In a large building, deploying a full-scale building automation system (BAS) makes sense. The size of the facility creates enough operational complexity and enough savings potential to justify the investment, and there is usually someone, or even a team of people, on the hook to run it.
When one considers deploying a BAS in smaller buildings, it rarely pencils-out. According to a recent study published by PNNL, roughly 90% of all buildings in the United States are under 50,000 square feet. Just because the buildings are smaller does not mean they don’t have opportunities for efficiency gains or wouldn’t benefit from the functionality a BAS offers the same way the large commercial spaces do.
The barrier is rarely motivation. The decision to forego a BAS usually comes down to economics, time, and complexity. In order for these smaller facilities to benefit from the functionality that come with more advanced controls, the solution must have an architecture that is plug and play and packaged in a way that makes adoption practical.
Most commercial buildings are small enough to get ignored, and large enough to waste real energy when scheduling, monitoring, and coordination are missing.
Small and medium sized buildings require a different kind of controls stack, one that is priced and packaged for small and medium buildings but still enables and supports a compelling array of Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs).
ACE IoT offers Catalina FlexGrid as an option for Small and Medium building owners to consider. Via Catalina FlexGrid, smaller building owners and operators can realize the benefits of centralized scheduling and coordinated control without replacing a building’s existing equipment.
What is Catalina FlexGrid?
Catalina FlexGrid is a controls and monitoring platform built for building owners and operators who seek better HVAC outcomes, yet cannot justify the cost and labor footprint of a building automation system. In smaller buildings, scheduling tends to be scattered across standalone thermostats. Zones drift out of sync as overrides accumulate. Equipment runtimes are hard to verify without spending time onsite. Catalina Flexgrid brings building level coordination to existing equipment.
Why is LoRaWAN a practical foundation?
Many controls programs stall on networking long before the HVAC strategy matters. In small buildings, connectivity is often shared, lightly managed, or outside the facilities team’s control. In multifamily buildings, for instance, ownership and network responsibility can be split across stakeholders, which turns connectivity into a recurring constraint.
Catalina FlexGrid uses a LoRaWAN communications layer so the controls network is purpose-built for building operations, avoiding the site’s WiFi altogether. Devices communicate to an onsite base station and then to an ACE gateway for upstream transport to a secure cloud. Using LoraWAN sensors and base stations keeps deployments consistent across different sites, even when each property’s IT environment is unique.
How does Catalina FlexGrid fit into a building? How does data flow?
During a Catalina FlexGrid deployment, standalone thermostats are replaced with LoRaWAN thermostats that support centralized schedule and coordinated setpoint management. Where rooftop unit behavior needs deeper control, rooftop control modules can extend the system’s reach into higher value RTU functions, including economizer control, without replacing the units themselves. When monitoring is needed, clip-on current transformer sensors add power based visibility so runtime and equipment condition signatures become available alongside control data.
Onsite, one or more LoRaWAN base stations aggregate communications from all deployed devices. From there, a facilities manager can remotely access the Catalina FlexGrid operations dashboard to inform the day-to-day operation of one or more buildings. In addition to the simplified deployment of advanced building control hardware, the full benefits of the ACE IoT Aerodrome Suite are also available If the situation demands, data can also be sent anywhere it needs to go via ACE IoT’s API. Naming, tagging, and data flow management can be handled via ACE FlightDeck, and dashboards for visualization and trend reporting can be created using ACE Navigator.
Operations and Diagnostics
Catalina FlexGrid improves performance by making daily HVAC operation consistent and verifiable. Site level schedules, including holidays, reduce the drift that shows up when each zone is managed in isolation. Overrides live (and can be monitored and managed) in one place, which helps prevent permanent exceptions from becoming the default. Coordinated setpoint control across zones supports an effective tenant comfort strategy and reduces the tug of war that happens when one area is adjusted without considering what nearby zones and shared equipment are doing.
Power monitoring makes this operational layer measurable. Catalina FlexGrid’s current transformer sensors surface runtime and electrical signatures so behavior issues like short cycling, abnormal runtimes, and shifting current draw show up as operating patterns, not just complaints. That visibility also makes follow up work more disciplined, because teams can verify whether a schedule update or control change actually altered how the equipment runs. Catalina FlexGrid can also apply anomaly detection using operating and power signals so teams can focus attention on the units that most need it.
Deployment Process
The commercial model is based primarily on the number of ACE-managed LoRaWAN devices. These devices include the onsite gateway infrastructure and the LoRaWAN device set deployed across zones and equipment, including thermostats, power monitoring sensors, and any additional control modules used to extend equipment level control where needed. Installation is typically performed by a local contractor or onsite technician, with ACE focused on system configuration, zone mapping, commissioning validation, and operator setup in the portal, plus our usual bread and butter: data plumbing.
Conclusion
Catalina FlexGrid supports small commercial sites, schools, and multifamily portfolios because it focuses on the gaps these buildings live with every day. These sites don’t need a full building automation project to get real control, real visibility, and real savings.
Catalina FlexGrid is built from widely deployed LoRaWAN technology and proven building blocks, then packaged into a controls and monitoring system that fits how smaller facilities actually operate. It gives owners a practical way to tighten scheduling, coordinate HVAC operation across zones, and see equipment behavior through power based visibility, which supports earlier issue detection and more disciplined maintenance. That is what a BAS is supposed to do, and Catalina FlexGrid makes it attainable in the part of the market that rarely gets it.
If you want to see what Catalina FlexGrid would look like at your building, your school, or across your portfolio, contact Bill Maguire at bill@aceiotsolutions.com.
