EMAIL INTERVIEW - John Edler & Ken Sinclair 

John Edler, VP, Kiyon Inc.

To view product click here or go to Kiyon Booth 3829 in Chicago
Wireless BACnet Router, winner AHR Expo 2006 Innovation Award.

John Edler is Vice President for Building Automation at Kiyon. 

Three factors that differentiate Kiyon are standards compatibility, ease of use, and state of the art wireless network technology.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]

Sinclair:  You must be pleased to win the AHR “Innovation Award”.  Tell me about the product that won.

Edler:  It’s a great honor to win the Innovation Award and be recognized by peers in the industry as having done something special.  The AHR show is always a great event, attracting the best companies in the industry and customers from all over the world.  With many new products introduced each year, we feel this award not only recognizes our product, but also the strong demand for wireless in the building automation industry.  Our KAN 254B Wireless BACnet Router is being well received in the market.  It is the first BACnet wireless mesh network solution in the industry and converts all standard field controllers or supervisory controllers using BACnet MSTP, BACnet IP, or Ethernet IP to a wireless mesh network.  We have tested our products with all the major vendors either individually or at the BACnet sponsored Plugfest.  Since the KAN 254B is broadband, it can handle many MSTP and IP devices simultaneously on the same network.

Sinclair:  How is Kiyon’s wireless product different than others in the industry?

Edler:  Three factors that differentiate Kiyon are standards compatibility, ease of use, and state of the art wireless network technology.

First, Kiyon utilizes standards compatibility.  From watching the market place, we observed that proprietary products limit customers on how they can apply them.  By using 802.11 a, b and g, we are taking advantage of the same broadband technology applied by companies such as Linksys and D-link.  This allows us to be compatible with laptops, PDA’s and a host of other mobile devices being used to enhance worker productivity.  By staying compatible with off-the-shelf hardware, we are able to provide lower costs product platforms and a wide range of choices for the customer.

Second, we have focused on ease of installation and operation.  You don’t have to be an RF engineer to install and operate our wireless network.  You simply connect your BACnet devices and power.  Everything else is handled for you.  The KAN 254B’s automatically find each other and dynamically determine the best path for routing communications, adjusting in real-time for interference and roaming.  Kiyon’s self managing network features fast-failover alternate path routing to maintain high connection reliability and fills-in coverage shadows common to access point type wireless networks.  It also uses distributed intelligence in that each node is aware of all other nodes in its area so that they manage traffic without need of centralized switches. We also provide network monitoring software that shows the current status of the entire wireless network.  This makes network setup and on-going network operations easy for a typical building installer and operator.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] Third is the state-of the-art technology we put into our wireless mesh network.  BACnet MSTP has timing constraints that would normally prevent it from being used with a wireless networks.  We have developed some unique ways of handling the communications that make it compatible with BACnet specifications.  Also, as data is communicated over any wireless network, the bandwidth normally goes down with each hop.  We have developed methods to maintain the highest bandwidth in the industry, even after several hops to provide users greater flexibility in extending network range without wires.

Sinclair:  What markets are you targeting?

Edler:  We are focused on in-building broadband applications.  Three specific markets we are focusing on are Building Automation, RFID, and Wireless Broadband.  These markets all deal with harsh RF indoor environments that greatly benefit from our high reliability, low cost per node and high user density applications. 

Sinclair:  What Building Applications can the KAN 254B be applied?

Edler:  KAN 254B can be applied to Building Automation such as VAV’s, Field Controllers, and Supervisory controllers.  It can also be used for security systems, video cameras, lighting systems, fire, and internet applications.  Our customers have applied it in many types of buildings and even to connect buildings together when running wires were prohibitive.  Wireless is ideal for retrofit applications.  Although it was designed for traditional building automation applications, our creative customers continue to come up with uses we never thought of. For example, our wireless network provides the ability for mobile troubleshooting.  By using laptops or PDA’s, a user can connect anywhere in the building to monitor, troubleshoot, or upgrade software.  This provides a lot of flexibility to building operators.

More information about this state of the art wireless mesh network can be found on: www.kiyon.com

[an error occurred while processing this directive]
[Click Banner To Learn More]

[Home Page]  [The Automator]  [About]  [Subscribe ]  [Contact Us]