IP-BLiS

June 2020 was when another cross-SDO liaison group was formed. IP-BLiS followes the SDO convergence reinforced recently by initiatives like the OneDM (which proposed the SDF data definition language and served as the launchpad for the Project CHIP). This was then followed by DiiA (the DALI Alliance) announcing cooperation with Zigbee, Thread and most notably Bluetooth SIG.

Standards organizations working together is always a good thing. But listening to the IP-BLiS pitch, there is some insufficiency in what they aim for.

Because IPv6 alone does not solve any interoperability problems. And also there are cases (energy harvesting, low latency secure multicast), wthen an IP-based approach doesn’t meet the needs of the market.

And I would even go further by saying that IPv6 is not needed to achieve interoperability. Why? Because it is just a Layer 3 (the Network Layer) technology. So it can be used to run thousands of incompatible and not interoperable applications and services on top. But somehow people think that asll the incompatible apps should run on a common network, most likely under the IT governance. This is utopia, as already a building has multiple separate networks that belong to different owners: lighting may be owned by an ESCO or an utility. HVAC by the facility manager. And WiFi by the tenant. Standardizing on Layer 3 is the old school thinking. It is irrelevant and not needed. It is like standardizing on a format of a business card, so there are unified card scanners and each scanner can read and recognize any business card.

Who uses business cards anymore? They are clearly a thing of the past. Artifacts of the old protocol which in the (post) COVID era is no longer in use. We use LinkedIn instead. And the relationships will be formed in the building's digital twins.

I strongly believe smart building subsystems and services will ultimately have their "LinkedIn".

"I'm the HVAC system in the Northshore Playground Offices facility. Looking for occupancy information."
"Hey Mr HVAC. I'm the new Smart Lighting Systems in the facility. I'm equipped with hundreds of sensors. You are probably not interested in getting a signal from every sensor, but I could provide you with room-level aggregated data, published every 15 minutes or when the status changes."

"Hey SLS. Pleasure to meet you. Let's get connected!".

See? No business card scanning and no exchange of IPv6 addresses. But to make this happen there are several developments that are needed:

• Machine-readable semantic models of information within buildings. E.G., how do you locate a room, or an area / zone?
• Discovery services. How do I advertise the information I can make available. How do I search for the information I need?
• Unified API for service-level data exchange.

The good news is there is an ongoing research in these areas. Bruce Nordman of LBL has done a lot of work on modeling energy usage in buildings. DesignLights Consortium is also absolutely on the right track pushing for cross-systems interoperability in buildings, focused on systems integration, demand response / load shedding and energy monitoring. And of course openADR alliance has a notable mention here too.