FAQ
1. Do you offer sensors or devices?
No. ABB BuildingPro is a platform for managing and controlling your buildings and devices.
2. Which devices can be connected to ABB BuildingPro?
In ABB BuildingPro, you can integrate all data from devices that are connected via our connector apps are connected. We currently support the following connector apps: ABB free@home, Akenza, CoffeeCloud, Electricity Maps, Exchange app, Forecast, Glutz, GP Joule, Kentix, KentixONE, Kontakt.io, Localino, Loriot.io, Microsoft 365, myStrom app, Niagara, OpenBOS, ROOMZ, SAML SSO, Signify, Spreadsheet, stopwatch, Thingdust, Weather, Xovis, Xovis People Counter, Zevyy.
Via the module Connectivity as a Service → Connect devices with Eliona the following protocol integrations are also available to you:
Connect devices via Modbus
Connect devices via MQTT – incl. MQTT Edge Nodes (Control Edge)
Connect devices via RESTful
Connect devices via Webhook
Connect devices via Apache Kafka
Connect devices via OPC UA
In addition, you will find in the main menu under EDGE NODES
What are Edge Nodes? – a brief introduction to the concept
EdgeNodes in ABB BuildingPro → Set up Control Edge – here you configure and manage your edge nodes to connect even remote field devices and protocols (e.g. BACnet, KNX, MBUS) via EdgeNode.
3. If a sensor stops working, will I see that in ABB BuildingPro?
Yes. When setting up the sensor, you set a "Time to inactivity." This means that if the system does not receive a signal from the sensor after this time, the sensor is set to the status "inactive." You can view the information about the sensors (including their status) in the menu item "asset management" view.
4. Can I change my active subscription plan?
All our subscriptions are valid for one year. During the first three months, you can change your package; to do so, write to support@eliona.io. After one year, you can renew your existing package or choose a different one.
5. What does "Infravolt" mean?
Infravolt is basically a currency we use to measure resource consumption. Each element has its cost in Infravolt. "The costs" can be viewed in the section "settings" on the tab "licenseview in the block "Infravolt consumption".
6. How will I be informed about changes and new features?
The world keeps turning, and so does ABB BuildingPro. We notify all our users in the newsletter as soon as a new update is released. You can also learn about upcoming changes in the chapter Changelog learn more.
7. How does the deployment of ABB BuildingPro work?
The ABB BuildingPro system can be deployed on any virtual machine or cloud solution. If you provide an SSH connection, the system is set up remotely via "one-click deployment". If you cannot provide an SSH connection, contact the Eliona support team. We recommend a virtual machine running version "Ubuntu 20.04", as support for older versions (Ubuntu 18.04) is being phased out and this can lead to problems.
8. Why do we rely on PostgreSQL instead of NoSQL or time-series databases?
Most developer teams, including our ABB BuildingPro developers, work in the smart building provider environment on this huge pool of data called Big Data. For performance reasons, the extreme flood of time-series data is often stored in a NoSQL database, while the meta information is stored in a relational database. Almost all IoT platforms use NoSQL databases. It is clear that each of these databases works differently; operating a polyglot database architecture increases operational and application complexity. At Eliona, we do without a NoSQL database while maintaining the same performance, thereby eliminating the increased complexity in operations and the challenge in configuration.
To ensure excellent scalability of data ingestion rates (time series) while keeping all meta information in a single database, we rely on PostgreSQL and TimescaleDB. This makes it possible to write time series and meta information simultaneously with enormous data throughput. 120,000 data records per second with a massive database size. In one minute, one could write the energy data of all of Switzerland into ABB BuildingPro.
Let's go back once more and show what is in focus in IoT/smart building projects: collecting data, analyzing it, and reacting to it in order to improve benefits/efficiency, reduce downtime/waste, and offer better services. In other words, we need more than a data store: we also need an easy way to derive actionable insights from the data. And this is where SQL comes in. While it has been fashionable in recent years to denounce SQL and praise NoSQL, the truth is that SQL is extremely powerful.
Advantages of PostgreSQL
On the market for more than 30 years Open source many add-ons, plugins and extensions web services such as RESTful complex WHERE predicates (supported by secondary indexes) aggregations and orderings; window functions, libraries with mathematical and statistical functions, etc. All GEO information – important in the area of localization and tracking – is provided via PostGIS
If the standard performance of PostgreSQL needs to be increased (from 100,000 transactions per second), there is a PostgreSQL extension called «TimescaleDB», which can easily compete with InfluxDB.
9. What standardized integration options are there in ABB BuildingPro?
Eliona REST API.
Eliona App SDK.
MQTT (we ship an MQTT broker with ABB BuildingPro, with ABB BuildingPro itself acting as an MQTT client).
REST Requests (we have the option to configure REST and various requests in the frontend).
10. Why am I not staying logged in to ABB BuildingPro ?
Why am I, despite selecting "Stay logged in" after a certain time prompted to log in again?
The "Stay logged in" option normally has a validity period of 8 hours, roughly one working day. It only ensures that during this time no new login is required with the same browser, even if it or the app has been closed. The limited validity period ensures that security and control over access to ABB BuildingPro are maintained. After this time has expired, the user must log in again.
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