Comparaison
Alternative DDC Platforms — What to Compare
When an alternative DDC platform is worth evaluating, what to compare, and where staying with the incumbent is the better engineering decision.
When to look at an alternative
Switching platforms is expensive, so the reason should be concrete. The usual triggers are spares that take months, licences that renew per seat and per site, a tool that only the original integrator can open, a protocol set that no longer matches the plant, or support that is far away. A preference for a different brand is not on that list. If the existing system runs, is documented and can still be maintained, the engineering answer is usually to keep it and fix the specific constraint.
What to compare, in order
First BACnet conformance: which objects and services the controller exposes, and whether it holds the profile the specification names. Second, the engineering tool: licence model, whether project files are readable without a subscription, and whether a third party can take over. Third, capacity and headroom per controller. Fourth, the alarm and schedule model, because that is what the operator touches every day. Fifth, spares and lifecycle commitments in writing. Price comes last, because a lower unit price on a platform that consumes engineering hours is not a saving.
Where switching actually hurts
The cost is not the controller. It is the graphics library, the alarm database, the site-specific sequences nobody documented, the technicians who know where the traps are, and the maintenance contract that may not transfer. On a single building the disruption is manageable; across a campus with a shared head-end it can take years. Any business case should count those hours, not just the hardware delta.
Migrating without a rip-out
Most successful migrations are phased. Existing controllers stay until they fail or until a subsystem is renovated; new work adopts the target platform; a supervisory layer reads both over BACnet or Modbus so the operator still sees one picture. That lets a client test the new tool on one floor before committing the estate. The prerequisite is a point map that does not depend on either platform, which is worth building before any decision is made.
Trademarks and independence
Honeywell, Siemens and Schneider Electric are trademarks of their respective owners. We are an independent integrator and panel builder; we are not affiliated with, authorised by or endorsed by any of them, and we do not claim equivalence between products. Names appear here so that a reader searching for alternatives can find an engineering discussion rather than a sales page. Where a project already standardises on one of these platforms, we will say so in the proposal.
Evaluation criteria for any DDC platform
8 rows| Critère | What to ask | Pourquoi c’est important |
|---|---|---|
| BACnet conformance | Which objects and services, which profile, is the PICS published | Decides whether integration is native or gateway work |
| Outil d’ingénierie | Licence model, file format, can a third party open the project | Decides whether you are locked to one integrator |
| Point capacity | Points per controller, bus device limits, spare headroom | Decides how much hardware and how many change orders |
| Alarm and schedule model | Alarm classes, deadbands, editable schedules, trend retention | Decides daily operator effort |
| Lifecycle and spares | Published availability, replacement path, local stock | Decides the cost of year five, not year one |
| Migration path | Can old and new controllers coexist on one supervision layer | Decides whether a campus change is phased or all at once |
| Documentation et réception | As-built format, point naming, training language | Decides whether the next team can run it |
| Local support | Who responds on site, in what language, how fast | Decides downtime when something fails at 02:00 |
A phased migration that survives handover
5 rows| Phase | What happens | Done when |
|---|---|---|
| 1 Inventory | Point list, protocols, controller models, tool access | A point map that depends on no vendor tool |
| 2 Parallel read | New platform reads the existing system without writing | Both systems visible in one operating picture |
| 3 Pilot | One floor or one subsystem switches over | Alarms, schedules and trends match |
| 4 Rollout | Remaining scope replaced on the renovation cycle | Spares and documentation updated together |
| 5 Close-out | Old platform retired or kept as spares | One maintenance model, one set of documents |
Images du projet
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Questions fréquentes
01Are you a distributor for any of these brands?
No. We are an independent integrator and panel builder. We work with the platforms a project specifies, including the five product lines we describe on this site, and we do not hold distributor or authorised-partner status with Honeywell, Siemens or Schneider Electric.
02Can you take over an existing Honeywell or Siemens system?
It depends on the tool access. If the project files and engineering access are available, we can audit, document, extend and commission changes. If they are locked to another party, we will say so before quoting rather than discover it during commissioning.
03Is an alternative always cheaper?
No, and treating it as a price exercise is how migrations fail. The saving usually comes from licence structure, spares and engineering hours over several years; the cost comes from retraining, rewritten graphics and undocumented sequences. Compare the five-year total for the specific building.
04Which platform would you recommend for a new building?
That depends on the specification, the plant and who will maintain it. For a consultant-led building with a BACnet requirement, a mainstream DDC line with published conformance and open project files is the safe default. For a villa or small hotel, a simpler local-first line may serve better. We give a recommendation with the reasoning, not a brand preference.
05Do you disclose which platforms you work with most?
Yes, in a proposal. What we will not do is present one platform as the only correct answer, or use a client's existing brand as a reason to replace working equipment.
06What if our consultant specifies one of these brands?
Then we work to the specification where we can, and say plainly where we cannot. A proposal that quietly substitutes a platform is worse for everyone than one that names the deviation and prices it.
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