Evaluation of APIs for Data Exchange with Building Management Systems

Access to the systems that manage buildings, building management systems (BMS), and the data they generate can enable applications and research work to achieve important goals, like minimising building energy consumption. The management layer of BMSs has human device interfaces (HDI) or human-machine interfaces (HMI), which include the building management software used by facility managers to monitor and control these systems. We explore the application programming interfaces (API) various BMS software provide to facilitate data exchange with third-party applications and other interested stakeholders. We focus on the BMS of five vendors: Siemens, Honeywell, Schneider Electric, Johnson Controls, and Delta Controls. We broadly evaluate their API support for five aspects of BMS, including alarms and events, locations (or structure), device and equipment, points and trended data.