How do you balance the functionality and aesthetics of your BAS system?

Like person picking out a new car to drive every day, I would consider educating the customer on letting the people that use the BAS everyday in monitoring the HVAC and responding to temperature control complaints to choose the BAS vendor. And that the BAS vendor has a good record as well as good technicians that seem stable in their employer. It seems all too often that good technicians switch company's and now the building owner is locked down to some terrible "car" that no one wants to drive. Having an automobile where isn't locked down to one service provider is VERY beneficial or crucial. Design for future IoT and analytics, that's the way of the future. Involve your IT cybersecurity policies for how the BAS is updated into the future.

Choosing devices that control the building environment based on style or color is a recipe for disaster. I hope no one reads this AI recommendation and think that’s a good idea. Less obvious but unless absolutely necessary please never choose to go wireless over wired for aesthetic reasons. Wireless adds such a layer of complexity for so many things to ruin the connection. I’ve seen ZigBee wireless door/window sensors drop connectivity simply because of how the mirrors were placed in the hotel room. Think of it this way: I can’t even get 5G from my carrier’s tower standing right underneath it reliably all the time. Why would we put comfort and possibly even life safety systems on wireless connections?

Collaborating with architects and interior designers from the early stages of a project ensures that BAS components are integrated into the building’s design in a way that supports both functionality and aesthetics. For instance, conduits, wiring, and control panels can be planned to align with architectural features.

One of the most appreciated aspects of the BAS UI by end users (which are many times facility engineers) is the use of visual management to relay building conditions. Things such as flashing alarm values, color heat maps on floorplans, and animations to indicate run status can give the end users valuable information at a glance.

This really does read like an AI wrote it. This hits a hot topic button I feel very strongly about. We ask our BAS programmers/operators to be experts in far too many things and then demand even more of them. Most people that implement these systems are not trained UI/UX Designers. They usually aren’t even given the time on a project to be good UI/UX Designers even if they wanted to. It takes like the 1 person at the company who had an interest in making websites design the BAS graphics; but they always do it in a vacuum and with no support and no constant feedback coming back to them for improvements like other industries typically have. That’s why I like what the folks at NiagaraMods did with Reflow. Proven design theory out of the box.

I would suggest finding a local engineering firm that employees building commissioning agents (Cx) that can audit the systems on a seasonal basis and provide reports. Examples of this for the building owner could be to the let the faculties management or property management "do its thing" and hire a local engineering firm to provide me seasonal reports that the building fuel use is in check per other building of the same size and type (or EnergyStore score, etc.), IAQ is maintained by lighting logging indoor air quality with 3rd party data loggers, CMMS or computerized maintenance management work orders are kept up where this could be tracked with analytics to show trends in the productivity, and building occupant surveys positive feedback.

This was one of the better AI suggestions. I don’t want to repeat the good perspective answer Ben mentioned on this, but I’d like to echo the importance of ongoing commissioning—especially if you didn’t even get any real commissioning performed. There are tools out there specializing in this as a service offering but it’s important to just be able to track simple things like “is the building still adhering to its design scope?” And then we have to understand and educate people that it’s okay if it’s not—so long as it is justified. Maybe it was bad design, or bad implementation, or bad maintenance… or all of the above? Point is to make the building work better and use data and analytics to support those efforts.

Generally I agree with this but you do run into potential issues where if you do get so dogmatic about adhering to these guidelines you’ll quickly get so disenchanted with how the real built environment actually gets implemented. Does BACnet/MSTP need one, two or no terminating resistors at either end of the daisy chain or not? What does the specification say? Best advice I ever got on this was “just do whatever makes the network more stable.” If you follow the standard and realize it doesn’t work… being so inflexible in its application is a recipe for frustration and false sense of importance. To quote Pirates of the Caribbean, “the code really is more like guidelines anyway.” Valuable resources, but not some SOP to follow.

This is extremely hard to achieve and do in practice—especially well. The main issue stems from the fact that sometimes real life equipment can/will shut off when updating/upgrading existing equipment. The general industry wisdom is “if it’s not broken don’t fix it.” All too often you upgrade and realize the update is not backwards compatible with some odd thing that kept a fan running somewhere. Conversely, a lot of annoying bugs persist in these systems because they usually aren’t updated. The best design typically is going to be something like making sure all your equipment controlling devices are stupid simple. Not complex at all. And secure. Then put all the complexity in the application layer and update/maintain that.

I would encourage that your organization IT manages software updates for the BAS server and firmware inside PLC or BAS controllers inside control panels. At one point in time I was a BAS service technician all too often these guys know nothing about cybersecurity. In my days I would bring a USB memory stick to the hospital to make updates on all BAS equipment without any idea where the update file came from or how it works, just click the .exe file and magic happens. In hindsight that could be a malicious file I got accidentally from a BAS tech friend where in theory a malicious file could bring everything to its needs for the hospital or data center chiller plant or AHUs! How would they conduct surgery that day or operate the data center?

I would consider educating your building operators as much as possible with something like a building operators certification or advanced people could try out the Association of Energy Engineers (CEM) Certified Energy Manager. Building operators that can think from a "systems" perspective and understand how HVAC design is supposed to ventilate building and condition air in addition to maintaining zone temperature setpoints will be a better building operator. Also building operators should be graded or even better rewarded for building fuel use. All too often building operators don't see utility bills and there is zero incentive for them to save the organization money. The best scenario would be reward for excellent IAQ and fuel use scores.

At a glance, graphics design appears easy. However, it takes considerable skill and forethought to find the ideal balance of functionality and usability. That balance is going to be different depending on what type of vertical market you’re playing in, the skills of the operators, etc. For more critical facilities with complex infrastructure you need the graphics to be powerful in their function yet also fluid and intuitive. Central plants are a good example, if it takes an experienced operator more than about 10 seconds to ascertain system condition from your graphic it’s too cluttered or poorly organized. The eyes should flow effortlessly through the system. Involving the stakeholders insights can help achieve this.

If it wasn't mentioned .A building standard comfort temperature range for summer and winter months must be clear in writing and incorporated into the lease agreement at the inception of the new tenant occupancy. This will lower the continuous hot and cold calls, eliminating the grey area of The comfort zone. My experience is that this important clause has been overlooked in the lease agreement Creating a tense interphase with Engineer's and tenant/customer interaction. Hope this helped Sincerely Joe Martuscello

Continuously gather feedback from occupants on both the functionality and appearance of the BAS. Use this feedback to iteratively improve the system, ensuring it meets the evolving needs of users while maintaining a cohesive design.