Harness the Power of Powerline

Narrowband Powerline Communication is one of the many technologies we support at Go-IoT. The beauty is that our customers and partners can mix and match from different vendors and standards, but still have it appear as the same ecosystem. And we do it better than possibly anyone else on the planet.

N-PLC communication enables monitoring and control via existing powerlines. We have developed a fantastic Powerline Plugin, PINGO, for our customers who mainly are system integrators, real estate owners, and anyone who wants to do more with buildings and peripherals. It gives them a powerful tool in their tool box, creating value and reducing integration costs at speeds of installation unmatched with most things on the market.

Don’t take our word for it, listen to what our customers in Norway are saying:

“As soon as the PINGO Master is installed, a network infra-structure in the whole building is created. As PINGO narrowband is enough to transmit the limited amount of data needed, why should we bother for Ethernet, having to manage two types of network”

“Lazy, or genius?”

If you do a fast install with our IoT-Edge Gateway, the DINGO, and you already have Ethernet or good WiFi coverage, that could be a better choice than using PINGO, as you get better bandwidth than with Narrowband Power-line Communication. However if you have no Ethernet and no WiFi coverage. PINGO would be the first resort over dragging out cables that could be very expensive and time consuming. Ethernet cables are not always available, and it is exactly therefore technologies as PINGO exist and why we have put so much effort into it!

PINGO is a Master/Slave technolgy. Only the Master can initiate communication to a slave.

More tools in the toolbox allows greater flexibility
If you had these connectivity possible at a particular IoT-Edge (DINGO) location:

• PINGO
• Ethernet
• WiFi

Ethernet could definitely be the best option, but it all depends on how much data you need transferred, how often and what you are looking to communicate with.

Everything underneath the same umbrella

And that’s why it’s great to have the possibility to use a combination of solutions without worrying about technology. That’s what we do. We enable others to stop worrying about technology and for the end user never to even think about technology. It should work as intended with value for money all the while reducing future switching costs and moving away from severe lock in effects.

REST assured, Vendor Agnostic Solutions from the Edge to the Cloud
This means that you can start with installing our DINGO/LoRA Gateway, combine it with Powerline Masters and Slaves, as well as having a RS-485 Modbus plugin communicating with existing wired equipment all in the SAME box. All of this will talk BACnet IP, of course, but also have the ability to harmonize everything at the edge, allowing a bi-directional gateway, up to the cloud and back in a secure way.

Then it’s up to you to decide which 3rd party applications you want to connect and have it communicate with the whole building.

Where to Begin with Smarter Buildings?

This means that it matters less where you start with a smarter building. You need to think about the long term aspects but with harmonizing solutions like ours on the edge, it matters less than ever before what technology will be used. Now systems integrators can focus on solving the solutions with the best tech from your favorite vendors and let us do the work of harmonizing, standardizing and tagging the data from sensor to cloud.

But even though it matters less with the overall strategy, it matters MOST. Independent of the size of the project, You need to have a game plan of stakeholders, processes, culture, technology and an interoperable perspective of both OT and IT.

What do you want to do? What does it look like today? Who’s going to be involved? What’s the ROI? What are the benefits you are looking for and for whom? Etc etc. Moving forward and creating Truly smart buildings is definitely something which Professionals need to do.

Do more with less, without the worry of making a mess

But the Proof of Concept and subsequently total solution can be done faster, with more quality and without the BIG worries of lock-in effects like in the past. That’s the whole premise of IoT that you can do more, with less. But as always, if you don’t think about the end game and ROI, you won’t get very far. But a successful POC, showing value early to the masses, might lead you faster to the goal than it have been in the past.

Starting with the Roots or the Fruits is an ongoing discussion and as always, it depends. Our take on this is that there are no one size fits all and everything has to be considered in advance. But there are definitive benefits of creating value early for the end user to get that momentum going. And subsequently move towards the more “important” aspects of Building Automation, involving HVAC-R and also adding sensors, all the while focusing on creating anticipatory humanistic buildings and ecosystems.

In a modular, open and secure way. That’s the way the future works. Open standards, Service Transparency and Digital Twins enabling a platform economy for Buildings and Smarter Cities.

#TheBuildingWhisperer