Building Equipment Over BACnet and Modbus (Seayora Edge)

How a Seayora Bridge reads your boilers, pumps, elevator monitors and meters over BACnet/IP and Modbus TCP — finding the equipment, mapping its points to measurements, testing a read before you save, and what happens when a point stops answering.

Seayora Edge is part of Seayora Bridge — the small program that already runs on a computer, a mini PC or a Raspberry Pi on your building's network for the cameras. From bridge version 1.6.0 it also reads the building's own controllers over BACnet/IP and Modbus TCP, the two protocols most boiler plants, pumps, drives, generators, energy meters and elevator monitoring interfaces speak. Each piece of equipment it reads becomes an ordinary connected device: its readings chart, its rules alert, its alerts raise work orders, and it appears beside your other devices under Connected devices.

Read-only, and not a life-safety system

Seayora Edge only reads. It never writes to a controller, changes a setpoint or resets an alarm — that stays with whoever runs the plant.

Seayora Edge is monitoring, not a life-safety system. It does not replace a boiler's low-water cutoff, a fire alarm panel or an elevator's emergency phone.

What you need

A Seayora Bridge at version 1.6.0 or later, paired and online, on the same network as the controllers. A bridge older than that says so and offers the update; it updates itself when it is idle.
The controller's address on the building network. For BACnet the bridge usually finds it, along with its device instance; for Modbus you also need the equipment manual's register map.
Equipment on RS-485 — Modbus RTU or BACnet MS/TP — through the gateway or router the building already has. Equipment on RS-485 (Modbus RTU or BACnet MS/TP) is read through a gateway or router on the network: a Modbus TCP gateway, or the BACnet router the building already has. The bridge does not open a serial port itself.

Seayora Edge only reads private, on-site addresses. A public internet address is refused, because neither BACnet nor Modbus has a password, and nothing on your network is opened to the internet: the readings travel over the connection the bridge already keeps with Seayora.

Adding equipment on the website

Open Connected devices and choose "Add building equipment".
Pick the bridge, then search its network. It sends a BACnet Who-Is and looks for Modbus TCP on port 502 on every network the bridge is on — about twenty seconds — and lists what answered, with what each controller said about itself. Equipment the search cannot see can be added by its address.
Say what the equipment is — a hot-water boiler, a booster pump, an elevator monitor, an electric meter — and name it. The kind decides which measurements its points can become.
Choose its points. A BACnet controller is asked for its point list — names, present values, units and the words it uses for each state — and Seayora suggests a measurement for each one it recognizes. For Modbus you enter registers as the manual numbers them, choose how each is read, and can look at a run of registers first to find the right one.
Run the test read. It reads every point through the bridge now and shows exactly what Seayora would store for each, or why a point could not be read. Nothing is saved until you press Save.

On iPhone and Android

Both apps carry the same setup under Tools, as five screens:

Equipment bridges — search a bridge's network, add equipment by its address, look at a controller's points or a run of Modbus registers, test one point, and set a BBMD for equipment on another subnet.
Equipment on the network — what each bridge found, and "Add it".
Building equipment — everything being read, with its state. Open one for its points and their last values; from there run a test read, read a BACnet controller's points, add a BACnet point or a Modbus register, change how often it is read or pause it, and stop reading it.
Points to add — what a BACnet controller offered that nothing reads yet, each with Seayora's suggestion filled in to check.
Equipment points — every point being read, its last value or the reason it is not reading; change or remove one.

Mapping a point

Units: a value that arrives in Celsius, kPa or another unit is converted to the unit Seayora stores (°F, psi and so on). A BACnet controller usually says its units and Seayora reads them; a Modbus register never does, so you say.
Scale and offset: many registers hold a whole number for a decimal — 1425 meaning 142.5 — so multiply by 0.1. The offset is added after the scale.
States: for a run state or an alarm code, say what each number means (1 = running, 2 = standby). A value with no meaning is refused rather than guessed, and is shown as not read.
Yes or no: a binary point, a coil or one bit of a register. "Reverse it" is for a contact that reads 1 when all is well.
One point per measurement on each piece of equipment. A second point measuring the same thing belongs on a second device.
A multi-state point reports a state number, not a floor — state 3 might be the second floor — so an elevator's car position has to come from an analog or integer point.

