Purpose

The IP-BLiS liaison parties, through collaboration and cooperation, will educate and influence the market regarding application framework standards over IP for commercial building connectivity through marketing and communications.

Why

To make commercial buildings more responsive to the needs of users by promoting a secure, multi-standard, IP-based harmonized IoT solution.

What

IP-Building and Lighting Standards (IP-BLiS) is a multi-party liaison between existing standardization organizations who are working together to promote the move to a secure IP infrastructure.

The participating organizations recognize that there are challenges in current building management systems. Building technologies are siloed meaning that for the different domains such as building access, energy, lighting, etc. different and proprietary technologies are used. There is currently no technology that fulfils all use cases needed to automate a commercial building. With the siloed technologies, the industry can’t create the synergy that is needed.

An approach to remove these barriers and provide truly smart buildings is to converge lighting control and building management systems with IT networks into a secure all-IP-based configuration. With this convergence comes true IP networking making data of the various building automation application protocols accessible via an IP address (instead of an application protocol specific address). The move to IP eliminates the need for hardware-based gateways and enables gateways between the systems to be pure software solutions since all devices communicate over a secure IP connection. This convergence also means that different physical IP layers can be used leading to seamless integration of wired and wireless connectivity options to reduce installation costs.

Diagram

 

 

Through IP-BLiS, technologies from BACnet, KNX, OCF and Zigbee will have consistent interfacing to physical IP layers delivering on co-existence. For instance, Thread, Wi-Fi and Ethernet are such IP-based networking layers already deployed in the market that are application layer agnostic.

IP connectivity is crucial to supporting new use cases, apps and services with end-to-end security.

Our Goal

Harmonization of access to an IP network with connected building automation products allowing for better integration.

Members

The participating organizations are (in alphabetical order): BACnet, KNX, OCF, Thread Group and Zigbee Alliance.

BACnet website	KNX website	OCF website	Thread Group website	Zigbee Alliance website
BACnet International 2900 Delk Road Suite 700, PMB 321Marietta, GA 30067 T: +1 770 971 6003 [email protected]	KNX Association De Kleetlaan 5 B -1831 Diegem (Brussels) Belgium T: +32 2 775 85 90 [email protected]	Open Connectivity Foundation 3855 SW 153rd Drive Beaverton, Oregon 97003 T: +1.503.619.0673 [email protected]	Thread Group, Inc. 5000 Executive Parkway, Suite 302 San Ramon, CA 94583 T: +1 925-275-6644 F: +1 925-275-6691 [email protected]	Zigbee Alliance 508 Second Street, Suite 206 Davis, CA 95616, USA T: +1 (530) 564-4565 F: +1 (530) 564-4721 [email protected]