Scheduling actions and events in a KNX building automation installation

How to schedule events in your KNX Building automation system

This blog post will show you how you can schedule events to occur at certain times in your KNX building automation system.There is a requirement in the building automation industry for certain events to happen automatically at certain times of the day. There are two ways to achieve this goal: first first way is through hardware, and the second is through KNX event scheduling software.

Here are a few examples of tasks that should be automated using a scheduler:

-          switch off all, or certain lights in a building at the end of the working day

-          switch off the hot water heater at a particular time of the day

-          place certain components into their energy saving (standby) mode on weekends public holidays

-          switch on the irrigation system to water the garden on certain days of the week

Option 1: Scheduling KNX events using hardware

KNX Timer

If a hardware solution is required, then a KNX timer module can be purchased from any of the KNX device vendors. This module will be installed in the electricity distribution board of the building or house, and configured via ETS to execute events at certain times.

The advantage of this option is the fact that the entire module is self contained, and can be installed directly in the electrical distribution board, without the need for any other I.T infrastructure.

The disadvantage of this option is the fact that these modules are rather costly, and require a KNX professional with KNX configuration software (ETS Professional), and knowledge of the system to be able to configure the device.

Option 2: Scheduling KNX events using software.

The second option is to have a KNX event scheduler application operating on a computer which will execute the commands as required. The user can then add scheduled events as they require.

The advantage of this option is that the configuration of the device can be changed at any time by the user, and does not require any technical knowledge (providing the devices have already be assigned group addresses when they were installed)

The disadvantage of this solution is that there is a requirement to have a PC or server running to execute the commands. Typically, a building with  KNX would automation would have a PC or server running in the building to serve data for KNX visualization and data logging visualization and data logging, which means that the software could be run on the same machine.