Technology

What makes Incenergy’s wireless design compelling?

Incenergy brings wireless technology to EMS and with it innovative energy management solutions for commercial buildings. The backbone of Incenergy application communications uses Zigbee wireless protocol to communicate with smart devices such as thermostats. Zigbee forms a “mesh network” which revolutionizes EMS in the following ways:  

  • No single point of failure  - Forms up to 16 possible communication routes with each node
  • Low power consumption
  • Secure and encrypted network communications
  • No wires
  • Low cost retrofits
  • Easy network expandability
  • Easily relocate devices
  • No interference with other wireless networks as it operates at a different frequency
  • Self-healing – if a node goes down it will automatically reconfigure itself to maximize its number of node connections.

How does this technology make Incenergy’s EMS more cost effective for you?

Incenergy delivers this service to you wirelessly, offering a cost advantage over other wired or wireless systems because there is no software to install or maintain and minimal equipment to install. Incenergy simply replaces your existing thermostats. All of this translates into lower fixed and support costs making the Incenergy EMS system about half the cost of an installed wired EMS.

The Incenergy Energy Management System is designed to make it simple and easy to use. The intuitive web interface avoids the need for time consuming training classes or costly certifications. Incenergy EMS can be quickly and cost effectively deployed, allowing you to see, interpret and control your HVAC systems.

What makes Incenergy’s wireless design compelling?

Wireless technology permeates our built environment, but until recently many wireless technologies have not been able to perform consistently in the commercial market.

These previous wireless HVAC technologies have experienced spotty coverage, similar to losing cell phone coverage in certain parts of a building.

Some of the downsides to such existing software have been:

  • Only one route to each device
  • If a connection is severed it can be expensive to trace and repair
  • High power consumption to propagate a signal
  • Interference with other networks

Annoying as it is for phone service, it is totally unacceptable for an energy management system. Designed from the ground up to perform well in commercial and industrial environments, Zigbee evolved as a platform to counter the shortcomings of early wireless technologies.

How does this new network architecture perform?

To start, this architecture allows us to have complete read and write access to over 60 thermostat attributes, including equipment setup. Each thermostat is communicating to the network gateway at least every 2 minutes, and sometimes in as little as 15-second intervals. In turn, updated thermostat telemetry is sent to our cloud every 2 minutes. Sending commands from any of our available platforms to a device or devices takes place within the minute. A full command round trip to and from a device takes 2 seconds.  So, there is no need to be concerned that you would need to give up any of your performance expectations.

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