How to add a BACnet IP connector

First of all the user needs to make sure that the Bacnet connector is enabled in the Settings app. After that as mentioned before the user will select the Connectors menu and then the little upper plus button.

Then the user selects Bacnet to add that particular connector.

Now the user will enter the connectors info to be able to create it. The required fields are:

Display Name: this is the name that the user wants to choose for his connection
Host: this is the actual IP of the device
Device instance: this is the device id
N/W Number: this is the MS/TP network number
Hop Count: the default is 255, this represents the maximum number of routers a packet can be routed
Mac Address: the actual mac address in either format (num, hex, dec)
URI: is only a display field so that the user can check and copy-paste the resulting URI of the device

Once the user is done, hit create and the connector is created.

After hitting Create the devices will get added to the connectors list

Bacnet Template

If configuring a connector manually for bacnet template, make sure to add the below tags that would be needed if using our template logic found in the bacnetProperties.trio file.

description (Str) - this consists of <siteName.floorName.ahuName> and formatted in that order.
location (Str) - this consists of <roomName.tenantName> and formatted in that order
objectName (Str) - device name
vendorId (Num) - vender id of the device being used
vendorName (Str) - vender name of the device being used

Note: If doing the bacnet template, next step after adding bacnet connector manually is Bacnet TemplateOn.

How to discover your BACnet IP devices

To discover a Bacnet Device the user will simply hit the plus sign first, and then instead of pressing the type of connector the small Magnifying glass in the top right corner will be pressed.

This icon will pop up the device discovery menu, in which the user will select the type of connector to search for...in our example: Bacnet.

Next the user can manually put in the Broadcast Address, Bind Address, Instance Number Start/End, Network Number, and Timeout or hit the Discover button to discover as is.

The discovery process only finds the devices available in the user network (VPN is NOT included). Once all the devices have been found the user will select the desired one and hit the Add button.

Then the window can be closed and the new added device can be found in the connectors window.

Extra Tags

For more advanced settings on the Bacnet connector the user can add:

the marker tag: bacnetUseConfirmedCov to make the COV subscription mechanism to use confirmed COV messages.
the number tag: bacnetInstance to specify what device instance number is used when the connector is in COV mode, the default instance number is 22000. Setting this value is required to avoid potential conflicts with an existing device on the network with the same instance number as the default used by the connector.

Can't discover devices or have non-standard devices?

If you are having trouble discovering devices or there are devices that are non-standard, go to this doc page: Multiple BACnet Instances or Non-standard port

If having any other BACnet issues, go through this troubleshooting process: BACnet Troubleshooting Process