Social Networking Reaches The Building Sector

It was only a matter of time before someone in the smart building space took the best aspects of Facebook and the iPhone app store and weaved them into a solution that would help building owners, managers, and occupants harness big data to drive new levels of efficiency and building performance monitoring. Johnson Controls took a step in that direction recently when it announced the launch of the Panoptix platform at Greenbuild in Toronto.

At its core is an open technology platform that can pull together building data from systems that rarely, if ever, speak to each other - from the building automation system (BAS) to the meter system to weather data, security systems, and others.

A suite of cloud-hosted building efficiency applications allows users to link their own building management systems to the platform and start monitoring and managing their buildings. The initial suite consists of four applications:

- Continuous Diagnostics Advisor

- Measurement and Verification Monitor

- Carbon and Energy Reporter

- Custom Analyzer

Over time, Johnson Controls and its partners, such as IBM, will continue to develop new applications. By 2012, the app suite will be open to independent software developers, as well. Users buy the apps on a subscription basis rather than as a one-time purchase, thereby making them accessible and affordable to a broader base of potential customers. And the apps, of course, can be accessed from any Internet-connected device.