A smart entry into Connected Building Management

Honeywell, a global leader in connected building technology, announced the availability of its innovative Honeywell Action Management application. Designed to monitor building management applications 24/7, it enables early detection of critical failures and delivers notifications straight to mobile devices. Improved equipment uptime, quick diagnosis and coordinated issues fixing helps building operators, facility managers and service engineers to more effectively use resources.

Part of Honeywell’s Connected Building Management portfolio, which leverages the potential of the Internet of Things (IoT), the Honeywell Action Management fault detection and management service sends information from multiple data sources within a building services infrastructure directly to the Honeywell Sentience™ cloud platform, where rules-based algorithms monitor and review the data 24/7. When an issue occurs or an alarm is identified, notifications are sent to an app on Apple iOS or Google Android enabled mobile devices. The solution offers complete flexibility, allowing multiple users to only subscribe to those alarms that are directly applicable to their job roles.

Issues can be acknowledged, tracked, escalated and managed in real time, while a notification and chat function allows quick problem solving through collaboration with subject matter experts and, where appropriate, those experts could even consist of external suppliers. Alarms can also be sorted by type, location, time and user, and prioritised for immediate attention, put on snooze, or ignored, depending on their importance. This helps to avoid unnecessary site visits and ensures the efficient use of facilities management based labour. Just as importantly, these detailed data-driven alerts allow precise handling of issues and help create safer and more comfortable working environments.

Honeywell Action Management is available in three distinct packages – Basic, Enhanced and Custom. The Basic Package provides a set of alarm notifications, while the Enhanced Package offers additional rules-based notifications and enhanced action management features. It uses algorithms to detect basic faults like outside air temperature sensor malfunctions, air handling unit overloads, generator short cycling, BEMS communication issues, manual overrides, actuator oscillation and energy profile anomalies. Finally, the Custom Package can be configured to suit an end user’s specific needs.

Available exclusively through CentraLine’s highly skilled Partner companies, Action Management customers will benefit from a fully comprehensive support infrastructure.

Uwe Schlenker, Customer Marketing Manager at CentraLine, commented, “Honeywell Action Management represents a step change in the way that alarms and events are received and dealt with on the move, initiating a rapid response for faster decision making and reducing the impact of downtime. The ability to see trends and conditions in real time from any location optimises the performance of a building services infrastructure, reducing operating costs by managing workload and labour more effectively. Honeywell Action Management is the latest addition to our ever expanding Connected Building Management portfolio and we look forward to announcing further innovations in due course.”

For more information including demonstration videos, please visit centraline.com/connected

CentraLine, Honeywell's partner brand, offers with MERLIN NX a freely programmable Niagara 4 BACnet MS/TP room controller that can cover all requirements for heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) as well as the additional control of light and shading systems.  In order to understand the benefits that this integrated solution offers for greater energy efficiency and comfort, CentraLine has developed a public webinar in which all interested parties can participate.

Experts for integrated room management

The webinar will be held on two dates: Wednesday, 19 June and Friday, 19 July, each from 9 a.m. (CEST). The webinars will be conducted by CentraLine Senior Product Management, held in English and last around 60 minutes.

Contents of the webinar

The focus is on the MERLIN NX and how the controller can improve the performance of room control. Among other things, it will be demonstrated on how the highest energy efficiency class A of EN 15232 can be achieved by integrating HVAC, lighting and shading across all building types, from office buildings to hospitals, hotels and educational institutions. Other topics include innovative application creation and flexible adaption after commissioning, as well as the possibility of offline and live engineering. In addition, the MERLIN NX’s master-follower-concept enables a simple and fast way of commissioning a large number of rooms.

Registration

More information and an opportunity to register for the webinar can be found at centraline.com/merlinnx.

CentraLine by Honeywell is launching MERLIN NX, a programmable Niagara 4 BACnet MS/TP room controller that enables integrated room management and offers outstanding application engineering and installation advantages.

Enhanced energy efficiency

Being freely programmable, MERLIN NX can work with most applications, from heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC), to lighting and shading. It can communicate energy demands to the plant control level, optimizing not only energy use for cooling and heating but also overall energy efficiency.

Using CentraLine’s Niagara eXtended (NX), the room controller is part of the Single-Tool-Engineering throughout the building management system, thereby also offering consistent and flexible handling options for the building operator – from room and plant control to supervisor level and even cloud-managed solutions.

With common control strategies across HVAC, lighting and shading, MERLIN NX ensures the top-level classification A of the EN 15232 standard and helps to meet EU CO2 reduction targets. The use of state-of-the-art function blocks enables both efficient engineering as well as maximum energy savings. The function block “shading”, for example, supports height and slat angle positioning. It has inputs for emergency signals (e.g., strong wind), manual settings, and application-specific settings (freely programmable). With all relevant information included in the function block, application engineers do not need to know all the details regarding the sunblind positioning. They can focus on customer specific application logic like activating the blind for solar heating if a room is unoccupied.

Engineering advantages

Niagara eXtended offers a multitude of engineering advantages for room control applications:

·      Single-Tool-Engineering through NX applies throughout the whole building management system (BMS), thereby seamlessly integrating room control strategies.

·      Offline Engineering minimizes the time spent on engineering at the project site. The CentraLine partner can prepare everything in the office, saving time on the construction site and enabling the entire project to be handled efficiently.

·      Live Engineering enables easy application optimizations without any need for downloads. This includes display of live values from controllers on a function block level. A special algorithm allows fast differential downloads.

Cost-effective installation and commissioning

MERLIN NX uses BACnet MS/TP a simple 2-wire cabling that can be used for installation. This greatly reduces costs not only for new construction but also for refurbishments where the 2-wire cabling often already in place can be reused. To cover different installation requirements, the controller can be universally mounted on DIN rails, small installation housings and onto walls, including optional terminal covers.

The installation costs are minimized further as the controller offers 24 VAC aux. output voltage, allowing direct connection and powering of field devices. Furthermore, the Master-Follower-Concept enables the fully automated rollout of application changes from a master controller to all other networked controllers, allowing quick adaptations whenever needed. This is a particular advantage in buildings with numerous similar rooms, such as those found in hotels or large office buildings. This enables faster programming and commissioning as well as simplifies subsequent changes.

Future-safe investment

The free programmability of the MERLIN NX makes adaptations to future application needs easy. Its vendor-independent offering (Niagara, BACnet) keeps all options open for the future. New Connected Building Management services can easily be utilized via the integrated cloud connector on plant control and supervision levels.

MERLIN NX is available in 24 VAC and 230 VAC versions and with various input/output options.

More information can be found on www.centraline.com/merlinnx.

What is Niagara eXtended?