Can "Smart Buildings" turn into "Dumb Buildings" after 10 Years?

Is Niagara as a Method to Future-Proof Smart Buildings against obsolescence?

Smart Buildings are designed to last around 50 years. However, the technology integral to making a building 'smart' typically has a maximum lifespan of just 10 years, with the exception of its cabling. This disparity presents a critical challenge for property owners: What steps can be taken after the initial decade to prevent the building from becoming outdated or, as some might say, "dumb"? This pivotal question in smart building construction—how to effectively bridge the 40-year gap between the technology's lifespan and the building's expected longevity—forms the core of our discussion. Drawing from personal experience, this article explores solutions to this daunting issue, showcasing how we've navigated and resolved this complex challenge.

The Extra Low Voltage (ELV) System forms the technological bedrock of a Smart Building. The design of an ELV system can encompass over 20 subsystems, with structured cabling being a key component. Typically, cabling systems come with a 25-year guarantee. However, the lifespan of the remaining components, which include more than 20 other subsystems such as networking, wireless communication, building management, IP telephony, IPTV, and various others, is often capped at a maximum of 10 years before they reach their End of Life (EOL).

Sometimes, answers to complex problems arise from the most surprising sources. For us, that source was Panduit. In our ELV projects, we consistently chose Panduit Inc, a company favored by over 90% of Fortune 100 companies. So, what was it that Panduit that provided us with a way to resolve the lifespan disparity between the building and the ELV system? The solution emerged from two distinct ways.

Firstly, like other structured cabling manufacturers, Panduit offers a 25-year guarantee and warranty for their systems. However, Panduit's cabling systems stand out because they can last significantly longer than 25 years without any performance degradation. This became clear to us during our work on the Cisco Local Office Building. Usually there is the process of Certification Testing conducted at the end of any structured cabling installation, which typically results in a pass or fail outcome. However, Cisco set a higher standard, demanding a "Head Room Margin" of 4dB or higher, essentially seeking more than just a pass; they wanted top-tier performance in cable testing. Panduit was one of the very few, if not the only, cabling vendor capable of meeting this exceptionally high standard, a requirement not mandated by standard regulatory bodies.

The necessity for such high dB margin certification can become apparent over time. As a cabling plant ages, its performance naturally declines. Since a Network operate with TCP/IP protocol over cabling infrastructure, many of the network equipment cannot directly report cabling faults or their degradations. Instead, they compensate by dropping and retransmitting packets, akin to a leaking water pipe that still manages to deliver water despite the leak. This degradation in performance, possibly occurring as soon as five years post-installation.Thus, the essence of our discovery was that for a cabling infrastructure to support a building for up to 50 years, surpassing the 25-year warranty offered by the manufacturer, a high dB margin cabling system from a provider like Panduit is crucial.

Secondly, in 2013, Panduit released a case study about their headquarters, highlighting its status as a LEED Gold Standard, sustainable, and connected building solution. This approach significantly enhanced building system management by offering increased visibility and control over critical systems. It was designed to identify, monitor, and preemptively address issues before they impacted the workforce, while also boosting security and safety. This vision was notably advanced for its time, which perhaps explains why Panduit did not label it as a "Smart Building" in their case study. The intriguing aspect for me was how Panduit managed to achieve these forward-thinking objectives during an era when building technologies were a labyrinth of differing standards, including various protocols for building management, lighting, high voltage AC, audio-video transmission, and more. At the time, when Panduit published this case study, these systems were mostly proprietary and often came with their own unique cabling solutions. Over time, however, the majority of these systems began to converge towards structured cabling and IP, although they still maintained distinct protocols over IP. To enable communication between these disparate protocols, the use of gateways, specialized pieces of equipment, remains necessary even today.

The key to Panduit's successful launch of a "Connected Building" in 2010 lies in a software called the Niagara Framework. As of today, Niagara has been deployed in millions of instances across hundreds of thousands of smart connected buildings worldwide. Its unique position stems from the fact that there is simply no alternative to Niagara when it comes to integrating any building standard or protocol with control or management systems, or even in developing custom software modules. Given that Niagara is a pure software framework, it's reasonable to conclude that it possesses the versatility to last through the 50-year lifespan of a smart building.

Once you secure a reliable cabling system and the core intelligence of the smart building—that is, a building management system built on a robust software foundation designed to function seamlessly for 50 years—the remaining components and systems can be updated or replaced as necessary. While this approach may not offer a flawless solution to overcome the 40-year lifespan gap in building technology, it significantly reduces the need for major overhauls. By preserving the cabling infrastructure and the central operational brain of the smart building, there's a strong likelihood that the ELV system will endure throughout the building's entire lifespan with minimal significant interruptions. VS ONE WORLD V S Information Systems (Pvt) Ltd Tridium Panduit AP 泛达 #elv #smart buildings