Teletrol eBuilding 5.0 Energy Management
May 26, 2010 — No, "Teletrol" isn't some newfangled communications protocol out of Hogwarts — although heaven knows, the way trolls gossip, who needs a telephone or a telegraph? What Teletrol is, is a company founded in the 1980s to make facility-management systems; the European electronics giant Philips bought it up in July 2009. This particular New Product can help your co-op or condo monitor and use energy as efficiently as any hospital, sports arena or other "facility," which your building or complex is. Such automated energy-management helps your super, resident manager or other designated party optimize energy use and avoid waste, helping to save both money and the environment. And, who knows, maybe ward off trolls.
What makes this one different from other such systems is the company's view that, "Web-enabled isn't enough. Internet-powered is the future." Which means, though garbled (since the World Wide Web essentially is the Internet), that the eBuilding 5.0 energy-management hardware and software doesn't just let you do this locally, using your internal network, but also lets you do so remotely, via the Internet.
Described as a multi-site technology designed to integrate with building automation standards such as BACnet and which such commercial IT standards \as XML and Web Services, the eBuilding 5.0 can remotely view animated Web pages for system diagnostics and can modify control logic and operator screen graphics over the Internet, using standard firewalls without special ports.
"Internet-powered" also means, the company says, using XML as a core component in order to maximize compatibility and integration. The eBuilding 5.0 uses that and standard HTTP — the basic computer code your kid uses to build his website — for controller-data communication, thereby simplifying system integration. In addition, all eBuilding network controllers include your basic, plain-vanilla Ethernet TCP/IP ports, so there is no need for special gateways or custom network interfaces.
Also keeping things simple, it employs the industry-standard Apache web server, enabling the use of off-the-shelf administrative tools and ensuring easy migration as web technology evolves.
So, basically, it's a magic box. Hey, maybe this is like Hogwarts, after all!
Teletrol a.k.a. Philips Teletrol • Technology Center, 286 Commercial Street, Manchester, NH 03101 • (603) 645-6061 • teletrol@teletrol.com