In January 2026, Sensgreen joined the Schneider Electric challenge: “Legacy to Smart: Enabling Scalable, Agnostic Interoperability in Built Environments.”
Our CEO, Hasan Basri Tosun, presented Sensgreen’s approach in Singapore as part of the Singapore–Japan Fast Track Pitch program.
The theme was simple and very real:
Most buildings are not “smart vs not smart.”
They are a mix of old and new systems that do not talk to each other.
And the cost of making them work together is often the biggest blocker to progress.
This blog post explains what the challenge is really asking for, and how Sensgreen approaches it in a practical, scalable way.
The real problem: buildings are fragmented
When a building is already operating, it usually has:
- A legacy BMS or multiple controllers
- HVAC equipment from different vendors
- Separate metering systems
- New sensors added over time
- Different networks, protocols, and data formats
- Different contractors and documentation levels
In theory, you can integrate all of this.
In practice, many retrofits turn into repeated custom work.
You build one integration.
Then you build it again for the next building.
Then again for the next one, because the “same” system is never really the same.
That is why the challenge described a common pain point in brownfield buildings:
Integration often requires custom APIs and one-off work.
It becomes resource-intensive, time-consuming, and hard to scale.
And if you cannot integrate reliably, you cannot optimize reliably.
What Schneider Electric is looking for
The challenge highlights a clear direction:
A partner who can create a middleware layer that acts like a communication protocol translator.
A solution that enables seamless and scalable integration across different systems and platforms.
In short:
Stop rebuilding integrations building by building.
Create a repeatable, agnostic method that works across heterogenous environments.
Sensgreen’s approach: integration first, then intelligence
In Singapore, Hasan presented Sensgreen’s approach as a simple sequence:
1) Connect first, without forcing replacement
You should not need to rip and replace existing infrastructure to modernize a building.
Sensgreen connects to both:
- Legacy systems (existing BMS, controllers, meters)
- New data sources (wireless sensors, modern gateways)
The goal is to unlock value from what is already there.
Then expand when needed.
2) Normalize data into a unified building layer
Interoperability is not only “Can I read data?”
It is also “Can I understand it consistently across sites?”
Sensgreen standardizes incoming signals into a common model, so the same type of point behaves the same way across buildings.
This reduces the need for constant custom mapping and rework.
It also prepares the building for analytics and automation.
3) Make it scalable with an integration hub mindset
Many platforms can connect to one system.
The hard part is scaling across a portfolio.
Sensgreen is built to act as an all-in-one integration hub.
That means we focus on repeatability:
- repeatable onboarding steps
- repeatable point naming and tagging logic
- repeatable templates by building type
- repeatable connector strategy by protocol and vendor
This is how integration becomes a product, not a project.
4) Turn signals into actions with the Alarm Engine
Once systems are connected and data is structured, operational value becomes possible.
Sensgreen’s Alarm Engine is designed to help teams move from raw alerts to meaningful operational decisions.
Examples include:
- detecting abnormal HVAC behavior early
- highlighting comfort and IAQ risks
- prioritizing issues by impact
- supporting faster troubleshooting across multiple sites
The focus is not “AI for hype.”
The focus is operational clarity.
5) Enable partners to deliver faster
The target audience in real life is often not the building owner alone.
It is the ecosystem:
- system integrators
- facility management firms
- solution providers managing portfolios
So our approach includes partner enablement as a core part of scalability.
When partners can deploy faster, the market scales faster.
Why this matters now
This challenge is not only about technology.
It is about making modernization feasible.
The industry is under pressure from:
- sustainability targets
- energy efficiency expectations
- indoor air quality requirements
- tenant comfort demands
- and the need to operate with smaller teams
Interoperability is the missing foundation.
Without it:
- data stays trapped
- optimizations stay manual
- and scaling becomes expensive
With it:
- portfolios can be managed consistently
- issues can be detected earlier
- and improvements can be repeated across buildings
What success looks like
A successful interoperability layer should achieve this:
- Integration time goes down from months to weeks
- Each next site becomes easier than the previous one
- Data becomes comparable across a portfolio
- Operations teams can act with confidence
- Adding new systems becomes a plug-in decision, not a redesign
That is the shift from “legacy to smart” in the real world.
Closing note from Singapore
Joining this challenge was meaningful for us because it matches the problem we see every day in the field.
Modern buildings are not built from scratch.
They are upgraded step by step.
Sensgreen exists to make that upgrade path practical, scalable, and partner-friendly.
If you are working with brownfield buildings and struggling with integration complexity, we would love to connect.
Get in touch for a short intro call or request a demo.
We will show how our integration approach works in real deployments, and how it can scale across your portfolio.
