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5 years EasySens - a story of success
Thermokon and 5 international partners to start up EnOcean Alliance
Thermokon’s export manager Frank Neudecker elected Vice Chairman
During the German trade fair "Light + Building" Thermokon and 5 international partners founded the enocean alliance to promote the wireless and batteryless sensor systems for modern, "green" building automation. Together with Chairman Graham Martin from the technology providing company EnOcean Thermokon’s export manager Frank Neudecker will lead the new alliance.
The alliance (
www.enocean-alliance.org) consists of a group of key companies across Europe and North America. The EnOcean Alliance is a non-profit, mutual benefit corporation which has the formal purpose of:
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establishing EnOcean wireless technology as the wireless standard for sustainable buildings;
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helping to bring about the existence of a broad range of interoperable wireless monitoring and controlling products for use in and around residential, commercial and industrial buildings and to promote globally such products;
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by initially developing the specifications for the interoperability of the sensor profiles and subsequently to apply for ratification as an international standard.
EnOcean nodes harvest energy from their ambient, which may be ambient light, thermal energy or motion to supply ultra efficient radio transmitters. The tiny bit of mechanic energy harvested from somebody pressing a switch, the internal ambient light in a room, or the difference in temperature of the radiator forward and return line suffice to send the radio telegram multiple times. The transmitter is so efficient, that each telegram will be repeated multiple times with a random length pause between two repetitions. This guarantees the reception of the telegram even in case one of the transmissions was distorted. Obviously the radio telegram’s structure is designed to be as short and effective as possible, to enable living from that little amount of energy harvested from the ambient.
From the analogy with dolphins chirping vocals the logo of the enocean alliance was derived.
Modern office buildings are used in a flexible way. In average every 5 years office spaces are remodelled. Wireless components support this flexibility best. Interior architects as well discover the new possibilities in design of wireless installations. The position of a switch or sensor is no longer tied to the electrical wires, but can be placed where it is best from an ergonomical point of view: switches for light or blind’s control that are integrated in each workplace of an open plan office, light switch glued to the head part of the hotel bed or to the mirror in the bathroom. Thermal sensors monitoring the fridges in a shop without tying the fridge to a certain location in the shop. No need any more to place the room thermostat close to the door, where the thermostat is fooled by inrushing cold air whenever the door is operated.
The EnOcean pioneer Thermokon looks back on 5 years of experience with close to 50.000 nodes installed. The product line "EasySens" provides temperature sensors, room thermostats, switches, light, motion and humidity sensors. This allows solutions for almost any requirement in modern, green office automation.
EasySens nodes communicate typically within office range, or from office to nearby corridor, where one of the available gateways to the building network will be installed. With LON, KNX, Modbus and Ethernet EasySens supports the most common building network protocols. Each EasySens Gateway forms a smart and, - in terms of position, – flexible subnet within the building automation network.
The range inside buildings reaches typically 30m, typical for 868 MHz short range devices. The free field range is approx. 300m.
Unlike mesh-building wireless devices EnOcean nodes do not transmit all the time. An EnOcean switch does transmit only when operated. Concerns regarding electromagnetic pollution coming from numerous rf-switches therefore are baseless. Interestingly the emission of an EnOcean switch is less, than the emission of a spark coming from a standard switch that turns on a standard 100W bulb.
So EasySens can be recommended perfectly in hospitals and similar environment, where permanent emission will not be tolerated. Environmentally/ecologically safe and without restricting comfort the switch that cuts the sleeping room’s electrical supply can be placed on the head part of the bed or on the bedside cabinet, as the switch will be active only
when operated.
EnOcean nodes harvest their energy from their ambient. They are autonomous and maintenance free.
Battery operated transmitters require replacement of batteries depending on the intensity of use. Unlike residential tenants, that might accept to replace the batteries when becoming weak, tenants in office buildings will call the concierge immediately in case of an electrical problem. Consequently not the best case figures, - indicating many years of battery life, - will determine the interval, but the first node becoming unreliably due to weak batteries will define the term of replacement all batteries.
I. e. a modern office tower like the Torre Espacio in Madrid host on 57 floors more than 100 tenants.
More than 4000 switches would require replacement of the batteries in a yearly or 2-year term, producing piles of toxic waste.
Additionally in modern offices multiple wireless systems like wireless phones, Bluetooth, WLAN and wireless video surveillance are used increasingly. Most of these systems will need to share the limited number of channels in the 2,4 GHz band. EnOcean nodes do not use the popular 2,4 GHz band but the frequency of 868.3 Mhz which is restricted to short range devices with limited duty cycle only. This avoids all possible problems with interferences with WLAN and other permanently active systems, that competitive systems using the popular 2,4 GHz band.