Modbus register numbers

Registers are numbered as they travel on the wire, from 0. A manual's 40001 is holding register 0 and 30001 is input register 0 — the test read is what proves a point is the right one.

Type the register as the manual numbers it: 40001 is the first holding register, 30001 the first input register, 10001 the first discrete input and 1 the first coil. Six-digit numbering (400001) is understood too.
If the manual counts from 0, add 1.
A two- or four-register number needs its byte order. Most equipment is ABCD; if the value is nonsense, try CDAB.

Equipment on another subnet

BACnet finds controllers with a broadcast, and a broadcast does not cross a router. If the controllers are on another subnet, give the bridge the address of the BBMD — the router or controller that passes BACnet broadcasts between subnets — in the bridge's Edge settings, and search again. A controller can always be added by its address instead.

What each state means

Reading: the last round read every point.
Some points failing: the controller answered but some points did not; each one says why.
Not reading: the last round failed — the controller did not answer, or refused.
Waiting: no points yet, or the first round has not happened.
Gone quiet: the bridge is online but has not reported this equipment for longer than three rounds.
Paused: you paused it; the bridge is not asking.
Bridge offline: the bridge itself is offline, so nothing is being read.
Bridge needs attention: the bridge cannot read equipment yet — it is not paired, or is older than 1.6.0.

A BACnet point the controller marks out of service or faulted is not stored; the point says so instead.

How often, and how many

Each piece of equipment is read every 15 seconds to every hour; a minute is the default.
It is marked offline after three missed rounds, and never sooner than ten minutes, so a controller that misses one poll is treated as busy rather than dead.
Up to 200 points on one piece of equipment and 200 pieces of equipment on one bridge.
If the bridge loses its connection to Seayora it keeps reading and sends what it read once the connection is back.

Stopping

"Stop reading it" ends Seayora Edge for that equipment. The device, its readings, its rules and its alert history stay, and it is marked offline unless something else reports for it. Pausing instead keeps everything set up and simply stops the bridge asking until you resume it.

AI assistants

Equipment Seayora Edge reads is a connected device, so an assistant connected with the "Connected devices" permission reads its readings and alerts exactly as it reads any other device's. Setting up what a bridge reads stays in the website and the apps: it is done standing next to the equipment with its manual open, and a mistake there is a number that looks right and is not.

Frequently asked questions

Does Seayora Edge change anything on my boiler or elevator?

No. It only reads. It never writes to a controller, changes a setpoint or resets an alarm, and the protocol clients in the bridge have no way to send a write.

Do I need a building-automation contract or a vendor integration?

No. If the controller speaks BACnet/IP or Modbus TCP on the building network — directly or through the gateway or router you already have — a Seayora Bridge on that network can read it.

How do I know a mapping is right?

Run the test read. It reads the point now and shows the exact reading Seayora would store, so a register read in the wrong byte order or a Celsius value mapped as Fahrenheit shows up before it is saved.

What happens if a controller stops answering?

Its state says so, with the reason, and after three missed rounds the device is marked offline and can raise the same offline alert as any other device.

Related guides

Related features and guides

Connected Devices & Sensors — Documentation. How to connect meters, leak sensors, thermostats and other building devices to Seayora, what they can alert on, and how readings flow into work orders and Local Law 97 reporting.
Security Cameras — Documentation. How to connect the security cameras at your properties — install a Seayora Bridge with one command, connect DW Spectrum or a camera that sends to Seayora — then watch them live, record and play back, act on what they see, and export footage as evidence.
Maintenance & Dispatch Workflow — Documentation. How maintenance requests flow from tenant intake through routing, approval, completion, and cost.
How to Rent an Apartment: A Step-by-Step Guide — Guide. A renter’s step-by-step guide to finding and securing an apartment — budgeting, documents to prepare, applying, and what to check before you sign.
Saved Searches & Rental Alerts — Feature. Save a search once and get notified when new rentals match your criteria — so you see the right unit before it is gone.
QuickBooks Integration — Feature. Connect QuickBooks Online and bring the chart of accounts, customers, vendors, items, open balances and past transactions into Seayora — checked against QuickBooks’s own trial balance before anything is written.