AHR Expo – BIG D.
The city of Dallas, located in the state of Texas (USA), also has an unofficial name – BIG D.
It received this name due to its large extent – the city is scattered for many kilometers in several directions.
It is almost impossible to get around here without a car. The city is not designed for pedestrians.
AHR Expo, the largest exhibition in the USA dedicated to climate control equipment and building automation systems, was held in Dallas at the end of January 2007.
The exhibition was attended by 1,789 companies, with about 19,000 people working at their stands. In addition, over 23,000 specialists visited the exhibition over three days. The total area of the AHR Expo exhibition is equal to the sum of the areas of 7 football fields.
Every year, this exhibition has a section dedicated to building automation systems and related equipment.
The key topics in this section of the exhibition were:
• Integration of building automation systems from different manufacturers
• Bringing data and control functions to the enterprise level
• Convergence of intelligent technologies and efficient equipment to reduce overall costs and build “green” buildings (green buildings – environmentally friendly facilities).
The American association BACnet International presented again last year's joint exhibition, in which all the leading companies in the field of building automation participated with small stands. It is also possible to note the emergence of new players associated with the BACnet protocol. For example, this is the company Lumisys, which deals with integrated lighting systems.
Many large companies refrained from participating with a separate stand.
The exhibition did not feature the following in the building automation section: Siemens, Honeywell, TAC, AutomatedLogic, Johnson Controls. This is due to the fact that, according to a number of experts, exhibitions held in the southern states of the USA are always less successful than, for example, exhibitions in Chicago.
However, Delta Controls, KMC, Reliable Controls, American AUTO-MATRIX, Cimetrics were present with their exposition.
A similar exhibition a year ago saw increased activity and interest from specialists in wireless building automation systems and especially in the ZigBee standard.
This time, wireless technologies were also popular, but last year's «hysteria» was no longer observed.
Over the past period, many equipment manufacturers have already managed to implement wireless solutions in their products.
One can note the development of WiSuite by the Canadian company Riga Development, aimed primarily at use in hotels. The monitoring and control system is based on the ZigBee wireless communication standard and controls all devices in hotel rooms.
The LonMark International booth was located opposite the Echelon booth, where the BIG-RU association met with Ron Bernstein, executive director of LonMark International. The subject of the meeting was to discuss cooperation on the pages of the Building Automation newsletter.
In parallel with the exhibition, the American Association of Engineers ASHRAE held its Winter Convention. This is also an annual event and is always held at the same time as the AHR Expo.
The convention program consisted of meetings of more than 100 ASHRAE committees, the BIG-RU association was interested in the work of the SSPC 135 BACnet committee.
At the committee meetings in January, a positive decision was made to publish an addendum to the BACnet standard, adding physical access control to the general functions of the protocol.
Earlier, the Access Door object was added to the BACnet standard object library, allowing the functions of building security system elements to be described in a standard way. Several more additions are awaiting approval, all of which will be included in Appendix “j” of the BACnet-2004 standard.
The AHR Expo exhibition is held in the USA every year at the end of January. Each year the organizers hold it in a new place, but there is still some pattern to the exhibitions. The last time the exhibition was held in Dallas was seven years ago, in 2000.
Over the past period, it can be stated that the American building automation market has undergone significant changes, it has its own special features that distinguish it from the European and Russian markets. In January 2008, the AHR Expo exhibition will be held in New York.
About Dallas. The city is not attractive to tourists, most of it is one-story buildings located along highways. The business center of the city is stuffed with skyscrapers that are visible for many miles around. At night, the top of the television tower lights up spectacularly in the form of a large ball. What is striking here is the abundance of multi-lane highways and interchanges in several tiers. Moscow's transport interchanges pale in comparison with the tangle of highways of Dallas.
You can only walk in the city center (downtown). Of the attractions, perhaps, we can highlight the place where US President John Kennedy died, located next to the Dealey Plaza building. The “6th Floor Museum” is located here and many tourists (mostly Americans) come here on excursions. However, we were unable to find either a monument or a monumental slab dedicated to Kennedy.
Most likely, Dallas can be classified as a provincial city in the USA. In comparison with Chicago, it clearly loses. Even American acquaintances spoke about Dallas, Texas and typical representatives of this state not very flatteringly, making it clear that you cannot form your own opinion of the USA by visiting only Texas. It should be noted that positive emotions were still present: it was very unusual to see businessmen at the exhibition dressed in expensive business suits, contrasting with cowboy boots and a wide-brimmed hat. For Europeans, such an outfit causes a feeling of mild shock, but in Texas, it is the norm of business etiquette!