Technical Information

Ultra High Reliability
We use a building automation system called European Installation Bus (EIB). EIB is a thoroughly engineered international standard for lighting control and building automation. Leaders in the industry, including Philips, Seimens and Merten have endorsed it.

The EIB Association (EIBA) grants the EIB quality label to its members. But only after they have passed quality audits and thorough product testing. You can be sure of ultra high reliability from any EIB installation.

Success
EIB is the European building automation system. Its use is accelerating throughout the world, as more and more people become aware of this impressive technology.

It has been in use for more than 12 years and there are tens of thousands of residential and commercial installations. Its use in the new Canary Wharf Towers and six Jubilee Line Extension stations is testimony to its reliability.

It is technically suitable and economical for both commercial and residential buildings.

Technical Description
EIB is a decentralised building automation system. Decentralised control means that each component attached to an EIB system has its own independent microprocessor with its own program. There is no need for a central control computer. In the unlikely event that a component fails, all of the other components in a system will continue to operate normally. It is impossible for the system to crash, and no re-booting is ever required.

Programs are stored in EEPROM*. So on restoration of power after a power cut, everything continues to work perfectly, with no re-programming or resetting required.

Components communicate with each other by sending each other messages over a single twisted pair of signal wires, called a bus. In a normal simple system, just one bus is required for a whole building. So wiring is very simple compared to a conventional wiring circuit.

EIB has been designed for robustness and reliability. So it can be used with confidence in all building applications. The bus cable can happily be routed adjacent to the mains. It can be branched anywhere and anyhow, without any degradation of reliability.

A tribute to the robustness of EIB is that it was chosen for six of the Jubilee Line Extension Tube stations. These environments represent some of the harshest imaginable for an electrical installation.

Smart Integration and EIB
All of our designers are fully EIBA* trained and certified to design and commission installations of any size and complexity.


* EEPROM – Electrically Erasable Programmable Read Only Memory
* EIBA – European Installation Bus Association