence and standards
By Philip R. Juneau, ATC. The international community is truly in an interesting mindset these days; with the nearly endless streams of information flooding through our conscious state, we rarely have time to quiet our minds in order to think creatively, innovatively, or even rationally. I’m a member of Generation X, which means that as […]
Sponsor Article: why open frameworks matter
By Chris Irwin, J2 Innovations. When a technology is new, it is usually very expensive and proprietary because it is difficult to achieve and complex to deliver. This was certainly true of computers; which were hugely expensive compared to now and each manufacturer offered systems that were unique to them, because they designed all the […]
The Climate Challenge: the advantages of programmable logic control
By Simon Buddle, Future Ready Homes. Well it’s been another extraordinary summer of weather. One stage of the Tour De France had to be cut short due to a snow blizzard in July, that closed a mountain pass. To be more accurate, it was the landslide as a result of the water that caused the […]
Case study: Porto Mykonos – a hotel operating at half power in Greece
By Nick Gliatis, GDS Digital Systems. Comprising 90 rooms, Porto Mykonos is a luxury hotel located at the famous and bustling port of Mykonos Town on the Greek island of Mykonos. This is where all the action happens, both by day and by night. The hotel was to undergo major renovations, including expansion, so a […]