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Commercial Office & Workplace
We Know These Buildings Because We Work in Them Every Day
Office buildings have gotten better at managing HVAC and lighting, but the plug load on every floor (workstations, displays, printers and break-room equipment) usually runs on no schedule at all. Evenings, weekends and the growing number of partly empty days are the clearest opportunity: equipment stays on by default, not by design.
The Spaces, and What BERT Does in Each
Open-Plan Workstations & Desks
Monitors, docking stations and other desk equipment are a large share of a modern office floor's plug load, and often run nights and weekends whether or not anyone's at the desk that day.
Private Offices
The same equipment, scheduled per office or per floor rather than building-wide.
Conference & Meeting Rooms
AV and display equipment is used for a few hours a day and often left running the rest of the time.
Break Rooms & Kitchens
Coffee equipment, water coolers and vending machines, plus any break-room refrigerator holding non-perishable products, or an empty one.
Print, Copy & Mail Rooms
Copiers and shared printers run on their own schedule, independent of anyone's desk hours.
Reception & Lobby Areas
Digital signage and directory displays often run around the clock, whether or not anyone is there to see them.
The Challenges We Hear: Some Familiar to Every Facility, Some Specific to Office Buildings
Common to Most Facilities We Work With
- Tight budgets, where every dollar saved adds straight to the bottom line. Two ways to buy: own the system outright, or Smart Energy Suite, which gets BERT installed with little or no upfront capital.
- An aging BAS, or none at all. BERT runs standalone by design, so it isn't waiting on a BAS to reach plug loads a BAS usually doesn't reach.
- More plug loads every year, with no schedules planned for them.
- Floors used only part of the week since hybrid work became common, with attendance that doesn't match a single building-wide schedule.
- Flexible staff schedules. Every controller has its own override, available to anyone on site outside the schedule — press and hold until the light changes and you hear a click.
- Deferred-maintenance backlogs competing for the same capital. BERT doesn't fix deferred maintenance. It's a comparatively low-capital measure that doesn't have to compete with larger infrastructure projects for budget, and Smart Energy Suite gets it installed with little or no upfront capital.
- Capital approval that moves at different speeds. A single-location business can decide quickly; a larger company or a landlord-owned building often needs a longer internal approval cycle. Both an outright purchase and Smart Energy Suite fit either pace, and the Core Guide Specification and standard SOW support a formal bid or spec process where one applies.
- A large IT department in some companies, third-party or managed IT in others. Either way, BERT's footprint is light: an outbound-only connection on your own Wi-Fi network, with no BAS changes required to run standalone.
- Aging buildings, often still cooled room by room. Central HVAC works well in some buildings; older ones often rely on PTAC or window AC units instead, which is exactly the kind of equipment BERT controls.
More Specific to Office Buildings
- Leased space, shared ownership of equipment. In a leased office, some equipment belongs to the tenant and some to the landlord or a supplier. BERT only schedules what your team tells us to control, and nothing else.
- Hybrid and hot-desking schedules. Which desks and floors are actually occupied can change day to day, not just week to week. The override at each device covers the days that don't match the plan.
Multi-Tenant, Multi-Floor Buildings: Different tenants, floors or suites under one roof often keep different hours. BERT groups and schedules by floor, suite or tenant, so a schedule change for one tenant doesn't touch another's.
What's Typically Controlled
Workstations, monitors and displays, printers, copiers and shared-equipment areas, break-room appliances and vending machines, water coolers, window AC and PTAC units where applicable, laptop and device charging, and refrigerators holding non-perishable products, or empty ones. Never life-safety, emergency or security systems, servers and network equipment, or anything that must stay on.
Your savings depend on how many devices we control, what they are, and when your building is empty.
How It Fits Your Project
BERT works standalone, with no BAS changes required, or alongside an existing building automation system through BERT Connect (BACnet/IP) when your project includes it.