đ§ #011: Cory Mosiman on the state of Haystack, Brick, and ASHRAE 223
July 8, 2020
âThere's many different use cases for the same data, right? So just because someone tags a data set for their use case, doesn't mean it then enables every smart building use case that could possibly use that data.â
Welcome to Nexus, a newsletter and podcast for smart people applying smart building technologyâhosted by James Dice. If youâre new to Nexus, you might want to start here.
The Nexus podcast (Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Other apps) is our chance to explore and learn with the brightest in our industryâtogether. The project is directly funded by listeners like you who have joined the Nexus Pro membership community.
You can join Nexus Pro to get a weekly-ish deep dive, access to the Nexus Vendor Landscape, and invites to exclusive events with a community of smart buildings nerds.
Episode 11 is a conversation with my NREL colleague, Cory Mosiman.
Summary
Cory and I have these conversations all the time, so we thought it would be fun to press record. Fair warning though, this is the nerdiest episode yet.
Letâs put that nerdiness in context. Today, in buildings across the world, data is locked up and unable to be used. If we could use it, we could do things like help mitigate climate change, create healthier indoor environments, and automate our buildings is unable to be used.
People new to the industry often ask why that is⌠this conversation is part of that answer. We set aside the business reasons of vendor lock-in that have plagued the industry forever. Instead, we dove into the semantic interoperability problem and all of the efforts going on to solve it.
This includes the open source projects called Project Haystack and Brick. It also includes the proposed ASHRAE standard 223 and associated working group.
This is a difficult subject to learn and an even more difficult one to convey, so I hope this conversation takes you closer to understand whatâs going on as it did for me.
Disclaimer: James is a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). All opinions expressed via Nexus emails, podcasts, or on the website belong solely to James. No resources from NREL are used to support Nexus. NREL does not endorse or support any aspect of Nexus.
THE ABOVE AUDIO, VIDEO, SUMMARY, AND LINKS WILL ALWAYS BE FREE. PODCAST DEEP DIVES WITH MY REACTIONS, MY TOP HIGHLIGHTS, AND THE FULL TRANSCRIPT ARE EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS OF NEXUS PRO.
Hereâs this weekâs deep dive outline:
My reaction
My highlights
Why don't control systems have interoperability baked into them already
Haystack takes us down the path and allows applications to use the data
What Brick brought to the game
The difference in goals between Haystack and Brick and 223
What 223 is bringing to the game and what they're working on
Today's challenge #1: People doing different stuff with the data might tag it differently
Today's challenge #2: every company has their own haystack standard
The three big opportunities besides 223: Proof between multiple vendors, reference implementations, and tooling
âThere's many different use cases for the same data, right? So just because someone tags a data set for their use case, doesn't mean it then enables every smart building use case that could possibly use that data.â
Welcome to Nexus, a newsletter and podcast for smart people applying smart building technologyâhosted by James Dice. If youâre new to Nexus, you might want to start here.
The Nexus podcast (Apple | Spotify | YouTube | Other apps) is our chance to explore and learn with the brightest in our industryâtogether. The project is directly funded by listeners like you who have joined the Nexus Pro membership community.
You can join Nexus Pro to get a weekly-ish deep dive, access to the Nexus Vendor Landscape, and invites to exclusive events with a community of smart buildings nerds.
Episode 11 is a conversation with my NREL colleague, Cory Mosiman.
Summary
Cory and I have these conversations all the time, so we thought it would be fun to press record. Fair warning though, this is the nerdiest episode yet.
Letâs put that nerdiness in context. Today, in buildings across the world, data is locked up and unable to be used. If we could use it, we could do things like help mitigate climate change, create healthier indoor environments, and automate our buildings is unable to be used.
People new to the industry often ask why that is⌠this conversation is part of that answer. We set aside the business reasons of vendor lock-in that have plagued the industry forever. Instead, we dove into the semantic interoperability problem and all of the efforts going on to solve it.
This includes the open source projects called Project Haystack and Brick. It also includes the proposed ASHRAE standard 223 and associated working group.
This is a difficult subject to learn and an even more difficult one to convey, so I hope this conversation takes you closer to understand whatâs going on as it did for me.
Disclaimer: James is a researcher at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL). All opinions expressed via Nexus emails, podcasts, or on the website belong solely to James. No resources from NREL are used to support Nexus. NREL does not endorse or support any aspect of Nexus.
THE ABOVE AUDIO, VIDEO, SUMMARY, AND LINKS WILL ALWAYS BE FREE. PODCAST DEEP DIVES WITH MY REACTIONS, MY TOP HIGHLIGHTS, AND THE FULL TRANSCRIPT ARE EXCLUSIVELY AVAILABLE TO MEMBERS OF NEXUS PRO.
Hereâs this weekâs deep dive outline:
My reaction
My highlights
Why don't control systems have interoperability baked into them already
Haystack takes us down the path and allows applications to use the data
What Brick brought to the game
The difference in goals between Haystack and Brick and 223
What 223 is bringing to the game and what they're working on
Today's challenge #1: People doing different stuff with the data might tag it differently
Today's challenge #2: every company has their own haystack standard
The three big opportunities besides 223: Proof between multiple vendors, reference implementations, and tooling
Join Nexus Pro and get full access including invite-only member gatherings, access to the community chatroom Nexus Connect, networking opportunities, and deep dive essays.
