Remote Monitoring
See your boiler room without going to the basement.
The Nio Controls portal shows live boiler and pump status, temperatures, and alarms for every building you are responsible for. It runs in the browser on a phone or a desk, so you can see a problem before the tenants call.
Demo building
Brooklyn · Hydronic heat · 2 boilers
- Supply
- 178.4°F
- Return
- 158.9°F
- Outdoor
- 51°F
- Boiler 1Running
- Boiler 2Off
- Pump 1Running
What you see
The boiler room, on one screen
Each building gets a card like the one above. Open it and you get the detail a super would read off the panel, plus the history the panel cannot keep.
Boiler and pump status
Which boilers are firing, which are off, which pumps are running, and whether anything is in fault. Updated as it happens.
Supply, return, outdoor, DHW
The four temperatures that tell you if the plant is doing its job, side by side, with the setpoint they are chasing.
Alarms with acknowledgement
High supply temperature, low water, burner lockout, pump failure. Each alarm shows when it started, when it was acknowledged, and when it cleared.
Trend charts
Supply and return against outdoor temperature over the last six hours, day, or week. The fastest way to see whether the reset curve is set right.
Per-building history
Every reading and every alarm stays with the building, so a question about last Tuesday night has an answer.
Portfolio view
Management companies see every building on one list, each with its online status and active alarm count.
How it works
From the PLC to your phone
Four pieces, each doing one job. The controls in the boiler room never depend on the cloud to run the building.
- Productivity 2000
1.PLC in the boiler room
The PLC reads temperatures, run status, and faults, and publishes a JSON snapshot over MQTT every 30 to 60 seconds, and right away when something changes.
- MQTT over TLS
2.Broker
Messages travel over the building's ethernet or a cellular gateway to our Mosquitto broker. Each PLC has its own credentials.
- Postgres
3.Database
A small service we run subscribes to the broker and writes every reading, status change, and alarm into the database, tagged to the building.
- Live in the browser
4.Portal
The portal pushes changes to your screen as they arrive. No refresh and no app to install. It works on a phone or at a desk.
Connection options: a cellular gateway in the boiler room, or the building's own ethernet. Cellular is the usual choice because it does not depend on the building's network or on anyone else's router.
Alarms
Know first, not last
A no-heat call from a tenant means the building has already been cold for hours. An alarm from the boiler room shows in the portal in seconds.
Critical alarms
High-limit trips, low-water cutoff, burner lockout, and pump failure show in the portal the moment the PLC reports them.
Offline detection
If the boiler room stops reporting for a few minutes, the building is marked offline and an alarm is raised. Silence is treated as a problem, not as good news.
Who sees it
Each building's alarms show live in the portal for its super, its property manager, and our engineers, along with when they were acknowledged. Text and email alerts are coming; until then our 24/7 line is the backstop.
24/7 line
Monitored buildings can call (347) 369-7269 any hour. The person answering sees the same data you do before the call connects.
Who sees what
Access that matches how buildings are run
Accounts are tied to a management company or to a single building. The database enforces the boundary, so the same login works for one address or a whole portfolio.
| Role | Sees |
|---|---|
| Management company | Every building in its portfolio A property manager opens the portal and sees all of the company's buildings on one list, with each one's status and active alarms. |
| Building user / super | Only their building The super at one address sees that boiler room and nothing else, including its live alarms, from their phone. |
| Nio Controls | Everything, for support Our on-call engineer can pull up any monitored building when the emergency line rings. |
Hardware
Industrial parts, nothing exotic
Everything in the boiler room is off-the-shelf industrial hardware with parts available locally. It works alongside the burner controls already on the boiler; it does not replace them.
PLC
A Productivity 2000 PLC with the I/O the building needs and room to grow. It controls the plant locally and keeps working if the connection drops.
Sensors
Immersion sensors on supply and return, an outdoor sensor out of the sun, a DHW tank sensor, and current switches or run contacts on each boiler and pump.
Gateway
A small cellular gateway in the boiler room, or a port on the building's ethernet. Either way, the connection is outbound only and encrypted.
Security
Locked down by default
A boiler room on the internet should be boring. These are the rules every installation follows.
TLS everywhere
The PLC, the broker, and the portal all talk over encrypted connections. Nothing is sent in the clear.
Per-PLC credentials
Each boiler room has its own username and password on the broker. One building's credentials cannot publish as another.
Read-only by default
The portal shows status and lets authorized users acknowledge alarms. Setpoint changes happen at the touchscreen in the boiler room.
Role-based access
Who sees which building is enforced in the database, not just on the screen. A super cannot see another building by guessing a link.
FAQ
Questions we get from boards and managers
Something else? Call (347) 369-7269 and ask for a controls engineer.
Does this replace my burner control?
No. The PLC sits alongside the existing burner management and boiler safeties. It reads status and manages setpoints and sequencing. The burner's own safeties stay in charge of the flame.
What happens if the internet goes down?
The PLC keeps running the building on its own. The portal marks the building offline after a few minutes without a message and raises an alarm for everyone who watches that building. When the connection comes back, the live view picks up again.
Do we need building internet?
Not necessarily. We can use the building's ethernet if it reaches the boiler room, or install a cellular gateway so monitoring does not depend on the building's network at all.
Who can change setpoints from the portal?
Nobody, by default. The portal is read-only: it shows status and lets authorized users acknowledge alarms. Setpoint changes are made at the touchscreen in the boiler room. If a building wants remote adjustments, that is a separate conversation with its own safeguards.
Can you monitor controls we already have?
Often, yes. If the existing controller exposes Modbus, BACnet, or dry contacts, we add a PLC as a gateway that reads it and publishes to the portal. We confirm what is possible during the site visit.
How far back does the history go?
Recent readings are kept at five-minute resolution for the trend charts, and alarm history stays with the building. If you need longer archives for an energy study, we can set that up.
Next step
Existing clients
Already monitored by Nio Controls?
Sign in to see your buildings. If you have not received your login, call the office and we will set it up while you are on the phone.
New to monitoring
Want this for your building?
Tell us the address and what is in the boiler room. We will come out, look at the controls, and tell you exactly what monitoring would take.
See your boiler room from your phone.
Tell us about your building and we will come out, look at the boiler room, and give you a straight answer on what it needs.