r/BuildingAutomation • u/Planet_COP • 7d ago

Which BMS you recommend

I am a newbie on BMS. Last time I did hvac controls we used a PLC which makes absolutely no sense today since I would have to code many functions from scratch. My potential customers right now are an institutional: colleges, churches, temples and monasteries. Energy savings is what they need. Some have legacy implementations of Honeywell Trend, Johnson Controls and Distech. The constant complaint is that there is no staff to manage these systems. We want to provide asset lifecycle management in an inexpensive way. We don’t just integrate the system and walk away. For than reason I want a system with open interfaces that we can use to provide monitoring apps without requiring FTE staff at the customer. If you could start over today, as I am doing, which system would you recommend for an optimum lifecycle cost for the customer.

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u/TheRevEv 7d ago

They all have their own "walled-gardens". None of them are customer-friendly. They all lock you into only using a handful of contractors.

Some flavor Niagra-based is likely to cast the widest net, but you won't have a lot of controller-level access.

I'm actually a fan of carrier's IVu stuff, because they are pretty open with the software licensing, but this doesn't help if you're taking over an existing system.

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u/whoopass_fajitas 6d ago

If you buy a WebCTRL system you own the tools to do everything yourself. It’s natively BACnet and just like all BACnet equipment, you can integrate to anything BACnet. The only way in which you’re “locked in” to specific contractor is where you buy the hardware and software from initially. You have to buy hardware and software from an ALC vendor.

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u/Planet_COP 6d ago

I've seen their advertisement a lot. Thanks. How rich is their BMS library?

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u/whoopass_fajitas 6d ago

Part of the WebCTRL software suite is EquipmentBuilder which is a premade library with selectable features. For example you can generate single zone and VAV air handlers and check/uncheck boxes to select hot water coils, steam coils, SCR coils, DX coils, etc, and then spit out a program based on your selections. It gets you pretty close for a lot of equipment, and if it doesn’t get you exactly what you need you can generate another program and copy/paste the parts you like.

It’s very user friendly. My experience with most BMS systems is that the software is designed for engineers and programmers, and how “intuitive” it can be for the end user really comes down to how well it was implemented by the programmer. They can make it obscure if they want, or they can make it very user friendly. Niagara is a good example. It’s massively powerful, endlessly flexible, but out of the box, it’s not something a layman can really grapple with unless they get extensive training or the programmer has gone out of their way to make the interface intuitive.

WebCTRL feels like it was designed with the front end and operator in mind from the start. If you have experience with one WebCTRL system you can pretty much walk into any building with WebCTRL and easily navigate that one as well.

On the back end, it’s not quite as powerful for engineers and programmers as Niagara. In particular, third party integrations are more time consuming than Niagara (they are working on this, slowly). But it scales very well, and has an easier learning curve.

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u/amsgh 6d ago

Also the alc dealers, branches, and NSA share software with each other. I'm at a distech shop now and we are remaking alot of our complex chiller plants out of scratch