Tagging and data modeling have numerous benefits in the Buildings industry. In a recent blog, we discussed the challenges in the industry that are being solved by Project Haystack. Now, we will look at some practical examples of how tagging and data modeling is being used by the Haystack community in a variety of applications and use cases in a series of seven blogs (the seven payoffs). This blog highlights the payoffs of  device data.

In the world of BAS and IoT, intelligent devices are made up from a collection of points representing inputs, outputs, and set points. These points can be self describing using the Haystack tagging methodology. Consider how we would define a typical VAV controller's points using metadata. The point that describes the temperature in the room, would simply have a collection of tags, such as: zone, air, and temp. This would continue with the rest of the points with their own unique set of tags and would allow applications to automatically understand their meaning.

There is great value in just having this device-level collection of points at hand when diagnosing a problem. For example, when an occupant calls to report ‘It’s too cold in this room,’ the points graphic would display in a normalized way the live values, independent of how they were defined and named at the control system level. With this knowledge, such situations can be easily and quickly diagnosed and addressed, often without a costly truck roll.

To read more about all of the payoffs, click here and download the complete whitepaper. To see how to navigate FIN and view Point Graphics , check out the video.