BACnet

The BACnet Device component is a Building Automation and Control Networks (BACnet) over IP client. It connects to one BACnet device on your network and polls the present-value of the objects you list in its point map, publishing each one as a Profinity tag. BACnet is used for building automation and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems.

flowchart LR
    Device["BACnet device"]
    subgraph Profinity
        Component["BACnet Device"] --> Tags
    end
    Device --> Component

The BACnet Device component in Profinity polls the objects in its point map from one BACnet device and publishes each as a Profinity tag

Licence required

The BACnet plugin is not part of the standard installation, and it requires the Industrial Protocols licensed component group. Refer to Industrial Protocols for how to obtain, install, and licence it.

Add a BACnet Device to your Profile from the Industrial Protocols group in the component catalogue, as described in Adding Components to Your Profile. Add one component for each BACnet device you want to read. The settings below can be changed later from the component's Change Settings menu action.

The component supports BACnet/IP only, not BACnet MS/TP (Master-Slave/Token-Passing). It reads and writes the device at the Remote host address you configure, and it does not discover devices on the network with Who-Is.

Communications settings

Setting	Description
Name	The name of the component. Must be unique within the profile.
Local UDP port	The User Datagram Protocol (UDP) port Profinity uses locally. Between `1` and `65535`. The default is `47808`, the standard BACnet/IP port (`0xBAC0` in hexadecimal).
Remote host	The IP address of the BACnet device. Required, and it is the address Profinity sends every request to. The default is `127.0.0.1`.
Device instance	The BACnet device instance number of the device, which is the instance in the device's own Device object. Between `0` and `4194302`. The default is `0`. Profinity still sends every request to the Remote host, but it reads the Device object of the device at that address each time it connects and compares the two numbers, and it does not connect while they differ, so that a changed address never leads to another device being read. Set this to the instance of the device you are connecting to, which a BACnet configuration tool or the device's own display shows, even when that instance is `0`.
Poll interval (ms)	How often the point map is read, in milliseconds. Between `50` and `600000`. The default is `1000`.
Request timeout (ms)	How long Profinity waits for the device to answer a request, in milliseconds. Between `50` and `60000`. The default is `1000`.
Reconnect delay (ms)	How long Profinity waits between connection attempts, in milliseconds. Profinity keeps trying when the device is down at start and after a connection is lost, as described in Connections and reconnecting. Between `0` and `600000`. The default is `2000`.
Auto Connect	Connects to the device automatically when the profile is loaded. Off by default.

Point map

The point map lists the BACnet objects to read. Each row becomes one tag.

Column	Description
Name	The name of the tag, published under the component's `Points` tags. Use a unique name for each row.
Object type	The type of BACnet object: `AnalogInput`, `AnalogOutput`, `AnalogValue` (the default), `BinaryInput`, `BinaryOutput` or `BinaryValue`.
Instance	The BACnet object instance number.
Writable	Allows Profinity to write to the object's present-value from the tag. Off by default.
Unit	An optional unit label for the tag.

Analog objects are published as number tags, and binary objects are published as boolean tags. Profinity reads and writes the object's present-value property, and it polls each object on the Poll interval (ms) rather than subscribing to changes.

Writing to a device

A write can change how the building plant behaves, so turn Writable on only for points that must be controlled from Profinity.

Dashboard

The component dashboard shows the connection STATUS, whether the device is CONNECTED, and the number of values read (RECEIVED) and values written (SENT). Use the Connect / Disconnect menu action to start or stop polling manually. Viewing the dashboard requires the Security administration permission, described under Roles and Permissions.

Polled values behave like any other tag, so they can be shown on a dashboard, logged, watched by a rule, or read by a script.

If a point shows bad quality

If a point cannot be read, its tag is marked as bad quality. The usual causes are a wrong Remote host, an Object type or Instance that the device does not have, and a device that does not answer within the Request timeout (ms). Check these before reading the Log. The Log records the first failed read of an outage as a warning, repeat failures in the same outage at debug level, and the first success afterwards at information level, as described in Connections and reconnecting. The first success is the first poll in which every point reads correctly.

A Device instance that differs from the device at the Remote host puts the component in the Error status, marks every point as bad quality, and shows and logs a message of the form The device at 192.168.1.20 reports Device instance 1234, but Device instance is set to 0. Profinity tries again every Reconnect delay, so correcting the setting or the device connects it without a restart. Set Device instance to the number in the message, or correct the Remote host if the address now belongs to a different device.

Profinity reads the identity with the standard "wildcard" read of the Device object (instance 4194303), which BACnet requires every device to answer from protocol revision 4 (2004) onwards. A device older than that, or one that does not allow its Device object to be read, answers with a BACnet error, and the component shows that error as the reason. A device that does not answer the identity read, or that does not allow its Device object to be read, puts the component in Error in the same way, with a message that the device did not answer, and Profinity tries again every Reconnect delay. A device that is replaced on the same address after it was connected is caught at the next failed read, and the component then shows Error until the instance matches.