The smarter a building is, the more data it produces, so as smart buildings mature they face an ever-increasing data management problem. The more data a building produces, the more accurate and insightful its smart systems can be, but only if the data can be harnessed, otherwise that growing “data lake” becomes a costly burden. The widely accepted solution to this problem are data ontologies that utilize semantic tagging to categorize and structure the data, allowing buildings to use it more effectively. Several ontologies have emerged to address this need but this has created a new form of fragmentation in the buildings market and a new form of confusion for building owners and managers. “There are several schemas and ontologies used in the industry today, with no true consensus or front runner, it feels too often that this decision–what ontology to use– must be made before everything else. This slows down the process of creating smart […]