Controlling critical systems and AV with KNX

Controlling critical systems in a building such as lighting, climate, shading, environmental and energy management have quite different requirements to control of audio and video.

You can deliver a more:

• cost effective
• profitable
• feature rich
• reliable solution

by using KNX for controlling critical systems in a building with an AV system.

Three methods of combining building systems

• Independent Systems – where the control of critical systems and AV systems are isolated and separate.
• Co-dependent systems – where the control of critical systems and AV systems independently perform their intended function but can send and receive commands to control the other system, without taking it over.
• Integrated Systems – where one system controls both the critical systems and AV in a building.

Scope IT believes in using products how they were initially designed, rather then how they have evolved. Using products as they evolve generally has led to compromises, and often to poor performance, and so the co-dependency model is the safest, most reliable and cost effective solution.

As part of a co-dependent system KNX was developed to integrate with AV or visualisation solutions rather than to be an AV solution, so the ‘hooks’ and methods to make this happen are simple and well understood. For this reason products and drivers exist for connection to most systems, such as: Crestron, Control4, Elan, Axium, B&O, RTI, Sonos, and Vantage, among others.

Brands linking to KNX

AV control and distribution demands comparatively high bandwidth requirements, and in general AV control systems make use of a central controller connected to the buildings’ data network to allow:

• control of IP devices
• streaming of AV content across the network
• control and visualisation from IP connected devices such as tablets and smart phones.

Typically IR and serial control is also offered from the central controller. The advantage with having an IP based system is speed, which is required primarily to support media and meta data streaming. The other reason for using a IP based central controller is the lack of a world wide standard for AV control. Having a centralised controller which is reliant on the data network works well for AV control and streaming, but it is really not suitable for controlling critical systems because it has several “singular points of failure” any of which can cause complete failure for buildings’ occupants. It is frightening how many ways a central controller can be ‘brought down’. If a central controller is used for the AV and controlling critical systems any of the following events could cause failure of the entire system and leave a building in the dark.

• Loss of power to the central controller
• Failure of the central controller hardware
• Corruption of the central controllers firmware or configuration
• Problems during updates to the central controller
• Loss of the power to the network router or switch
• Failure of the network router or switch
• Incorrect or changed configuration of the router
• Failure of a single data cable

KNX, without any singular points of failure, and not reliant on a data network or updates, is more robust and suitable for controlling critical systems. After all its what it was designed for and what it has been proven to be very very good at.

Today KNX and AV systems are frequently connected using IP, and, using 3 distinct methods:

• AV solutions that have a direct connection to the KNX bus where the AV system has been designed with a close integration with KNX in mind (eg. Basalte Asano).
• Physical gateway that provides a pre-coded linkage between the AV system and KNX (eg. Crestron, Elan, Vantage).
• KNX IP driver in the AV system (eg. Control4, Russound, B&O) that links to KNX through a non-proprietary IP Interface available from many manufacturers (eg. Gira, Zennio, ABB).

If you’d like your projects to comply with the international standard for building control, meet best practice, and be as reliable as possible call us:

• M: 0223 224 200
• or email us at info@scopeav.co.nz

to discuss integrating KNX with your preferred AV control system.

 

Why use KNX for controlling critical systems

Control and monitoring of critical systems needs to be reliable and immune to systematic failure, precisely because they are critical to the operation of the building and the safety and comfort of it occupants. To achieve this KNX uses an extremely reliable bus system with distributed control.

This is achievable because KNX is the world wide standard for building control and allows over 8000 products from more than 400 manufacturers to speak to each other using the ISE/ISO 14543.3 open protocol “language”.

Not only does this give you huge scope in terms of the functionality and pricing you can offer, it also allows the “intelligence” of the system to reside in each individual component rather than a central controller. This means that if a product fails, only the functions specific to that one product stop working, the rest of the building will continue to function properly.

Looking to read more?