ASHRAE Conference Wrap-Up: Day 3

Today at the ASHRAE HVAC expo, BuiltWorlds caught up with two of our members: DeWalt and FARO.

At the FARO booth, BuiltWorlds met with Scott Diaz, the Director of Business Development, and Brent Slawnikowski, the Chicago Account Manager. FARO, a 3D measurement, imaging, and realization technology, has seen increasing interest from mechanical contractors. “There’s a very conscious knowledge of the FARO technology right now because the cost has come down and it’s so easy to use,” Slawnikowski said. “We have a lot of folks collaborating on our web-share cloud. With FARO, they have reality on their desktops – so they don’t need to go out in the field to make sure an asset fits.” Diaz concurred, stating, “it’s been a great show. It’s a new show for us and we’ll be back. We will continue our commitment to the HVAC industry and pushing complete workflow.”

At the DeWalt booth, Lucas Yedica, a Sales Manager at Stanley, Black, & Decker, showed DeWalt’s bluetooth enabled tools. The bluetooth tools, launched last year, sync with an app called Tool Connect. On Tool Connect, users can locate tools, lock tools if the tools leave a certain range, manage inventory, and even remotely change tool settings.

Yedica noted that in March, DeWalt will be coming out with bluetooth adapters for older tools, allowing users to add some of the features of bluetooth tools to existing assets. These adapters simply click in place and become permanent parts of the tool. DeWalt’s adapters are unique because only one user can pair to each adapter. Competitors’ technology allows anyone to pair to a device as soon as the initial user is out of range.