One of the things we have been doing as the AutomatedBuildings Editorial Board is looking more deliberately at the language we use.
A small example that keeps coming up? BAS.
We keep finding ourselves changing it back to “building automation”, not because BAS is wrong, but because increasingly it is not quite what we mean.
For a long time, Building Automation System was useful shorthand for a reasonably clear category: the controls, hardware and software used to operate a building. Somewhere along the way, though, BAS also became shorthand for the people, companies and broader industry around those systems.
That worked when the boundaries were clearer. Those boundaries are much less obvious now.
Building automation now overlaps with cloud platforms, cybersecurity, energy systems, AI, data infrastructure, remote operations, grid interaction and enterprise software. The conversations we are having are increasingly about where decisions are made, who owns and verifies the data, how systems interoperate, what should be automated and who remains accountable.
That is a much broader operating environment than a single building automation system.
To be clear, we are not trying to retire the term BAS. When we mean the actual Building Automation System, it remains a perfectly useful acronym.
What we are going to be more careful about at AutomatedBuildings is using BAS as shorthand for the whole industry.
Language also tells people whether they are part of the conversation.
If we describe everything as BAS, someone working in energy, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, software or AI could reasonably assume we are talking about someone else’s industry. Yet increasingly those people are working on exactly the same problems as the traditional building automation community.
At the same time, controls companies and integrators are moving into those adjacent areas themselves.
We have seen this even in planning our next AHR Expo program. A session can start as a discussion about building automation and quickly become a conversation about power, data, platforms, AI governance or business models. Put “BAS” into the title and suddenly the conversation feels narrower than the one we are actually trying to have.
If we mean the system, we will say BAS.
If we mean the broader industry and the work around connected, intelligent buildings, we will generally say building automation.
It is not a campaign against an acronym, and we are certainly not proposing a new one.
It is simply an acknowledgement that the industry has expanded beyond the boundaries that BAS once described very neatly.
The BAS system still matters.
The conversation has just become much bigger.
A small example that keeps coming up? BAS.
We keep finding ourselves changing it back to “building automation”, not because BAS is wrong, but because increasingly it is not quite what we mean.
For a long time, Building Automation System was useful shorthand for a reasonably clear category: the controls, hardware and software used to operate a building. Somewhere along the way, though, BAS also became shorthand for the people, companies and broader industry around those systems.
That worked when the boundaries were clearer. Those boundaries are much less obvious now.
Building automation now overlaps with cloud platforms, cybersecurity, energy systems, AI, data infrastructure, remote operations, grid interaction and enterprise software. The conversations we are having are increasingly about where decisions are made, who owns and verifies the data, how systems interoperate, what should be automated and who remains accountable.
That is a much broader operating environment than a single building automation system.
To be clear, we are not trying to retire the term BAS. When we mean the actual Building Automation System, it remains a perfectly useful acronym.
What we are going to be more careful about at AutomatedBuildings is using BAS as shorthand for the whole industry.
Language also tells people whether they are part of the conversation.
If we describe everything as BAS, someone working in energy, cloud infrastructure, cybersecurity, software or AI could reasonably assume we are talking about someone else’s industry. Yet increasingly those people are working on exactly the same problems as the traditional building automation community.
At the same time, controls companies and integrators are moving into those adjacent areas themselves.
We have seen this even in planning our next AHR Expo program. A session can start as a discussion about building automation and quickly become a conversation about power, data, platforms, AI governance or business models. Put “BAS” into the title and suddenly the conversation feels narrower than the one we are actually trying to have.
If we mean the system, we will say BAS.
If we mean the broader industry and the work around connected, intelligent buildings, we will generally say building automation.
It is not a campaign against an acronym, and we are certainly not proposing a new one.
It is simply an acknowledgement that the industry has expanded beyond the boundaries that BAS once described very neatly.
The BAS system still matters.
The conversation has just become much bigger.
